October 25-27, 2003: Random Weekend in Colorado to Breckenridge and Mountain Cabin

One of many trip reports under the SilGro home page for Alan Silverstein and Cathie Grow.
Email me at ajs@frii.com.
Last update: December 21, 2024
(Previous trip report: 2003_0911-17_RockHunting.htm)

This is old email I saved from years ago, and decided in 2024 that I might as well edit, HTMLize, and add to my "trip reports".

From:  Alan Silverstein 
Date:  29 Oct 2003 13:07:42 -0700
Subject:  our news [United Way volunteering, Breckenridge condo,
     Cathie's cabin, three truckloads to burn pit]
To: 
(Megan Silverstein)
Cc:
(Cathie Grow),
(Jenny Pruett),
(Lori Gillis),
(Pat Gillis),
(Carol Silverstein),
(Sandra Tielebein)

Megan, FYI in turn (responding to your emails), a summary of our weekend just past...

We [Cathie and Alan] had signed up to rake leaves for United Way, so didn't go to Breckenridge Thu or Fri to join Marlane, Mike, and Lyzzy Little at their annual condo (they had it three nights). Instead...

Saturday, 8 am, we met people at a church in Fort Collins to rake leaves. Two houses, five people, hardly any leaves on the ground at the first house. Second house, well maintained older home on Laporte Ave, 93 year old woman, an hour's worth of leaf raking, I got to use Cathie's leaf blower to help out. Then the owner served us cake.

Back home with eight bags of leaves to dispose... Packed truck for weekend, departed 12:30 pm, too late for 1 pm optional PFS [Primerica Financial Services, a short stint for me] meeting in Denver. Turned off I-25 at Longmont, to Golden Corral (yum), then Laney's house to pick up frozen chili she'd forgotten. Back roads: Via Boulder, gas stop in Golden, Clear Creek Canyon, Loveland Pass, Swan Mountain Road (behind Lake Dillon), Breckenridge condo at 5:30. Ladies went shopping while Mike and I carried stuff upstairs. Chili dinner, hot tub, TV.

Sunday morning, nice breakfast in condo with friends, clean up and check out. Cathie and I drove the 13 miles (direct) to her Michigan Hill cabin via Georgia Pass; serious 4WD on the west side to 11K', 2 hours, instead of 1 hour the long way south on pavement over Hoosier Pass and around by Fairplay. Windy but warm enough, and pretty. Nice tough truck...

At the cabin someone had cut down a few trees along the main road, chipped the branches, left a truckload of logs, and marker stakes -- huh? And then we found three huge trees freshly fallen along both driveways into the cabin! (Monster windstorm Oct 16, I found out later.) Two live trees broke near bases, and one dead one toppled with roots up. I got a bowsaw from the cabin to get the truck into parking by the building.

Later I used the chainsaw to clear the driveways and prepare most of the downed wood and branches for hauling. Still had the lower portion of the dead tree, and both sides of the big live one, about 14" in diameter I'd guess. Lots more cutting was left to do. "Most people have an entrance gate with vertical posts, but you, Cathie, have a sideways entrance." The east driveway now ran between cut ends of massive logs.

About 3 pm to 10:30 (dark at 6 pm), I helped Cathie install the woodstove she'd stored at the cabin, plus the stovepipe (indoors) and chimney pipe (through the roof) she'd recently bought for 20% off at Sutherland (still expensive). Success! Hole cut in roof, parts installed, sealed, had a fire that evening! Temperature rose from about 30 to 50 indoors. :-)

[This incidental task was the start of a monumental project that spanned over 10 years, hand-finishing the cabin interior with no power tools other than a rechargeable drill and occasionally a gas chainsaw to cut window holes!]

Monday Cathie took off work. We were up about 8 am, cloudy but warmish, and got to work later. First, up on the roof to do some more finish work on the chimney, like screwing pipe sections together to help reduce wind risk, and mounting and weatherproofing the storm collar. (Still wanted to add bracing to support the chimney against wind... Did that fairly soon after.)

Then I cut up four more dead trees near the cabin (two down, two standing) with the 20" gas chainsaw -- borrowed from Mike Little, later bought it from him, just too useful not to have with the cabin. [Years later replaced with a shorter, much lighter, Stihl saw.] Loaded the logs that were left along the main road by the crew who, as it turned out, was preparing for the local electric coop [IREA, later renamed CORE] to install a 7200V power line on poles along Cathie's main road. The windstorm had knocked out power to the area, and so they were adding a second tie line into the hill (about 286 lots in Michigan Hill subdivision).

So Cathie "gets" a power pole on her southeast corner and two wires running along the front of her property, but saves ~$4000 if she wants to put electricity on the site, which also raises her property value about that much. I guess we can live with that!

Cathie helped me "buck" the logs into 2' pieces using the "sawbuck" that was on her property from years ago (had been off in the trees) and we made a nice woodpile for the new woodstove. Along with me donating my 2-mantle Coleman lantern to the cabin, the one I had only used once before, on our Montana road trip in 1994 (remember?), we now have "lights and heat" at the cabin, with the result it can be used 3-season instead of 1-season! [Much later replaced propane lantern with solar electric lighting.]

After all that it was about 1 pm and we loaded 3 huge truckloads of deadwood down 3 miles to the burn pit, finishing about 5:30 pm as it was getting dark (and very windy). Exhausted and grubby, we drove home 6:45 pm to 10:00 with a stop in Denver for Qdoba for dinner.

Heck of a three day weekend huh?

I've since "made love to the chainsaw", cleaning it thoroughly (much needed) and taking the chain off to get it sharpened (much needed) and to buy a spare...

(Next trip report: 2004_0324-31_UT,AZ,NM.htm)