Maroon Bells Four Passes Loop

The Rogue River Valley of southern Oregon in general, and the town of Ashland in particular is home to a, shall we say, vibrant and active community of trail runners, often of an ultrarunning persuasion. Accordingly, there is a holiday party in Ashland each December whose revelers are composed primarily of ultrarunners and friends of ultrarunners.

At this past year's shin-dig, Rob Cain (co-emcee, party host, co-director of Ashland's Siskiyou Out and Back 50K (SOB), president of the Ashland Woodlands and Trails Association, general awesome dude) presented Kyle with the illustrious "What the F---!?!?" award for his unprecedented run at the Hardrock 100 last summer. Apparently, according to Rob, this award is descriptive in its nature, of the only rational response that a performance like Kyle's Hardrock should elicit from any knowledgeable observer.

(Rob Cain at the Where's Waldo 100K in Oregon)

Since that evening, I have expanded Rob's use of WTF to help categorize other exemplary elements of my life. After this morning's run, I can say with confidence that the Maroon Bells Four Passes Loop is an excursion worthy of the WTF tag-line.

At this point in my short life, it makes an even shorter list (in no particular order):

1) The Grand Canyon

2) The Grand Tetons


3) The San Juan Mountains


4) The Koln Cathedral (a notable non-natural landscape item)

I made the trip over the pass to the Aspen area under cover of darkness yesterday evening. Driving Independence Pass at night is something I try to avoid, simply because the views are so outstanding it seems a crime to miss them. However, the subsequent view of the Milky Way might have made up for it.

As a result, when I rolled out of the back of the Roost this morning in the trailhead parking lot at 9500', I was in for a treat. I have seen the Maroon Bells multiple times. I've even run a double crossing of 12,462' Buckskin Pass before (the first of the four nearly 12,500' passes of the day), but these prior experiences seemingly did nothing to prepare me for the view of the sun rising on the Bells this morning.

(The Maroon Bells, with Maroon Lake.)

North and South Maroon Peak--both over 14,000'--stand sentinel over the valley. Their presence is regal, unflinching; their pyramidal faces exude a sense of complete security in their unquestioned authority, their immutable timelessness. Long after all the mechanized, frantic, desperate skitterings of those two-legged pests below has finally permanently ceased, these mountains will still be there. And they know it.

The Bells are the centerpiece of the valley, but all visible horizons are adorned with craggy, striated minarets from which fall streams of water. Entire mountainsides can be seen to be blanketed in flowers. Suffocating in flowers.

The run begins with a shortish jaunt up the valley over exceedingly rocky trail, from Maroon Lake to Crater Lake. At Crater Lake, the loop starts and the climbing begins in earnest. I punch up the 3000' of vertical without effort nor concern. The sheer beauty unfolding before me is almost overwhelming, however. The top of Buckskin Pass is crested with a 15-20 foot high frozen cornice that the trail conveniently skirts. From the apex, the scenery somehow improves. The Bells have been traded for the still snow-covered Snowmass Peak and Mountain. Snowmass Mountain is another 14er.

The trail down from the pass is impeccable. It is expertly constructed and picks a perfect line down into the next valley. At the base of its granite reaches, however, are the silky cerulean waters of Snowmass Lake. The contrast with the white stone is stunning. As I stride through this section and start the 1700' ascent to Trail Rider Pass, a thought occurs to me. I wish I could transplant my eyeballs into every human head, transmit my sight to the masses, identically relate the felt experience of moving effortlessly through this landscape. If that were possible, if people could see and feel and drink in this beauty, there is no way that strife could exist in the world, I think. War, money, material goods, their importance would cease to dominate the national, the global conversation.

Of course, this is not true. World War II was fought in the Alps. The San Juans of Colorado are some of the most mine-ridden mountains in the country. How has beauty ceased to inspire?

(Trail Rider Pass with Snowmass Peak and Lake.)

The summit of Trail Rider Pass proves to be a gateway to a different kind of landscape. Fravert Basin--the headwaters for the North Fork of the Crystal River--is pulsing with color. Emerald doesn't begin to describe the shade of green above treeline. How can mountains be this lush? Fravert Basin is Ed Abbey Green. John Muir Green. Al Gore only wishes he could get people to believe he is this Green. Envy only has this palette in its dreams. Ireland is jealous. Contrasted with the blood-red stone cliffs and peaks rimming the basin, it looks like Christmas.

As I begin the 2200' climb to Frigid Air Pass, the obligatory WTF moment occurs. I round a bend and there before me, in all its unexpected cascading glory is King's Falls.

(King Falls in Fravert Basin.)

However, after three hours of running, my legs finally begin to feel the ache, a little. The accumulated fatigue catches up with me as the trail turns to a stream running from beneath a remnant snowdrift above me. Soon enough, though, I am over the top and plummeting to the traverse over to West Maroon Pass. Here, the crowds begin. On the final stretches of the final pass of the morning I scoot around more people than I've seen on the entirety of the preceding trail.

