Posts tagged fire
Fribbs Leads Way For Buffs With 9-Under, 3rd Place Effort
Sep 26th
ERIE, Colo. — The University of Colorado men’s golf team tied its third-best single round in program history but came up just a little bit short in defending its title in its own 3rd Annual Mark Simpson-CU Invitational, as Pac-12 Conference rival Oregon State held off the Buffaloes’ charge in winning by two strokes.
The Beavers closed things out with a 6-under 282 score for a tournament total of 843, or 21-under par. The Buffs recorded a 13-under par 275 to jump from fourth after two rounds into the runner-up spot with an 845 score, while Colorado State held the third position it entered the day in, finishing with an 847 score. Missouri-Kansas City, the first round leader, captured fourth with an 854 score while Kansas and Texas-Arlington tied for fifth (858).
After hanging around par for the first six holes, the Buffs collectively caught fire, the four scorers playing the last dozen holes at 13-under par; three of the four shot rounds in the 60s Tuesday with the fourth posting a 2-under 70 the 7,771-yard, par-72 Colorado National Golf Club course. The 19-under team score marked the fifth-best effort in relation to par in school history for a 54-hole tournament.
“It obviously was a good day, any time you shoot the low round of the tournament in the last round it’s a good thing,” CU head coach Roy Edwards said. “We really didn’t play that well the first six or seven holes; we weren’t terrible, just not getting deep into the red numbers. But we really brought it back after that, and that shows the character of the guys on our team.
“We were in sixth if not seventh place early on, and at least 17 strokes back,” he continued. “The thing that was really gratifying was that they didn’t look any different the way they were playing at the end of the day than they did at the start of things yesterday. That’s a sign that the guys really trust in their abilities, are very even keel. Today, we got a little mojo going and were able to get things really going without our best player scoring as well as he’s capable of.”
“Oregon State’s got a really good team, so we were pleased that were able to push them at the end.”
Senior Derek Fribbs led the Buffaloes here with a third place individual finish, finishing up with a 5-under 67 that gave him a 207 total for the meet, or 9-under par. He closed things out with an eagle, three birdies and 14 pars Tuesday, scoring a team-best 13 birdies which were also the eighth most in the 80-man field. He tied for second in par-5 scoring (7-under) and was seventh in par-4 scoring (3-under) while playing CNGC’s difficult par-3’s at just one over, which was 10th best among all the participants.
“Derek really played consistent,” Edwards noted. “When he made any mistakes at all, they were small ones, which in turn really contributed to him playing so consistent. He’s continued to get better over his four years here and it’s really starting to come together for him overall. He’s pretty good at a lot of things and has very minimal weaknesses in his game anymore.”
Sophomore David Oraee tied for seventh, as he put a 69 into the books in the final round for a 54-hole score of 210, or 6-under par. He had five birdies and two bogey with 13 pars Tuesday, as he closed with 12 birdies over the three rounds, tied for 10th most in the field, with his 37 pars a team-high. He was fifth in par-3 scoring (1-under) and 11th in par-5 scoring (5-under) while playing the par-4 holes even.
Both Fribbs and Oraee recorded par or better on 49 of the 54 holes played here; each had four bogeys and a double for their only holes over par.
Senior Beau Schoolcraft fashioned a 3-under 69 in his final round, enabling him to crack par for the tournament, tying for 20th at 2-under 214. He had six birdies, nine pars and three bogeys his final time around CNGC, the six birdies a team-best in the final round; he scored nine of those with 37 pars, the 12th-most in the field, over 54 holes. He played the par-5s at 6-under, tied for fifth-best, with his 1-over on the 12 par-3s for the tourney tying for 10th best.
Freshman Philip Juel-Berg ended things with a 2-under 70, giving him an even-par 216 scorecard overall; he led the field in par-3 scoring, playing the dozen holes collectively at 3-under. He recorded 10 birdies in the meet (four on Tuesday), with 36 pars (tied for 19th) against six bogeys and a double.
