City of Grand Junction
Grand Junction is located in the western part of Colorado and has a population of around 60 000, so it's not exactly a metropolis. The city is approximately 1 400m above sea level, which was noticeable during the first weeks. Based on some running sessions around the town there is the elegant campus, cozy downtown and a American style mall area (which are both located about 3 kilometers from the campus), but the rest of the city seems to be just rows of detached houses (I haven't seen any blocks of flat yet), fast food restaurants and car dealers (and btw, the city design prefers commuting by car to walking or cycling). But I didn't come here because of the town area, but because of the outdoors.
Environment and weather
In addition to Grand Mesa, the spectacular flat-topped mountain that I mentioned in my first post, just 10 miles northeast lies Book Cliffs rock and Mount Garfield (which I haven't yet had a chance to visit) and only 5 miles south-west there is Colorado National Monument (national park) with amazing canyons. These are just the three closest by natural sights. Within few hours drive there are several national parks, numerous 14ers (over 14 000 feet (4 270m) high mountains) and for example the Great Salt Lake (and Salt Lake City). I'm hoping to experience as much of this fantastic outdoors as I can.
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| This is the closest I've gotten to Mt. Garfield, yet |
The nature around here is very diverse. Within like 50-mile radius there are deserts, forests, rivers, mountains, meadows and almost everything in between. Regarding the weather it's been pretty warm so far. During the first couple of weeks the temperature hit 40 degree Celsius on several days. Now it's cooled down a bit, but shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops is still the appropriate outfit. Due to the inland location and the altitude the day-night variation in temperature is much greater here than back home, though (as you can see from the forecast below). In addition on the mountains (especially at 4 000 meters) you really need a jacket, gloves etc.
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| Can't really complain about the weather |
OP
OP here stands for Outdoor Programs and it's a really cool place inside campus. The guys there are every weekend organizing different kind of outdoor activity trips (rock climbing, rafting, kayaking, hiking, camping etc.). During the week they are having shorter afternoon outdoor trips and also offering opportunities to learn necessary skills required for some of the trips. For example this Monday I attended this kayaking lesson at the indoor pool and learned how to do the Eskimo roll (I try have video evidence next time). At the OP you can also rent equipment for all the outdoor activities if you wish to do them on your own.
A week ago I participated in two OP trips: Rock Climbing (Saturday) and Rafting (Sunday). Both trips started around 8am and we were back on campus around 6pm. I let pictures tell the story here.
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| In the middle of a climb |
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| Scenery at the top of a climb |
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| Another angle |
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| Managed to get myself in some pictures too |
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| Rocks ahead! |
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| Made it! |
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| Loaned the GoPro to a friend of mine to get myself into some pictures too (closest to the camera) |
Training
As I mentioned in my first post I've been training with the CMU Nordic Ski Team. Our training program usually consists of six scheduled training sessions a week. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday we have one-hour strength workout at the Varsity Weight Room (impressive place btw, there is for example 24 free-weight racks). So far these workouts have been mainly circuit type, but from next week onwards we are supposed concentrate more on power. On Tuesdays we are doing interval roller-skiing session on treadmill (we are using spikes similar to some Nordic walking poles in Finland so let's see how long the belt of the treadmill is going to last with at least 10 guys hammering it on weekly basis). On Thursdays we usually have an outdoor roller-skiing session and Saturdays often include some longer hike or roller skiing. Sundays are programmed as rest days. Obviously you can do some extra workouts as well. (you can follow the ski team activities at Colorado Mesa University Nordic Ski Team facebook page)
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| 3.5 % and 14mph if my memory serves |
Most memorable training session so far has been the hike on top of Mount Sneffels couple of weeks ago. We left from campus at 3am (yes in the middle of the night), began the hike around 5.45, reach the summit after 10am and finished the hike around 3pm. The hike included close to 1500m ascent, amazing scenery, some shivering (it was pretty cold up there) and mountain sickness (for an hour during descending I was like a zombie), dive into crystal clear mountain lake and quite satisfying feeling once we saw our cars again.
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| Perhaps the most spectacular scenery I've ever seen |
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| First summit log signed |
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| Relaxing at the summit |
To be honest for the past week or so I've been feeling slightly overreached so I've been trying slow down a bit which is difficult when there are so many interesting activities going on all the time. Let's see shall I rise again or dig even deeper metaphoric grave...