The descent down the West Maroon Creek valley stretches on a bit longer than I expect. At times the brush is so thick and deep that I can't see my feet and I pray to not trip on a rock. I encounter hiker after hiker making their way up the valley. Many are burdened by impossibly large packs and I try not to be smug about the paucity of goods I carry: one 16 oz bottle, one 3 oz jacket never retrieved from where I tucked it into my wasteband this morning, the foil from four 1.1 oz GUs.

Finally, Maroon Lake is in sight, but my legs feel so good, and the morning is so flawless that I am almost saddened by the end of the run. Four hours, 46 minutes, and 55 seconds after leaving the trailhead, I am back. I jog a 15 minute cooldown and resist the urge to log still more time. I am satiated, though, and I need to save some of this feeling for next weekend's race and return to the Pacific Northwest.

Mt. Massive Revisited

(On Massive--I just can't get enough of that mountain. Photo: Marco Peinado.)

.

Sometimes you just have it. "It" being that occassional, ineffable feeling while running that is defined by boundless energy, effortless flow, precise foot placement, lungs like bellows. This morning I had it. Although my legs only had a normal pep while jogging up the flat grade of Halfmoon Creek Road, the moment I stepped on to the Colorado Trail to traverse over to the ascending Mt. Massive Trail, I could tell that today things were different. The initial ascent out of the valley is surprisingly sharp, but instead of protesting, my legs seemed to welcome the vertical gain. Above treeline, the altitude barely registered. Rock step-ups were of no consequence, inflicted no sting in my legs. Every step was impossibly efficient.

Once, a Colorado Springs reporter called me in order to comment on this particular feeling, of the sensation of being so physically adroit at a given task that focus and consciousness seemingly cease to exist. Scratch that, seem to exist on a much higher plane, rather. At the time, I was living and going to school in Bozeman, MT. I was studying for a mid-term in the campus library, so I went outside to take the call. Except that I had to hang up because I needed to walk on crutches to leave the building. And my foot was in a boot because over a month earlier I had been experiencing one of those ineffable moments during a run when I stepped on a rock and something gave way in that foot and it would be months before it was right again and I would feel that way again. And there was frozen slush on the ground. And night was descending so it was bitterly cold out because it was Montana in the winter. And yet, the feeling he wanted me to describe is so non-subtle, so singular, that I had no problem conjuring the notion of the concept, despite being so far removed from experiencing it. Distance from the flow of running does not lessen the emotional impact it has on me; I never forget.

I remember an October evening in Tyndall, South Dakota. In 1998, a bridge was built across the enormously formidable Missouri River, approximately two miles east of my home town of Niobrara, Nebraska. At this point in the Missouri, the river is over a mile wide. Think, for a moment, about a river that size. And then, try to imagine the reasoning for spanning a waterway of such breadth with a man-made structure. What was on the northern bank, opposite of the ~400 person hamlet of Niobrara, that was so important to reach? Some fantastic, 100 foot high, cream-colored chalkstone bluffs (type location for the Niobrara shale formation locally found in the Garden of the Gods). A cattle pasture. Some red cedars. That's about it. But, I digress.

(Chief Standing Bear Bridge, seen from atop the shale bluffs on the SD side, looking towards Nebraska. My home is way back in the hills in the upper left corner.)

(A quick aside: as I sit here leaning against the outdoor wall of the Lake County Public Library, plugged into the only outdoor outlet on the building, two volunteers are on their knees on the library's meager lawn, picking up, by hand, cottonwood tree cotton. This is what draws me to small communities like Leadville and my home town of Niobrara--the sense of ownership, and pride in simple values, that still reign among the citizenry.)

But, the bridge was built, and the main bearing this had on my life was that during cross-country season, once a week or so, after school was out in the afternoon, my father and I would make the thirty minute drive to Tyndall, SD to run on their all-weather, outdoor track. There is nothing like charging around a track, in spikes, on an autumnal evening. After the sun drops below the western horizon, a brisk chill nips the air providing perfect temperatures for distance running. Eventually, the twilight dims, and the ever-blowing plains wind finally takes a rest. If one is fit and running well, it is magical.

On this particular evening, I was doing a session of 3x1mile with a full mile's jog between each one, the idea being to allow one to really get cranking, stretch the legs, blow the tubes out, test the limits. With my Dad standing track-side yelling splits I breezed through the night, breaking 5:10 for each one at a time when my mile PR was barely sub-5 (regularly under-performing during races would be an unfortunate trend that I would carry with me into college).

During that workout, I had it. The glorious ability to make everything hurt like all get out---in a good way. Not, in a like, oh my god, the well is dry, in fact, not only is the well dry but I'm scraping frantically at the dusty basement of the well, yearning for the tiniest seep, desperate for moisture, ravenous for one final drip kind of way that I associate with iron deficiency, mononucleosis, or extreme overtraining. Instead, this is the kind of strain that isn't strain. It's pleasure, and limitless, and rife with effort, but the fruits are so much more than you imagined. You feel as if you can run forever.