Senior Jason Burstyn, a two-time champion in as many tournaments entering CU’s home tourney, wound up tying for 52nd after closing with a 4-over 76 for a 6-over 222 total. He had his moments but never got things rolling like he did at the Ballyneal Challenge or at the Air Force Invitational, finishing up Tuesday with a birdie, 13 pars, three bogeys and just the second double bogey (out of 144 holes) this fall. He had six birdies and 37 pars overall, against 10 bogeys and the lone double.
Was Edwards concerned about his No. 1 player’s performance? Not at all. As the seventh-year CU coach was wrapping things up some two-plus hours after the tournament ended, the lone golfer at the far end of the driving range was his two-time medalist in 2012.
Four Buffaloes played as individuals, typical for the host school of a tournament to get its entire eligible roster some added experience. The newest Buffalo made the biggest splash, as junior Johnny Hayes finished ninth overall with a 5-under 211 score after wrapping things up with a 1-over 73. The transfer from Towson (Md.) State had 11 birdies and 30 pars while finishing high in par-4 (2-under, 16th) and par-5 (5-under, 11th).
“He did a great job in his first college tournament in almost two years,” Edward noted. “He spent some time away from the game but missed it so much that he wanted to get back into it. He had some very good results back east in a couple of amateur competitions, but this was still impressive for his first time out. He caught everyone’s attention.”
Redshirt freshman Drew Trujillo tied for 35th (75—218, 2-over) scoring 15 pars and three bogeys in his final round; he had nine birdies and 35 pars with nine bogeys and a double for his three rounds. Another redshirt frosh, Tyler Engel, finished 74th after closing with a 77 for a 13-over 229 total; he had five birds and 35 pars against 12 bogeys, a double and a quad.
Freshman Ross Thornton wrapped things up with a 6-over 78; he finished in the 80th position (last) as he was disqualified in the second round for signing for an incorrect scorecard.
CSU’s Kirby Pettit was the medalist, but he may be thinking what could have been. He opened with a bogey and the settled down with a par – and then caught fire. He played the next five holes at 5-under (an eagle and three birdies), then scored another eagle and two more birds on the back for a tournament low score of 8-under 64. That combined with a 71-67 effort on Monday gave him a 14-under 202 total, good for a three-shot win over Oregon State’s Brian Jung.
The Buffaloes turn right around and will play in the University of New Mexico’s Tucker Invitational, traveling to Albuquerque for the 54-hole tournament this Friday (36 holes) and Saturday (18). Fourteen teams will participate in he Tucker, including two schools who played here this week, Utah and Wyoming.
BUFFALO INDIVIDUALS (*—played as an individual)
3. Derek Fribbs………………………… 70-70-67—207
T7. David Oraee…………………………. 73-68-69—210
9. *Johnny Hayes……………………… 71-67-73—211
T20. Beau Schoolcraft…………………… 72-73-69—214
T27. Philip Juel-Berg…………………….. 75-71-70—216
T35. *Drew Trujillo……………………….. 71-72-75—218
T52. Jason Burstyn………………………. 75-71-76—222
74. *Tyler Engel…………………………. 83-69-77—229
80. *Ross Thornton…………………….. 74-DQ-78
TOP 10 INDIVIDUALS
1. Kirby Pettitt, Colorado State……… 71-67-64—202
2. Brian Jung, Oregon State………….. 67-71-67—205
3. Derek Fribbs, Colorado………….. 70-70-67—207
4. Nathan Hughes, UMKC…………….. 67-68-73—208
T5. Chris Gilbert, Kansas……………….. 69-71-69—209
T5. Korbin Kuehn, UMKC……………….. 68-70-71—209
T7. David Oraee, Colorado…………… 73-68-69—210
T7. Riley Fleming, UT-Arlington……….. 67-72-71—210
9. Johnny Hayes, Colorado………… 71-67-73—211
T10. Sean Walsh, Gonzaga………………. 69-69-74—212
T10. Oskar Arvidsson, Denver………….. 70-69-73—212
T10. Nick Chianello, Oregon State……… 69-71-72—212
T10. David Fink, Oregon State………….. 72-69-71—212
T10. Kyle Westmoreland, Air Force……. 73-70-69—212
T10. Victor Doka, Denver…………………. 70-70-72—212
T10. Hunter Brown, UT-Arlington………. 72-68-72—212
T10. Alex Gutesha, Kansas………………. 70-70-72—212
TEAM SCORES
1. Oregon State…………………….. 284-277-282—843
2. Colorado………………………….. 290-280-275—845
3. Colorado State…………………… 289-279-279—847
4. Missouri-Kansas City………….. 280-282-292—854
5. Kansas…………………………….. 287-283-288—858
5. Texas-Arlington………………….. 287-285-286—858
7. Northern Colorado………………. 292-283-286—861
8. Denver……………………………… 295-278-292—865
9. Air Force…………………………… 295-284-288—867
10. Gonzaga……………………………. 296-283-290—869
11. Houston Baptist…………………. 290-294-286—870
12. Texas State………………………. 295-288-290—873
13. Wyoming………………………….. 308-282-286—876
14. Utah………………………………… 287-299-297—883
