Summer Trails 2010

Double Lumpy

Cruising the south side of Lumpy before the wheels fell off.

In theory the snow is melting. In actuality, I have a fifty-miler in the fall to tune up for and my goal is to enjoy as much of it as possible. Time for some miles! I joined a large group of fellow Special Idiots for some trail running fun up in RMNP. They were planning on multiple laps of Lumpy Ridge, a nice 11-mile loop usually clear of snow by the late spring. I hate doing multiple laps, so I figured to join them for the first lap, then go somewhere else and run another ten-ish miles. We ran the loop counter-clockwise which means you get two steep climbs and two long downhill cruises and it was very nice.

It was so nice, in fact, that I decided I'd rather have companionship than new sights, and I re-upped for another loop, clockwise this time. While eleven miles was nice, twenty two was more than I was quite ready for. The first big climb on the second loop was hot and miserable. Chris, Kari and I ran a lot of the north side together, but hiked steadily on the uphills. I finished the final climb at Gem Lake and marched directly into the lake and sat down. My wheels had not only fallen off, but they'd rolled down the hill and were lost in the woods as well.

Snowy Loop in RMNP

Peter at Bierstadt Lake. There's still lots of snow in the mountains, and more than we liked even down in the trees.

Bouyed by my success, at Lumpy Ridge, Peter and I headed for RMNP again for some lower-elevation trail pounding, trying to get in some miles without too much snow. We started from the Cub Lake trailhead and headed to the Pool, thence to Cub Lake, over to Hallowell Park, and to Bierstadt Lake. The latter two I'd never been to before and they were lovely. They were also a nearly continuous snow slog above about 9000' and we were quickly soaked through. This winter has lasted long enough! It's the end of May. Can't we have summer now?!

We emerged at Bear Lake having logged only 10 miles in three hours. I wanted more, preferably without snow. Peter dropped out at the Glacier Gorge trailhead, but I took the trail down to Sprague Lake (more new terrain for me). There was snow in the first quarter mile, but it was blissfully clear after that. The fact that it was slightly downhill didn't hurt either!

From Sprague Lake, I continued past the Glacier Basin Campground (which is rather ugly) on a dusty trail getting more and more covered in, shall we say, evidence of recent use by horses. In a few more miles, I emerged at the Livery and met a few score of the culprits. Asking directions at the stable, I managed to escape the corrals and log a few more trail miles before, somehow, emerging on the Bear Lake road at the far side of Moraine Park from where we'd started...

...and who should be driving up the road, but Peter in my car! He'd caught the shuttle busses around and decided to come look for me. Where he expected to find me is a mystery and had he been five minutes earlier or later, he wouldn't have found me and... well, no matter. The total for the day was 18 miles and more of them on snow than I liked.

Several of my colleagues are preparing for the Pikes Peak races, something I feel I know something about. They're all promising runners and are all legitimately faster than I, but I hold the edge in mountain experience. Accordingly, I announced we were having a CASA Trail Running Series and dragged them out to give them some idea what they're in for.

First up, Kyle and Greg, get introduced to the 15-mile High Lonesome Loop (aka, the Hessie Loop) in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. Things went well enough for the first five miles and we set a good mountain pace up to Jasper Lake. From there, the snow began in earnest, even this late in the season. We spent longer than I liked slipping and sliding and losing our way on the way to Devil's Thumb Lake. The weather wasn't looking all that great, but we decided to push up to the Divide and make the call there.

Headed toward Jasper Lake; feet still dry.

Kyle ascends the tricky snowfield while Greg waits his turn below.

The climb up to the Divide, as expected, was grueling. Unexpectedly, a large cornice blocked the last 50' of trail and we had to resort to some rather exposed, moderate-angle snow climbing on hard neve. In proper boots, with a hiking pole or axe, this would be trivial, but in soft trail shoes with nothing but our hands for protection (above a substantial couloir), it was a little dicey.

Finally on the Divide, things looked a little gloomy, but we weren't keen on heading back down the snow slope. We hustled across 2.5 miles of glorious tundra with good views to the west before dropping down the King Lake valley just shy of Rollings Pass. Below tree line, the snow started up once again, but with gravity on our sides, we glissaded through and hammered along at a great rate. The snow quit as we dropped lower and it started to get hot. Everyone was pretty chipped by the time we made it back to the TH at the 5 hour mark.

Sourdough-Brainard-Niwot loop

Next up, an ambitious exploration on the far side of Caribou Pass in the Indian Peaks. I rounded up Peter and Priddy... and my car started jetting steam from under the hood. Crap! Plans were re-jiggered to not require four wheel drive, and we instead opted for the relatively boring Sourdough Trail.

Priddy and Peter headed for Long Lake.

Summer has finally arrived in the high country.

The day was fabulous and we were feeling good. We ran almost the entire length of Sourdough (which is far rougher than I remember), one thing lead to another, and we found ourselves on the ski trails near Brainard Lake. Priddy was interested in Niwot Ridge, so we hiked up there, checked out the Alpine Research Station, and took a break on one of the many tundra hump summits at 11,800'. Hey, look at that! We've logged 20 miles already!

