Rocky Mountain Dirt Running: Five Weeks Ending July 26

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Five Weeks Ending July 26

Week Ending June 29 (Week of Western States)

This week was mainly jogging, with one easy summit of Horsetooth, a lap in the Leppy Hills outside the Nevada-Utah border casino town of West Wendover, and a couple of trail jogs close to home, before the Western States implosion on the weekend.

Total: 117 miles (19,000')

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Week Ending July 6

Mon - Thur: Off

Fri - 4 miles (1,200') hike. North Diamond Peak with the kids.

We were hailed and rained on for an hour or so while trying to cook at the campsite, and then we were rewarded.

Alistair posing at a small creek confluence on the way up to North Diamond.

North Diamond with Never Summers behind.

Summit (11,852'). Northern Never Summers beyond Cameron Pass.

Followed the drainage back to Cameron Pass.

Sat - 3 miles (500') hike. Lake Agnes with the kids.

A gentle hike on the Lake Agnes Trail

Lake Fun.

Sun - 5 miles (1,700') hike. Met Abby at the Conocco on Hwy 34 and headed out to the flood-ravaged town of Glen Haven on Devil's Gulch road to set about bagging West Crosier (9,020'), a Larimer ranked peak. Hiked the main trail from Glen Haven to Piper Meadows then cut off trail through the meadow for the W.Crosier summit. Missed the summit a bit to the north, so followed the ridge south to gain the true summit. Not surprisingly, the summit register contained familiar Lists of John names and not many others. Really no reason to visit this peak other than to tick it off the list. The views of the Estes Valley and the Continental Divide from the much-more-visited Crosier proper are much better, but that said the views of Crosier from West Crosier were unique, I guess. It was an easy schwack back to the meadow and trail. Fun morning and first LoJ nonsense peak in quite some time.

Total: 12 miles (3,400')

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Week Ending July 13

Mon - Thurs: Off

Fri - 5 miles (1,500') hike. Horsetooth summit.

Sat - 3.5 mile (1,000') hike. Arthurs Rock with the kids.

Top Arthurs. Seriously, we had fun.

Sun - Off

Total: 8.5 miles (2,500')

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Week Ending July 20

Mon - Wed: In NYC for work. Brought no running gear.

Thurs - AM: 8 miles (1,200') easy. Trail jog with Lee and Marie on Valley - Sawmill - Carey - Towers, from Bluesky.
PM: 9 miles (2,000') hill tempo. Towers in 33 mins. Back at it. Man, I'm out of shape. Great turnout, including local reporter Stephen Meyers. A Towers article in the Coloradoan.

Sweaty lens.

Fri - 13 miles (3,200') easy. First section of the Never Summer 100km course with Mike H, including a summit of Seven Utes (11,453') and a visit to Lake Agnes, finishing up at Cameron Pass via the Ditch trail.

Approaching the summit of Seven Utes, the Nokhu Crags appear over the Shoulder of Braddock. Silver Creek Trail runs the verdant hillside, before dropping into Lake Agnes: miles 7 - 11 of the Never Summer 100km course.

Mike heading north on the Silver Creek Trail, taking in the Medicine Bows to the north.

Mike in Silhouette

Richthofen and Static from Silver Creek.

Other side of the Crags below Michigan Lakes. Photo: Pete Stevenson.

Sat - 22 miles (5,600') easy. Starting at Cameron, where we left off the day before, Mike and I met up with Chad and Cam to take on the next section of the course, beginning with a hoof up North Diamond Peak (11,852') - the high point on the course - followed by a couple of gorgeous miles cruising the carpeted ridge to the descent on the Montgomery Pass Rd. Mike and I continued on together from there, whacking our way across the southern Yurt Trail, before hoofing up Ruby Jewel to the beautiful alpine setting in Hidden Valley where we enjoyed the big mountain views surrounding Kelly Lake (10,805'). Short on water and calories, we turned back returning to the campsite via Ruby Jewel and Lumberjack. Great mileage, but I was definitely feeling this one as my first proper long run back from Western States.

