use real butter

Recipe: brie fig apple prosciutto sandwich

It’s not like anyone needs a reason to come to Crested Butte, Colorado, but this past week was marked on our calendar months ago. It all began when Jeremy ran into our friend in line at a coffee shop last fall. Brad has a remarkable talent for conveying massive amounts of information in a ridiculously short amount of time with boundless enthusiasm. In the three minutes he chatted with Jeremy, Brad convinced him to take up ultra running (and he also discussed about a dozen other topics). The Summer GT (Grand Traverse) was held on Saturday starting in Crested Butte and ending in Aspen – the same 40-mile overland route that the Winter GT Ski Mountaineering race follows, but this time on foot or mountain bike. I asked Brad if he was planning to run the Summer GT, but that crazy man ran the Fat Dog 120 this weekend in British Columbia (120 miles, 29,000 feet of climb).

We’ve both been training since the local trails began melting out in April (although we continued backcountry skiing into late May – yeehaw!). Jeremy was training for the Grand Traverse, and I was just training for the heck of it. A few weeks before the GT, Jeremy developed runner’s knee. He discovered the hard way that running 20 miles on runner’s knee makes for much worse runner’s knee. He rested, iced, got a PT band, and tried to recover. Ultimately, he (correctly) determined that it would be unwise to run the GT this year. Instead, we took a week off from training and have been enjoying our time in wonderful Crested Butte.

i made chocolate mousse for our neighbors’ dinner party

great food, great wines, great friends

We’re not just wining and dining though. Summer is that magnificent ephemeral time in the mountains that should not be passed over if you can help it. The other day we went for a 17-mile hike to explore parts of the high country that were new to us. I call it the triple pass lollipop unicorn hike because it gains three mountain passes and the route in map view looks like a lollipop with a unicorn horn. Plus, the hike is worthy of a title like triple pass lollipop unicorn hike, because it’s full of All The Good Things. The views and terrain were absolutely stunning – even the parts where the trail disappeared. The wildflowers are full-on incredible above 12,000 feet right now.

climbing up out of copper creek valley

pass #1: triangle pass (12,800 ft.) with conundrum basin in the background (leading to aspen)

pass #2: copper pass (12,400 ft.)

alpine wildflowers and the maroon bells in the distance (also leading to aspen)

elephant heads standing out among the blooms

the wider view of the high country

pass #3: east maroon pass (11,800 ft.)

copper lake basin

After hours upon hours of beauty, adventure, and exertion, we arrive at the trailhead and begin the drive home. The start of the hike feels like it was yesterday. In the car, I’ll notice a mixture of dirt, sweat, and sunblock is plastered on my skin. We are thirsty, hungry, tired, dirty. We smell awful, too. Once home, the trail runners get the hose and deck treatment. Our filthy, stinky clothes go straight into the laundry basket by the door to avoid tracking dirt around the house. Then we each drink a biiiiiiiig glass of water (or two) to rehydrate ourselves and our joints. If we are gross beyond what we can tolerate, a shower is in order, otherwise I head straight to the refrigerator to make something to eat. Pretty much anything will taste fantastic after a big hike, but this sandwich is guaranteed to taste ultra-fantastic.

prosciutto, arugula, ciabatta rolls, brie, fig jam, green apple

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: hot chorizo sweet onion dip

After spending a scorching day on the flats, Jeremy and I sat down the other evening to dinner and a movie in our living room. We don’t watch a lot of movies and there was a long list to choose from online. Both our brains were fried from the heat and a long day, so we agreed on The Lego Movie. We loved it. And now I have that song “Everything is Awesome” in my head. But you know what? Everything *IS* awesome.

pretty blanket flowers are blooming in our yard

mom and dad had us over for this delicious feast they prepared

toasting to life

Jeremy left for an out-of-town meeting on Saturday morning. I always worry that he’ll get stranded on the tarmac and starve, so I packed him a brie, prosciutto, and mixed greens sandwich on a baguette. And an apple. And potato chips. And some cookies. And a chocolate croissant. He departed for the airport late enough in the morning that it was already too warm for me to do a long trail run, but it was still early enough to grab a hike under wonderfully cloudy skies. So we drove in opposite directions from our neighborhood and I hiked into the high country. It’s been dry here, which would explain the utter lack of mushrooms (of any kind) on the trails of late. I’ve been scoping my huckleberries as well as the mushrooms. We need rain. They need rain. The mushrooms demand it!