CU led mountain forest study shows vulnerability to climate change
Sep 9th
Forests where people live and play to be hit hardest
Led by CU-Boulder researcher Ernesto Trujillo and Assistant Professor Noah Molotch, the study team used the data — including satellite images and ground measurements — to identify the threshold where mid-level forests sustained primarily by moisture change to higher-elevation forests sustained primarily by sunlight and temperature. Being able to identify this “tipping point” is important because it is in the mid-level forests — at altitudes from roughly 6,500 to 8,000 feet — where many people live and play in the West and which are associated with increasing wildfires, beetle outbreaks and increased tree mortality, said Molotch.
“Our results provide the first direct observations of the snowpack-forest connections across broad spatial scales,” said Molotch, also a research scientist at CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. “Finding the tipping point between water-limited forests and energy-limited forests defines for us the region of the greatest sensitivity to climate change — the mid-elevation forests — which is where we should focus future research.”
While the research by Molotch and his team took place in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California, it is applicable to other mountain ranges across the West, he said. The implications are important, since climate studies indicate the snowpack in mid-elevation forests in the Western United States and other similar forests around the world has been decreasing in the past 50 years because of regional warming.
Forests are drying and becoming more vulnerable
“We found that mid-elevation forests show a dramatic sensitivity to snow that fell the previous winter in terms of accumulation and subsequent melt,” said Molotch, also a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “If snowpack declines, forests become more stressed, which can lead to ecological changes that include alterations in the distribution and abundance of plant and animal species as well as vulnerability to perturbations like fire and beetle kill.”
A paper on the subject was published online Sept. 9 in Nature Geosciences. Co-authors on the study include Ernesto Trujillo of INSTAAR and the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, Michael Golden and Anne Kelly of the University of California, Irvine, and Roger Bales of the University of California, Merced. The National Science Foundation and NASA funded the study.
Molotch said the study team attributed about 50 percent of the greenness in mid-elevation forests by satellites to maximum snow accumulation from the previous winter, with the other 50 percent caused by conditions like soil depth, soil nutrients, temperature and sunlight. “The strength of the relationship between forest greenness and snowpack from the previous year was quite surprising to us,” Molotch said.
The research team initially set out to identify the various components of drought that lead to vegetation stress, particularly in mountain snowpack, said Molotch. “We went after snowpack in the western U.S. because it provides about 60 to 80 percent of the water input in high elevation mountains.”
The team used 26 years of continuous data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer, a space-borne sensor flying on a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite, to measure the forest greenness. The researchers compared it to long-term data from 107 snow stations maintained by the California Cooperative Snow Survey, a consortium of state and federal agencies.
In addition, the researchers used information gathered from several “flux towers” in the southern Sierra Nevada mountain range, which measure the exchanges of carbon dioxide, water vapor and energy between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere. Instruments on the towers, which are roughly 100 feet high, allowed them to measure the sensitivity of both mid-level and high-level mountainous regions in both wet and dry years — data that matched up well with the satellite and ground data, he said.
“The implications of this study are profound when you think about the potential for ecological change in mountainous environments in the West in the not too distant future,” said Molotch, an assistant professor in the geography department. “If we take our study and project forward in time when climate models are calling for warming and drying conditions, the implication is that forests will be increasingly water-stressed in the future and thus more vulnerable to fires and insect outbreaks.