Top Diamond with Chad and Cam. Photo: Hinterberg

Looking back at the Medicine Bow Traverse, before dropping off to the west. Photo: Hinterberg.

Hinterberg selfie on the Yurt trail traverse.

Kelly Lake in Hidden Valley.

Karen Smidt cruising above Kelly lake. Photo: Marie-Helene Faurie.

Moose everywhere in State Forest. Photo: Pete Stevenson.

Sun - 6.5 miles (1,000') easy. Jogged the last few miles of the course with Pete and Cam from the Bockman campground to Ranger Lakes via the Gould Mountain saddle. This capped a great weekend camping with family and friends in State Forest State Park previewing the Never Summer 100km course.

Total: 58.5 miles (13,000')

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Week Ending July 27

Mon - 10 miles (2,500') easy. Slogged on Horsetooth - Westridge - Spring Creek. My legs were so dead on this run I almost bagged it after 10 minutes. Forged on and finally enjoyed a fluid descent of Spring Creek some six miles in.

Tues - AM: 7 miles (1,600') easy. Horsetooth summit. Legs were much more responsive today.
PM: 5.5 miles progression. Skipped the track in favor of a short progression run on the Valley trails. Oi, need to work on fitness.

Weds - 7 miles (1,600') easy. Really easy summit of Horsetooth.

Thurs - 10 miles (3,200') hill repeats. Lee put out the call for a Horsetooth Hills workout, and as much as I didn't want to do this, I knew I needed to start working on some fitness. The workout goes: 3 x 1/4, 2 x 1/2, 1 x 3/4, 1 x mile (capped with a Horsetooth summit) on an average grade of about 15%. I hit these at about 80% effort, but it was still grueling. There's a reason I don't do this workout much more than twice a year; it's just a rude way to start the day. Splits were a good 20-30 seconds off (per quarter) from what I usually do on this workout: 3:10, 3:00, 3:01, 5:59, 5:55, 8:55, 12:22.
PM: 8 miles (1,300') easy. Black Squirrel training run and Altra shoe demo from the Arthurs Rock trailhead in Lory. Great turnout for this run, with an opportunity to demo the new Lone Peak 2.0s, Olympus and Torins.

At the Arthurs Rock TH.

Fri - 5 miles (1,500') easy. Jogged out a very easy lap on Horsetooth as recovery from Thurs and in preparation for a big day on Longs.

Sat - 18 miles (8,000') hoofing. Radical Slam with Elijah and Jamie. More on this in a separate post, but the gist is this: Mount Meeker (13,911'), Longs Peak (14,256'), Pagoda Mountain (13,497'), Storm Peak (13,326'), Mount Lady Washington (13,281'), Battle Mountain (12,044'), Estes Cone (11,006'). Longs is a great peak, but man is there a lot of choss on the massif. A lot of rocks, a lot of peaks and just a really fun morning in the park.

Elijah finds the elusive Clark's Arrow on the way to Longs and the Keplinger Couloir.

Longs, Palisades, Loft and Meeker from Pagoda.

Sun - 9 miles (1,200') easy. Headed up to Cameron pass with Pete and worked on the Seven Utes to Agnes section of the Never Summer 100km course. Laid a bunch of cairns to clarify the route from Seven Utes to the Silver Creek trail, then did some trail maintenance on the rough logging road section from Braddock to Agnes. We've got the route pretty much 100% dialed now, and believe that we have the best course possible within the confines of State Forest State Park. It's been a blast figuring out the maze of unmapped (and often overgrown) logging roads, trails, and off-trail connectors; and what we've ended up with is - we think - a fantastic full loop tour of some amazing terrain in the Never Summer and Medicine Bow Mountains. Permits are pending, but we have the verbal thumbs up from the head ranger who seems super pumped about bringing a major trail race to the park. July 25, 2015: mark you calendars.