(Feeling the flow above tree-line on Mt. Massive. Photo: Marco Peinado)

And that is how running on Mt. Massive was this morning. Rife with effort, but infinitely sustainable. These are the days for why I do this. These are the days that make me know I am a runner. Everything is so easy, so right, so in its place, that nothing else but pouring down (or up) a trail would make sense.

(A view of the Arkansas River valley between the Mosquitos and the Sawatch. Photo: Marco Peinado.)

Mosquito Pass Crossing: An Ode to Father Dyer

(Forest Service sign commemorating Father Dyer on top of Mosquito Pass.)

I've always been interested in the activity of transporting myself from A to B completely under my own power. The thing about running is that at the end of a run, I typically find myself exactly back where I started, whether my route was a simple out and back, a loop, or some complicated mix thereof. This is not to say that I don't find inherent value in the usually geospatially purposeless completion of a run; it is just that there is something satisfying and alluring about using my mind and body's ability to efficiently cover great distances that might otherwise be achieved via mechanized assistance.

I remember 13 years ago, in August of 1996, pulling weeds in the garden with my Dad, and discussing how--with the advent of the new school year--I was going to mesh the three predominant activities in my life at the time: school, running, and football practice. I had just run my first marathon a month earlier and was more excited than ever about logging a lot of miles on northeast Nebraska's plethora of dirt roads and pasture trails.

However, Nebraska--thanks to the occasional NCAA successes of the Cornhuskers--is a football-crazed state, and as a teenage boy going to school in a small, rural town, there was simply no choice about playing football. It wasn't even a question that made sense to ask. If someone had asked me if I was going to play junior high football, it would've been like asking me if I were going to eat breakfast that morning. Of course, why wouldn't I? (Maybe the fact that I was 4'10" and 78 lbs, for starters.) This wasn't a peer or parental pressure situation (though my Dad had been a star runningback as a Niobrara High student, he couldn't have cared less whether I was or not); it was simply the order of the universe.

Anyways, back to the garden conversation. Football practice was starting in a few days, I had just logged my first 80 mile week, I would soon have to spend all day in classes...Dad was wondering how I might fit it all in. Inspired by the rampant folk tales in all running literature of the East African running dieties, my answer was simple: I'll just run to and from school every day, Dad. Mom (a teacher at the high school) can drive my books and clothes back and forth, but wouldn't have to wait for me to finish with football practice before driving back home for the evening. And, at a distance of seven miles each way, I'd be getting in some killer miles!

And thus began a full year of doing just that. Alas, on the very first day of 8th grade I took a tumble while playing hide-and-seek in the dark and was granted a quite intimate view of the inner workings of my left knee, which precluded any football for the season, but after a few days didn't stop me from hop/crutching a mile every morning before school.

Nevertheless, by the end of September I was back in the swing of things and running to and from town became as regular as doing my homework. I was full into my Lydiard obsession at this point as well, so I supplemented the week day runs with hilly 22 mile sojourns that climbed in and out of all of the surrounding major drainages--Bazille and Verdigre Creek, and the Missouri River--trying to mimic Lydiard/Snell/Halberg's legendary Waiatarua Loop in New Zealand. One hundred mile weeks were the norm through that winter, I was clearly obsessed, and I gained a healthy love for going places on my own two feet. Literally.

(Lydiard tested his training principles on himself.)

Which brings me to today's run. The towns of Leadville and Alma are the two highest in the country and are also only separated by the nontrivial geographical feature of the Mosquito Range. Anyone who has visited the crest of 13,185' Mosquito Pass is familiar with the legend of Father Dyer, courtesy of the Forest Service sign posted there and Dyer's nearby gravestone. The thought of regularly traversing a 13,000+' pass on snowshoes simply to deliver some mail is astounding to me. These days there is the much-propagandized and glorified Outside Magazine glossy version of the "active outdoor lifestyle", but give me a break. Guys like Father Dyer were the real deal; and duly inspirational.

(Father Dyer's gravestone atop Mosquito Pass.)

My own attempt at running to Alma and back to Leadville began...sluggishly. As I lay in the Roost this morning, I alternately flexed and relaxed my quads beneath the covers, checking for soreness from Saturday's marathon. It was there, but not bad. As I trotted up the hill into town, I could tell that today was going to be a tolerably inglorious effort. Good enough for me; I wanted to get to Alma.

The body's response to stress is often puzzlingly unpredictable. Embarking on the final impossibly rocky, three mile, 2200' ascent to the top of Mosquito, my expectations for my ability to struggle up the hill on my tired legs were low. Just get up there, I thought to myself. Today is all about just getting in 6hrs on your feet. And yet, somewhere in my body--on the unconscious, molecular level--neurons were firing, oxygen was being absorbed, and a sort of homeostasis occured that said, running uphill is okay today; we can do this. Before I knew it, I was atop the mountain, taking in the glorious bluebird view of the Sawatch Range, and sitting at the base of Father Dyer's stagecoach cut-out sucking on my water bottle. I'd scaled that slope only 45 seconds slower than during the race on Saturday.