Five miles of descent on the Niwot Ridge road brought us comfortably back to the car and into Marathon distance range. We even saw a moose cross the trail in front of us which, for all my years in Colorado, I've never seen. Despite the inauspicious beginings, it turned out to be a really nice, serendipitous day in the mountains with two friends.

Except for the four-digit sum spent in repairing the car, of course...

Lion Lakes

Thirty Miles Come Hell or High Water!

RMNP: Bear Lake, Haynach Lake, Andrews Glacier, Mills Lake, Sprague Lake

The first rule of training is that running in a big, social group is more fun than running solo, usually. Even if you've been somewhere a dozen times before, having company makes it more fun. I travelled up to Estes Park on Saturday night for some much-needed training and de-stressing and crashed on Mike's floor. We got an early start the next morning, met up with Pete, Lou, and David, and made it to Bear Lake by 6:30 am. The plan was to run up Flattop Mountain and drop down the other side to the reportedly beautiful Haynach Lake on the west side of the Divide, then return for a total of about 21 miles.

Five on Flattop: me, Lou, Pete, David, Pete. So far, so good.

Nice morning view down into Odessa Gorge

Beautiful Haynach Lake. Also my best columbine photo yet.

My goal was to add on sufficient extra mileage to crack the 30-mile mark. On top of my extra miles (and hence slower pace), Mike, Pete, Lou, and David are all pretty fast company and I was seriously out-classed on the first climb. I hung on during the gorgeous descent into new terrain on the Tonahutu Trail and arrived at the lake not more than 30 seconds in the rear. Beautiful, as advertised. The trail was quite rough and it's clear not many people explore this part of the park.

The climb back up Flattop was arduous and getting hot, though the weather was still gorgeous. I bid adieu to the others at mile 16 on the Bighorn Flats and struck out on my own to the south along the Divide. The North Inlet Trail was great dropping gradually down on the west side of Hallet and Otis Peaks. The siren call of running all the way down this nice trail to Grand Lake was strong, but I resisted, turning left and heading up slightly for the top of Andrews Glacier and a descent into the Loch Vale/Glacier Gorge area.

I've been up and down Andrews several times before and it's pretty mellow as these things go. But all my previous trips have been in more-or-less winter conditions and in proper boots. In summer, the glacier is a bit steeper, a lot harder, and has alarming rocks poking through all around the bottom. Add to this my relatively-flimsy running shoes and you've got an exciting time. Fortunately, I'd brought along my "running axe" (an old mountaineering axe cut down by about 8 inches) which allowed me some degree of safety on a lacerating, wet descent.

Pete makes it look easy on Bighorn Flats. Heck, it was easy!

Lou heads down the Tonahutu Trail.

The trail out from Andrews in summer conditions was equally different and much rougher than in the winter. In due course, I made it down to the Loch feeling alternately decent and pretty crappy. Hustling along, absorbed in my own details, I apparently passed right by my friend Alan and his family without noticing (sorry buddy!).

Must add more miles! Must break the 30-mark! My GPS is notorious for underestimating mileage by 10-20%, so it couldn't be counted upon. I headed up for Mills Lake with the idea of running to Black Lake and back. A mile past Mills, it started to rain and I started feeling pretty poor, so I turned back for more downhill cruising. Normally I'd take one of the shortcut trails, but distance was the name of the game today, so I dodged tourists past Alberta Falls toward the Glacier Gorge TH.

Myself after a harrowing descent of Andrews Glacier

My convoluted 30-miles-and/or-bust trek through RMNP

More miles! The cruise down to Sprague Lake is easy, so I suffered down through there with thoughts of catching the bus back to Bear Lake. Back into civilization! People picnicing, fresh water... ah! Only there is no bus stop at Sprague Lake! I had to suck it up and run a mile of road down to the Park-n-Ride to catch a bus.

Return to the Colorado Trail

Segment #6: Kenosha Pass to Breckenridge via Georgia Pass

In my continuing quest for miles with a minimum of elevation gain, I decided to try some point-to-point running on the Colorado Trail. The CT is great because, since it's mountain-bikable, it's usually not terribly steep or terribly technical. The problem is logistics trying to get from one end to the other. Fortunately, I enlisted the help of fellow mountaineering-running cross-over Brian for the car shuttle. We headed out Wednesday night, dropped a car in Breckenridge, then drove over to Kenosha Pass and camped for the night.

Getting Lost, Getting Found - West Magnolia Trails

They say running on tired legs is good ultra training, so two days after my big Georgia Pass run, I headed solo up to Nederland for a little trail exploration. According to my map, there were a mess of trails west of the Peak to Peak highway in an area known as West Magnolia. From these trails, sayeth the map, I could connect over to the Eldora Ski Area cross-country ski trails and visit the Tennessee Mountain Hut making a nice, tidy loop in some unexplored country. I budgetted two hours and set out with gear accordingly. I brought the GPS as well curious to see what I could map of the complicated trail system. This last point proved to be fortuitous.