“When you put this into the context of recent losses in Colorado and elsewhere in the West to forest fire devastation, then it becomes something we really have to pay attention to,” he said. “This tipping-point elevation is very likely to migrate up the mountainsides as the climate warms.”
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How A 22-Year-Old Boulder Woman Learned How To Fix Cars By Driving A ‘72 VW Beetle Across The West
Sep 7th
At 22 years old, Morgan Johnson knows the ins and outs of a few things. She’s lived in Oregon and Colorado, and she managed a King Soopers grocery store for a few years.
But when she decided to quit her job and give the Great Western Road Trip a try, she didn’t know anything about cars other than that they get you places and cost money to fix. But when she decided to buy a 1972 Volkswagen Beetle for a trip that would cover thousands of miles, she faced a sink-or-swim learning curve that’s an inevitable part of old Volkswagen ownership.
Now, she chatters about valve adjustments and wheel bearing tightness like an old hand. More importantly, she has joined the ranks of auto enthusiasts. Before, cars were just something that carried her to and from work. Now, she’s approaching full-on gearhead status.
A Volkswagen Beetle wouldn’t be my first choice for an epic road trip car, but those old German workhorses have the kind of charisma that can entice a young lady like Morgan Johnson into the strange world of auto enthusiasm. Needless to say, the car — packed to the gills with three or four passengers and all of their crap at any given time — broke down a lot during the trip. But with a little help from friends and strangers and by asking a lot of questions, Morgan’s understanding of how cars work grew considerably. But so did her appreciation for cars; bugs in particular.
I met Morgan and two of her travel companions when we were all stopped in front of Utah’s Great Salt Lake one evening this summer. It was nearly 10 p.m., and the sun was finally sinking below the horizon, turning the lake’s surface into an iridescent orange sheen. The only way to get to that part of the lake, as far as I know, is from I-80, so I was surprised to see an olive drab green Beetle, Colorado tagged and topped with a bulky, tarpaulin covered bindle, come trundling down the offramp toward the beach parking lot. I had to find out who was bold enough to take a road trip in a car like that.
Morgan and her friends, Johnny and Cherri, live in Boulder. They all explained, with that sort of fresh faced excitement you seen in young people caught up in an adventure, that they planned to drive all the way out to San Francisco, then up the coast through Oregon to Seattle. They didn’t really have any plans other than that, just a chunk of free time, a little bit of money, and a knack for finding things cheap on Craigslist.
By then, only a couple of days into the trip, they’d already broken down once, and were making their way ever so slowly due to the car’s limited capacity to carry a ton of weight.
The Journey Begins
Morgan had quit her job as a grocery store manager in Boulder just before the trip. She’d been working there for three years, and had always wanted to take a long road trip around the American West. She didn’t know much about cars, but she did know enough to realize that her rusted-out Jeep wasn’t going to cut it. But one day, when she was buying a saxophone from some guy off of Craigslist, she noticed that he had a lot of old Volkswagens in his yard. One of them — the army green one — was for sale for $1,600.
A lot of people would say that going from a rusted out, inoperable Jeep to a Volkswagen that’s been sitting around since 1997 is leaping from the frying pan into the fire. But Morgan said she was enchanted by the car — which she always refers to as “she” — and bought it with some money she’d saved for the trip. Mike, the Volkswagen nut who sold her the car, unwittingly became her on call mechanic as soon as he handed over the keys.
“I told her when she got it to drive it around for a few days before leaving on her trip, but she just took off,” he told me at a Volkswagen rally we all attended together a month later. “I’d say I got 200 texts while she was out driving the thing.”
“I sent him a lot of pictures of my finger pointing at something and asking, ‘What’s this part? How do I fix it?'” she explained.
The trip lasted about a month, and the trio (they picked up another person in California, completely stuffing the little car) saw a lot of amazing scenery. But they also met people they wouldn’t have met if they weren’t driving an old car that broke and made them stop and smell the oil filter. Here’s a breakdown of their itinerary, by geography:
- Boulder, Colo.: Morgan, et al hit the road, headed north through Cheyenne before hanging a left on I-80 toward Utah.