Heading down the east side, I was giddy. I love new trails and exploration, and the eastern slope of the Mosquitos promised just that. A mile below the summit, however, was a sight that could not go unexamined. A single small stretch of maybe 20 yards of snow remained just before the road split around London Mountain, and sitting here, perched ever so ignominiously, was maybe the most foreign object imaginable: a Lexus RX300 luxury SUV.

(Oh yeah...)

The driver had clearly given up at the last possible moment, i.e. just before the only obvious move remaining would be that of tipping over and rolling violently down the mountainside in some sort of deranged glissade. What the hell was he/she thinking? "Colorado Native" and "Soccer" stickers adorned the bumper. Really? Why is it always a little bit astonishing when a stereotype is so accurately corroborated?

As I resumed my downhill progress I strained to resist the portions of my brain that were--stuck in their default setting--stubbornly reacting with a shameful mix of indignant disgust (how dare one be so disrespectful of my mountains? go learn some common sense already!) and sinister delight at the notion of some bumbling yuppie obviously receiving his or her comeuppance. These are not sentiments of which I am proud, and I was only partly successful. Luckily, there were abundant wildflowers in the verdant 12,000' meadow to keep me distracted.

(A typical view while running down the east side of the Mosquitos.)

The rest of the run into Alma was uneventful, bordering on monotonous. I knew going into this traverse that it was going to be 100% road, but even with this prior knowledge I struggled a bit to deal with the wide, flat, graded gravel surface I found myself running down the last few miles into Alma. Additionally, my core muscle cramps from Saturday were enjoying an uninvited encore act. Soon enough, though, I hit Highway 9--Alma's main drag--exactly 2h30min after departing Harrison Ave/Highway 24 in Leadville.

I made a quick stop in a coffeeshop to chug 30ish ounces of water and refill my bottle and then was back from whence I came. The run back up the county road was, for some reason, much more tolerable in the uphill direction, mostly because my mind was more than a little concerned with the gradually darkening sky. On the return trip, I elected to take the northern route around London Mountain--the true Mosquito Pass Road--and by the time I had reached the "parking lot" approximately three miles from the summit a light smattering of rain drops were splatting on my shoulders.

Once again my legs enjoyed the marked upturn in grade, but my thoughts were consumed with just what the hell I should do. At first I tried to tell myself that those rumblings were just distant jeeps, or rocks rolling through the abundant culverts on the road, but soon the proximity and intensity of the incoming storm was undeniable.

Just as I passed the ruins of old mine buildings and workings, the heavens unleashed their fury. Wind whipped rain and occasional pea-sized hail in all directions and I seriously feared for my life. Hands-down, lightning scares the shit out of me. As an accomplished and capable mountain runner, I confidently travel light--even above treeline--because I know that the intensity of my efforts that stoke my inner furnace will often ward off the majority of even the most inhospitable above-treeline conditions. Plus, I move quickly and can usually efficiently make my way down to lower elevations in a hurry. Even in this storm, I wore only a singlet on my upper body but didn't feel unduly distressed.

None of this, however, does anything to ward off lightning. I think of people who toy with lightning above treeline as hubristic idiots. Lightning does not care. And if your number is up, it will find you, that tiny little insignificant speck up there dancing amongst the talus. I hate gambling, and yet that's what I was doing. But, none of my options were appealing. Run back down all that vertical I just labored so intensively to gain? Seek shelter in a tumbledown mining shack? Cower amongst the boulders? Cry in fear? The LEXUS!

For the next mile, all I thought about was reaching that wretched vehicle, and if its doors weren't open (the likely case), lying in fear beneath its carriage, waiting for the squall to pass. In retrospect, this was a pretty dumb plan of action (lying under the vehicle, I would still be profoundly grounded, afterall, and that car was primarily constructed of highly conductive steel), but it's all I could come up with.

Alas, as I rounded the final bend, there was the car, being towed! The intensity of the storm had abated and in a moment I resolved to just keep chugging to the top of the pass, rain and hail be damned. As I cruised up past the positively crawling duo of tow truck and wounded SUV, the visions of my mind's stereotype were, of course, confirmed. The owner of the vehicle was stumbling around adorned in a T-shirt, Nantucket shorts, and flip-flops, and was desperately trying to shield himself from the onslaught of precip by using a beach towel as an umbrella. Not lost on me, however, was the irony of my attitude. How was I any less stupid for putting myself in the current situation, atop a 13,000' mountain in a thunderstorm wearing only shoes, shorts, and a singlet?