I hoofed it up the trail at a good clip singing “Everything is Awesome” in my head. About an hour up, I approached a bend in the trail. My eyes are always scanning the woods around me for mushrooms, for wildlife, and for people (it’s the people you have to watch out for). I hadn’t encountered anyone all morning until a black bear stepped out of the forest onto the trail 20 feet in front of me. It had a full, healthy, black coat and looked to be an adolescent bear, slightly taller than a Great Dane and much fatter. My face lit up as I froze in place to avoid startling it. My gut instinct was to reach for my camera, but it was in my backpack. It hadn’t seen me yet. The bear was looking uphill as it strolled across the trail – doo dee doo dee doo. Then it casually turned to look around and spotted me. My presence gave that poor fellow a start and then the bear high-tailed it straight into the woods.

There was a huge smile on my face and I looked around to see if anyone else had seen the bear, but I was alone. It was my first bear sighting in our local mountains (I’ve seen them in town – sad…) and it was the healthiest, most handsome black bear I’ve ever seen. Note: black bears can be black, brown, cinnamon, even buff in color. I took a few steps forward to check if it was hanging out in the woods, but it was far away. And then I spotted my first porcini of the season. EVERYTHING IS AWESOME.

i named this one miguel

Jeremy was concerned that I would be sad and missing Kaweah in the house by myself. I do miss her, but I only tear up once or twice a day now. My folks came over for dinner Sunday evening because they think terrible things will befall me when Jeremy is out of town. I greeted them with a recipe that I had been wanting to make for years. It’s Todd and Diane’s adaptation of their awesome sweet onion dip and it is just as cracktastically addictive.

mayonnaise, parmesan cheese, cream cheese, black pepper, chorizo, sweet onion

brown the chorizo

dice the onion

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: huckleberry fudge

We returned to Nederland a couple of days ago only to be greeted by a furnace blast of a heat wave. Man, is it hot – even in the mountains! We usually find relief at night when we can draw cool air into the house (most mountain homes don’t have air conditioning as we usually don’t need it), but the evenings haven’t offered much of that either. I feel such ambivalence toward summer. On the one hand I cannot stand the heat and I hide from the sun as much as I can, but on the other hand it is the short time when tons of fun and beautiful things happen.

I stopped by the vet’s office on Wednesday afternoon and told the assistant at the desk that I was there to receive Kaweah’s ashes. She walked to the back and looked at four different sized boxes and picked up a medium-ish one. Instead of handing it to me across the front desk, she came around to where I stood and offered me a hug and said she was so sorry. I thought I was getting better about keeping it together when people gave their condolences, but apparently I wasn’t. Blinking back tears, I thanked her and she told me how much the office loved Kaweah and what a remarkable little girl she was. Stepping outside the office into the breeze coming off the mountains, I cradled the box in my arms. It’s so light – so much lighter than the 55 pounds of pup we were used to carrying around in her old age… 55 pounds of mostly water and carbon, reduced to carbon. I know this isn’t my Kaweah. My Kaweah is gone. But she’s also in my heart – so not really gone.

kaweah’s ashes and two framed photos – one for her vet and one for us

Thursday morning presented itself at 5:30 am. That decision, of whether or not to get up and get outside when you’re short on sleep, can be a tough one. I know from experience that I usually won’t regret getting up, but I might regret not getting up. Our dedication was rewarded first thing in the morning with wildlife sightings, colorful wildflowers strewn across the meadows like confetti, and clear views of the high country.

that’s a moose

a big moose

don’t mess with the moose

potpourri

morning light on delicate blossoms

looking east

the indian peaks high country

It is a great time to catch wildflowers in the mountains around here. They seem to be peaking around 10,000 feet right now. Believe it or not, my whole motivation for hiking was not to see moose or the wildflowers (but both are TOTALLY BONUS!!), it was to check on the huckleberries. Oh, and to get exercise, but… huckleberries. They were green and plumping up nicely in Crested Butte on my last trail run. Here in the Front Range, they’re a little behind their Crested Butte brethren. Still, it’s coming along nicely. Hiking is my finger on the pulse of the hucks.

green hucks in crested butte

What do I plan to do with the huckleberries? Well, I’m glad you asked. I’ve been planning ALL YEAR for this moment in time. One of the treats I’ve been wanting to make is huckleberry fudge. If you’ve ever traveled to Montana and visited a gift shop, you will have seen and possibly sampled huckleberry fudge. I did just that (many) years ago when Jeremy and I took a 6-week detour through the Rocky Mountains on our cross-country move from Pasadena, California to Ithaca, New York. I’m not a big fan of fudge, but huckleberry fudge is something else entirely.

white chocolate, cream cheese, powdered sugar, huckleberry jam

**Jump for more butter**