- Evanston, Wy.: The car’s fanbelt broke. Johnny skateboarded five miles to the nearest town, but everything was closed. But he met a lady who had a bunch of random fanbelts laying around. None of them fit, so they tied a piece of rope around the pulleys and drove it to someone or other’s friend’s house. The guy had a bunch of old Volkswagens, and they found a fanbelt that worked until they could buy a new one.
- Utah: They met me at the Great Salt Lake. We parted ways (because an old VW is the only car that my car can drive faster than) until later that night. They caught up with me and we camped next to the Bonneville Salt Flats.
- The Nevada Desert: Nevada in summer is hell on Earth. With all that weight piled into the little car, it began to overheat and lost power. So they parked under a bridge and slept there until it was dark and cool outside. Once they got up into Tahoe, the weather was cooler and the car worked OK.
- Sacramento/San Francisco: They went to Pride, crashing with some guy they’d found on Craigslist in the Castro. Morgan found out that one of the reasons the car had been overheating was because of the bag strapped directly to the roof. It blocked airflow to the engine, which is cooled by air. So Morgan bought one of those cool metal and wood roof racks on eBay and poor Johnny, who had been crammed in the back with all that crap for a little while, got a reprieve. They also got an oil change (I’d told them that because VWs don’t have oil filters, it’s a good idea to change it every 2,000 miles).
- Humboldt County/The Lost Coast: Three days of backpacking on the Lost Coast and a day spent tripping balls on mushrooms in a redwood forest were car-free, thus devoid of mechanical problems.
- Portland, Ore.: The car smelled like gas, and they found not one, not two, but three fuel leaks. The big filler hose and some of the fuel line were dry rotted. The filler hose was a specialty part, and Morgan ended up skating 10+ miles on a hot summer day trying to find the right one. Morgan noted that “Portland isn’t a good place to skate — the roads are shitty.” She also replaced the fuel filter and the distributor cap and rotor.
- Washington State: A friend wanted to take a different, more reliable car to Seattle, but Morgan said, “You haven’t experienced the bug yet. You gotta feel what it’s all about.”John Muir couldn’t have said it better himself, but the rest of the group voted to take the more reliable car.
- Oregon to Idaho: The car, of course, broke down again. This time, the battery cable was loose (for those of you who know bugs, good thing the damned thing didn’t catch on fire!) and there was another fuel leak from another dry rotted line. They used someone’s brother’s AAA card for a free tow to nearby Boise, Idaho. Morgan also had to fix some frayed wires in the dash when the lights stopped working. By this time, Johnny had strep throat, and Cherri had really bad poison oak from their redwood frolic.
- Evanston, Wy.: The car died and wouldn’t start again. The carburetor was leaking gas and the engine was running too hot. The tips in the pea shooter exhaust had completely melted. They took the Greyhound the rest of the way home, and Morgan and Cherri came back later to get the car with a Uhaul.
Although they’d had to tuck their tails between their legs and take a bus the rest of the way home (and Greyhounds in the West aren’t like those sleek new D.C.-to-N.Y.C. jobs, they’re bleak, Morgan wasn’t ready to give up on her bug. She talked Mike, the guy who’d sold her the car, into taking a look at it. The valves were way too tight, and she’d missed spotting a spark plug wire that had come loose. The thing had been running on three cylinders (one or two, if you count the cylinders with valves that were stuck open) for hundreds of miles.
But when Morgan, Cherri, Mike and I went to a bug rally a few weeks later, the car was purring (well, a clattery Volkswagen purr). Better yet, Mike had taught a man to fish, so to speak, and Morgan had a more thorough understanding of what those valves do, why they need to be adjusted, and how the car’s ignition and carburetion systems work.
“I learned a lot about engines and how they work and how to fix things,” she told me as we watched souped up bugs scream down the drag strip. “I was told owning one of these cars would make you learn how to have a lot of patience, and it really has.”
If you live in Colorado or Wyoming, don’t be surprised if you see a little army green bug chug up a gnarly hill near a trailhead in the middle of nowhere. Morgan isn’t afraid to drive her car and now, she knows its limits and how to fix it.
Of course, she only knows how to tinker with Volkswagens (and by today’s standards, a VW Type I scarcely qualifies as a car), but it’s a start.
Photo credit: Benjamin Preston; Morgan Johnson