The run down the other side of the pass was defined by contrasts. At first I suffered repeated lashings from the mountain gods, but eventually, around 11,000' the clouds scuttled away, the sun broke out, and I was soon cruising down the road bare-chested and fancy-free once again. I padded past an alpine lake where fishermen flicked their poles with unconcerned aplomb, completely oblivious to the mind-rending depths of fear and despair I'd just experienced at the hands of the elements. How would or should they know or care?

A mile or two from town, the tow truck and SUV limped past me. Ten minutes later, as I finally made my return to Leadville, 4h58m after leaving its main street that morning, I happened to run past the owner of the SUV. "How far did you run today?" he asked, seemingly shocked to see me yet again. "Over to Alma and back," I replied. I like to think Father Dyer would have been proud.

Leadville Trail Marathon 2009

(Starting line shot, courtesy Duncan Callahan: I am on the extreme left.)

I went into this race excited to do my first mountain race in over a year. (I would call the Zane Grey 50 my last "mountain" race...The Dogwood Canyon 50K last year was hilly, but certainly no extended climbs or altitude to deal with.) I felt like I was in pretty solid shape as evidenced by a few key climbs I've been hitting lately, but didn't really know what to expect in my first extended, race effort in what seems like a long, long time.

The week leading up to the race was kind of erratic with Jocelyn being in town. This pushed my usual weekend long run forward to Monday of this week, which wasn't ideal, but I was willing to sacrifice a bit of performance in this race in order to get in the training necessary to do well at the Leadville 100 later in the summer. Additionally, that long run went pretty badly. I just felt terrible, got really dehydrated, and, despite magically finding four Endurolytes on the top of Sugarloaf Pass, ended the run in a fairly depleted state. I chalked it up to good end-of-100 simulation.

My Tuesday running was predictably crappy after a long run like that, and, although I felt quite good on the climb up Green on Wednesday, the warm-up was horrible and my shake-out that evening was just as bad. I rallied a bit with my "taper" runs on Thursday and Friday (easy, flat 2hr and 1h20 runs), and went into this race feeling ready to go. But, clearly, I wasn't very willing to back off the training very much; I ran 152 miles in the seven days before the race. Even so, I wanted Paul Dewitt's course record of 3:39:12.

(And we're off...Photo: Brandon Fuller)

The competition in this race was fairly deep as well. Duncan Callahan, Bryan Dayton, and Nick Clark were who I viewed as the main contenders, and off the starting line we all ran together. The only problem was that there was another guy (Dennis Flanagan, 28, of Breckenridge) off the front that none of us knew. There was some low-level nervousness about letting him get a very sizeable lead, but I'll admit that I definitely just assumed that I would catch him on the monster climb up Mosquito Pass.

Crossing the Mineral Belt bike path Duncan, Bryan, and I all ran together with Dennis less than a minute in front of us. As we turned onto the steeper, rockier, looser climbing I consciously backed off the pace a bit and let Duncan and Bryan go at it a few yards ahead. Any time the trail turned particularly steep I would instantly catch back up, so I just let the gap ride. I was very wary of pushing too hard too early as I wanted to be as strong as possible on the Mosquito climb and on the sneaky climbs in the second half of the race because these were where I struggled the last time I ran this race.

Right before the first aid station (3.8 miles) the three of us were still running together and Dennis was still ~1 minute up. At the station I dumped a cup of water on my head as the sun was blazing and chased Duncan down the hill to start the circumnavigation of Ball Mountain. Bryan lingered at the station but quickly caught me on the downhill. I followed closely in his wake, but on this shortish downhill section (~400' of loss) I started getting my first side cramps of the day that would prove to be my undoing.

On the ~700' climb up to Ball Mt Pass (12,000') I ran with Bryan before passing him right before the top where I yelled at Duncan who I saw had just headed straight down the other side of the pass instead of turning left onto the singletrack that traverses the north side of Ball Mt and heads back down to the aid station. I have absolutely no idea why that incorrect road was marked with flags, because the singletrack was marked, too. Very weird.

On the downhill to the aid station, Duncan and I ran fairly comfortably, but I started cramping again, so I popped an S! cap and hit my first gel shortly after the station. Despite this, the cramping continued on the extended downhill (~700' vertical) to the bottom of the Mosquito climb. We ran this section fairly solid, but I could never really get going because my sides/ribs kept cramping, pretty hard at times. Bryan caught us right at the bottom of the hill and the three of us ran into the aid station still together. Bryan again spent a little extra time in the aid station, and Duncan and I tackled the hill together with him a few yards in front.

(Chugging up Mosquito Pass: 15% grade at 13K' is rough. Photo: Natalee Fuller)

I was looking forward to Mosquito because I was hoping I wouldn't cramp as much on an uphill and because I expected the climb would finally separate our group a little. The climb went pretty well. Duncan kept a solid pace until the last 1/2 mile or so where it gets particularly rocky and steep; he fell into a hike while I maintained my running cadence and that was the last running we did together during the race.