The trails were, as I expected, quite confusing and I rapidly got into the thick of it along a series of official and unofficial mountainbike trails. Passing a campground, I started going uphill in earnest. Lovely trail! The Lost Meadow was full of wildflowers and flowing streams. I quickly reached a gate festooned with No Tresspassing signs... were these the Eldora trails? Isn't Eldora on National Forest land? Not wanting to overtly tresspass, I headed left following the hiking trail connecting to the Jenny Creek Trail (or so I thought) and blazed down a very steep hill on a jeep road. Nothing made sense. The road didn't match anything on the map. Well, maybe it kind of made sense. I turned right on another trail, then another right. More Tresspassing signs greeted me. Huh? Time to go by dead-reckoning; I punched in a waypoint near the base of Eldora and found it pointing me in exactly the opposite direction I would have expected, and several miles farther away than I thought plausible.

Survival mode. One thing lead to another. I struck off across country in the direction indicated and managed to string together some game trails, rough MTB trails, and a little bushwhacking, finally ending up down on the Eldora Shelf Road. The fact that I crossed a No-Tresspassing barrier on the way out implied I must have been on Eldora's property during some part of this (sorry guys!), but I never saw the boundary.

My map showed another trail off the base of the shelf road leading back up into the West Magnolia trails. "I'll be late", I thought, cruising down the surprisingly long, paved descent, "but it should all work out in a few more miles." Of course, I get to the bottom of the hill and find my trail festooned with more Tresspassing signs. "Come on, man! You're killing me!"

The first car I stuck my thumb out for stopped... and was being driven by none other than my pal Kristen! Small world! Wonderful Kristen drove me back up to my car saving me several inglorious miles of pavement running... and I only ended up being half an hour late.

St. Vrain Valley and Gibraltar Lakes

Getting in an early run always makes me feel great for the rest of the day, so I decided it would be a good idea to get up extra-early, do a moderate run in the mountains, and then go in to work in the afternoon. The 18 mile out-and-back on the St. Vrain Glacier Trail in the northern Indian Peaks has been beckoning for a while, and I figured I could bang it out in a reasonable four hours. Start at 6, back by 10 or 11 at the latest, back in time for lunch at work.

Of course, these things are never as simple as all that...

I didn't hit the trail until 6:30, but made good time up to the Beaver TH (reachable by 4x4 only). From here, I made the decision to drop down into the valley and head west rather than follow the more circuitous route past Red Deer Lake (maybe on the way back...). Still feeling good, I hit the St. Vrain Glacier Trail at mile 5 and started the climb in earnest. It was clear and chilly in the shaddow of the substantial northern wall of the valley and I was in terra incognita, just the way I like it.

A trio of bull elk I startled on the St. Vrain Glacier Trail.

The impressive Elk Tooth above the valley.

Things rapidly got gorgeous, and I do mean gorgeous! The late-summer wildflowers adorned the meadows purple and yellow. The St. Vrain creek ran alongside the trail and the impressively craggy Elk Tooth and Ogallalla Peak stood out in the brilliant morning sun. I rounded a corner and saw a trio of buck elk standing on a flower-strewn slope in the sunlight looking all proud and noble. Of course, by the time I managed to get my camera out they were looking more frightened and fleet-of-foot.

The trail became very hard to find once I hit treeline, but I knew roughly where I needed to go and followed a ramp up to the left headed for Gibraltar Lake. Gorgeous. Windy. Awesome! By the time I finally saw the lakes, I was far above them on my way to an unnamed rocky tor, so I continued to the summit and took in the views. It was incredibly windy at 11,400', but I had an astonishing view of the Gibraltar Lakes (there are three of them, it turns out) below, surrounded by steep cliffs and glaciers on one side, and wicked tallus slopes leading up to the more substantial crags of Ogallala and Elk Tooth on the other.

Gibraltar Lakes from the incredibly windy Pt. 11,400

Dp I really have to go back home?

My schedule quickly went out the window and I spent the better part of half an hour poking around and exploring before reluctantly turning for home. What had been a moderate climb on the way up the valley turned into a great speed-fest of trail running on the way out and I made great time, sweating in the sunshine this time rather than shivering in the shadows.

Back at the 4wd road, I elected to continue on the "road" down to Camp Dick, then find my way back to the car via the short connector trail between the two trailheads. The road turned out to be one of the roughest, most technical trails I've ever run on and any illusions about being able to drive up here in my Subaru rapidly were disabused. And the connector trail turned out to be a rather steep climb through dense forest... in which I took a wrong turn and added at least two miles to an already long day, so it wasn't until 12:30 that I made it back to the car.

Oh well, it's not like I would have gotten anything useful done at work on a Friday afternoon anyway...

RMNP Super Traverse (Bear Lake - Trail Ridge - Moraine Park)