(Switchback number three of four on Mosquito. Photo: Natalee Fuller)

I hit the top of the pass feeling unexpectedly fresh (relatively speaking) and immediately turned around with plans of bombing down and making some headway on the leader (who I had somehow not noticed coming down the hill while I was running up). Alas, my cramping went crazy here. I had lost a lot of fluids and salt on the way up the hill and because it's hard to swallow anything on technical terrain at altitude I had neglected to take another S! cap. It wouldn't have mattered anyways, because I now realized that all the salt caps in my shorts pocket were completely dissolved from the water I'd been dumping on my head. Bummer. I did take my second gel, though.

So, the downhill was miserable. I grunted and groaned and massaged a lot trying to get my ribs and obliques and diaphragm to loosen but nothing was working. I was often partly doubled-over, grinding my fist into my side(s), all while trying to sprint down exceedingly technical trail with little oxygen. It was fun. Unfortunately, I was hardly in a state to acknowledge/return many of the very nice things all of the people hiking up the pass were taking the time and breath to say to me.

At the bottom of the hill, my legs felt predictably dead from the downhill, but my main problem was still the cramping. At the aid station, I filled my bottle and was told Dennis had a 6 minute lead. I asked for salt, any salt, table salt, but none was to be had. So it goes. Initially, the run up the hill back to Ball Mt was quite poor. There is a long switchback where I was able to confirm Dennis' six minute advantage, but there seemed to be very little I could do about it. I just felt like I was surviving. Ah, the joys of mountain racing!

Shortly after the Ball Mt aid I walked a few short yards in order to hit my last gel and try to regroup and get my head back in the game. This loop around Ball is a bread and butter 2hr run for me during the week, so I was very familiar with the trail and things were actually going okay until I hit the downhill on the backside where it was the usual cramp-fest again. By time I had grunted my way up the final rolling (oh, what a euphemism) hills to the last aid station I was pretty out of it mentally. I would occasionally be chugging along, realizing that I wasn't actually running that hard, so I would launch into a more race-like effort but it would eventually tail off for whatever reason until I would realize again how slow I was going. I was seriously lacking focus and salt.

At the final aid I stopped and chugged two cups of water (my bottle was out) and then took off down the four mile hill to the finish. I struggled off and on again with cramps until the end, but in general I kind of finally got my shit together the last few miles and was able to run a solid 23min split to the finish.

(Flyin' down 6th Street, Leadville CO. Photo: Tomdog)

I would like to say with more honesty that if I'd been more aware of how close I was to breaking 3:40 I would've put in a little extra effort that last mile, but the truth is I was looking for all kinds of excuses to not run hard the final 3/4 mile asphalt straightaway, mostly because it was all I could do to not double over from all the cramping my sides were doing. None of these were "stomach" cramps. It was all "core" or abdominal or "breathing" muscles.

(Very happy to see that banner. Photo: Dave Reese)

This is the first race in a long while where I basically didn't meet any of my goals. I did improve my time from three years ago by about 45 seconds on a day where I was, physically, having a much worse day, but that's about the only positive I can take from the race. And, that 3:40 on that course is still a very very solid time. I think there is a pretty decent empirical/historical argument to be made that this course is about 15-20 minutes faster than Pikes Peak for the people who are running it in the four hour range. It's just that Dennis ran 3:32:30 and smoked me and the course record in the process. Duncan finished off a tough salt-handicapped day as well to round out the top three in 3:49:47.

Kyle and I have always maintained that on any given day he and I are extremely vulnerable to getting our asses handed to us at the 50K and below distances. This was a good example of that. However, the main reasons that happened to me today were completely my fault, and completely in my control: not more thoughtfully packaging my salt, and not tapering significantly (in reviewing this past week, I now see that the only thing I did differently than a standard week is that I didn't run big vertical on Thursday; I did still run 2hr, though). Simply put, I have more important goals later in the summer. A big hats off to Dennis, though, and he simply outran me, fair and square.

(Congratulating Dennis on a race well-run. Photo: Dave Reese)

Afterwards, it was a blast to catch up with all the folks in the trail/ultra community, especially since I haven't raced in Colorado for so long. Notably, there was a very strong contingent of Team CRUD folks representing; these guys somehow make it fun to go charge up frigid, snowy Cheyenne Canyon at 5am on Thursday mornings during the winter.

(Chatting with Paul D and a bunch of other CRUD folks, post-race. Photo: Dave Reese)

Finally, on an easy run down to Turquoise Lake this morning, my sides were still cramping significantly on the couple steep downhills on the course. Neat.

Green Mt.

(8144' Green Mountain in Boulder, CO)

Living in The Roost has some serious perks. Such as: never having to "pack" for any road trip. Ever. Never needing to rent a motel room; The Roost comes fully equipped with a lofted futon matress. Complete mobility; The Roost has wheels. Somehow Jocelyn more than puts up with this; she seems to enjoy it nearly as much as I do. How am I so lucky?

We needed to be at DIA at nine o'clock the following morning, so after sweeping and mopping Provin' Grounds' floors Tuesday night, Jocelyn and I piled into The Roost and made the trip past Climax Mine and over Fremont Pass, down into Summit County, through the Eisenhower Tunnel (yes, the Continental Divide is an imposing barrier...I have an idea, let's go underneath it!) and down the 6000' vertical feet to the Front Range. The combination of automobile and interstate highway allows for mind-boggling coverage of ground.

We pulled into Boulder well after dark desperate for sleep. Jocelyn is in the process of returning from a nearly five month bout of plantar fasciitis and has been living at sea level in San Diego, so 50-60min runs at 10,000' for the past week were epic for her. I'm always tired.

Where to park...where to park...in the past I've used trailheads, forest service roads, hotel/motel parking lots, Wal-Marts...any place a parked car will appear inconspicuous and unthreatening. This particular evening, a dark residential neighborhood just off the west end of Boulder's famed Pearl Street proves adequate.

Sleeping in The Roost in a city can be nerve-wracking the first few times. There is a troubling sense of doing something ever-so-vaguely...illegal? frowned-upon? uncouth? depraved? There is a low-level discomfort with the possibility of being caught. Doing what, though? Sleeping?

Once, in Flagstaff's Buffalo Park parking lot, Jocelyn and I were rousted from our slumber at 1:30am by a policeman. We had been nestled snugly on the ground, poorly hidden on the far side of Jocelyn's (not so sleeping-compatible) car. I was so deep in sleep that I had thought Jocelyn imploring me to wake up was part of a dream. The cop, however, was merely trying to do us a favor. We weren't doing anything illegal, per se, he said, but that a cruiser would probably come by periodically all night and we wouldn't get much sleep. We thanked him and moved deeper into the woods.

(Buffalo Park in Flagstaff, AZ)

By now, though, I have The Roost and few nerves. Thermolite sleeping pads cover The Roost's tinted windows and block out the streetlights and beams of oncoming cars, eventually allowing for a comforting sense of privacy in the night's darkness to take over. Soon I feel like a voyeur on the rest of the world instead of like everyone is looking at me. Young couples coast by unknowingly on bicycles, returning home from a night out on the town. A television can be heard through the open windows of a nearby home.

At 5am my alarm goes off. I stumble out the back of The Roost, sit on the curb to lace up my shoes in the pre-dawn glow, and trot down the street. The warm night air of the Front Range barely even allows for goosebumps on my skin. I am shirtless in anticipation of the effort about to commence.

I am planning a reasonable run of Green Mt. and Bear Peak before looping back and meeting Jocelyn at the Boulder Bookend Cafe on Pearl Street for a pastry and some caffeine. Today, three days out from this weekend's race, I want a solid effort, but nothing overly stressful. Running up 9th street, my legs are sluggish. My body doesn't appreciate the early morning sojourn and my legs are still feeling a 36 mile double crossing of Sugarloaf Pass two days prior.

At Chautauqua, the sun has still not broken the horizon. My jog over on the Baseline trail does nothing to inspire confidence in my ability to scale this peak that has been nothing but painful for me in the past. I briefly consider the more gradual route of the Gregory Canyon and Ranger trails, but soon resolve to follow my original plan of the much steeper Amphitheater-Saddle Rock-Greenman route. I specifically want to do something steep so that Mosquito Pass on Saturday won't feel so unreasonable.

For some reason, the minute I hit the first big rock and log step-ups of the Amphitheater trail, my body's energy is renewed. I've never felt good on this section; today I have more than enough power to run up this section as if it were smooth trail. My mood instantly brightens.

A few minutes later, so does the sky. Shortly before the Greenman trail intersection approximately half-way up the mountain, the trees open up and an expansive view of Boulder and the eastern horizon is impossible to ignore. This morning, the fiery orb of the sun is just making its way over the curve of the earth, and luckily, the spring in my legs is enough that I am able to enjoy this spectacular view without breaking stride.

Above here the trail is briefly much flatter than the prior section and I happily stride out, ecstatic in my legs' ability to take advantage of the more favorable terrain. Typically, I'm barely surviving and just trying to recover through here. Maybe there is some benefit to regularly running up prohibitively steep grades at altitudes 5000' higher than what I'm experiencing here. Oxygen tastes good.

Finally, when the trail turns to a series of log steps and then a couple talusy switchbacks, I know I am near the top and I edge the effort past that of an enjoyable, solid run to that territory where breathing comes only in staccato, desperate bursts and the legs no longer feel so springy and responsive. By time I tag the summit post, it has been 33:12 from the Gregory Canyon trailhead (the beginning of the climb) and it takes me another 12 seconds to scale the summit rock and take in the western view of Rocky Mountain National Park and the Indian Peaks.

On the run down to Bear Creek Canyon my legs enjoy that boost that comes from running hard and fast and my mind turns back to Jocelyn and The Roost. It will add 20ish minutes onto my run to summit Bear Peak and descend Fern Canyon, and, this being my last few hours with Jocelyn before she leaves the state, I would rather spend those 20 minutes with her. This morning, 2800' of vertical will have to be enough.

(Pearl Street's Bookend Cafe)

Just as I get back to The Roost on Pine Street, I meet Jocelyn finishing her own run on the Boulder Creek Path and we express mutual joy at the abundance of oxygen, the brilliant green foliage, the extra moisture at this lower elevation. Minutes later we are in street clothes, sitting together at a sidewalk table and sipping cups of tea. There is an underlying angst at the prospect of being apart in such a short amount of time--we must soon leave to finish the drive to DIA--but for these few delicious minutes we both know how fortunate we are to be young, together, in the mountains, running, and happy.

A Return to Racing

Someday maybe I will manage to run every race in Leadville, CO. I ticked another off the list this past weekend at the Firecracker 5K, which, the race director announced on the starting line, enjoys a surprising 20 year history.

I spontaneously jumped in this race because it was only $10 (no shirt, thankfully), Jocelyn and a college friend were in town to visit me so I thought I'd do them the courtesy of not spending half the day running through the mountains, and I much prefer the random local 5K/10K as speedwork instead of any actual flat, speed-based workout.

The competition at the start line was a touch stiffer than I'd initially planned: a XC/track runner from Liberty University in town to train at altitude for the summer--Jordan Whitlock--and a Kenyan high schooler from Texas doing the same--David Mogi--provided a competitive push for the first two thirds of the course.

Racing anaerobically, especially at 10,000', is a different kind of pain compared to the more aerobic efforts that I pursue on a daily basis. Well, that isn't entirely true. When I'm tottering up a 14er, straining to sustain a running cadence above tree-line at some absurdly steep grade, my respiration is typically desperately ragged and my legs slowly accumulate with lactic acid and the level of suffering is actually quite comparable to that of a road 5K. My legs just aren't turning over as fast as in a 5K. Instead of 5:30 miles, I can easily struggle to hit 15 minute miles.

I started my Independence Day morning with a 1h45 run to get some mileage in for the day and be good and loose for the race. Nevertheless, my body initially responded with shock after a fairly quick downhill start where David, Jordan, and another runner put a few seconds on me. After a few minutes, though, my body's metabolism equilibrated a little, my breathing eventually settled a bit, and I gradually pulled in the front runners on a shallow, extended uphill. Upon reaching the front group I decided to maintain my pace instead of falling in with them, and continued to extend the effort.

Running that hard for that short of a distance is a distinctly different experience from the type of running I've become accustomed to. Cresting the sharp hill before the slightly downhill sprint to the finish, I could not get any air. It felt almost as if I were suffocating. With approximately 200 meters to go, my brain still half-entertained fantasies of drastically slowing and decreasing the effort, or--shockingly--quitting the race all together!

It brought back a flood of memories from my high school and college track days. I distinctly remember a mile race in the 8th grade where I was leading by at least 200 meters, and yet, at the top of the backstretch on the final lap, I seriously considered how reasonable it would be to just step onto the infield there and have it be over. Severe, self-inflicted suffering plays outrageous tricks on one's mind.

Conversely, upon finishing such a short race, the debt of oxygen is repaid within a few minutes and recovery is so quick that one almost instantly forgets just how painful the experience was. Within moments the body is ready to go running again.

Alas, I persevered and cranked down the Main Street stretch run in fear of being caught by the ever-surging Kenyan runner to record a winning time of 16:53, 34 seconds ahead of the second place David. I had certainly run (very) hard, gone severely into oxygen debt, and turned the legs over significantly (my main goals for the race), but I hadn't really known what to expect for a 5K at 10,000'. I am pleased with the result, and, combined with my many mountain runs will head into this weekend's Leadville Marathon with some fairly high expectations, mostly time-related. It is pretty amusing that my lifetime 5K PR (from 2001) is 16:31, run at an altitude of 1500'.

Leadville 100 Course Weekend

(Looking south from Hope Pass: 14ers Oxford, Belford, and Missouri on the left.)

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I awoke this morning with an ache in my legs. I burrowed down into my bag, rolled onto my right side in a semi-fetal position, and fully extended my legs. Grooooaaan, that feels nice, but still that same ache. Due to all my injuries over the past year, I haven't had the pleasure of that type of early morning sensation in my legs for quite some time. It is a feeling that is only brought on by lots and lots of running.

The running I did over the weekend was planned to give me a sense for where I am fitness-wise on the Leadville 100 course. This is ground that I've run quite extensively, and often while in the best shape of my life, so it offers a useful barometer for ascertaining where I am and what I need to work on.

Saturday's run covered the first 40 miles of the course: starting in Leadville at the corner of 6th and Harrison, down the Boulevard, around Turquoise Lake, up and over Sugarloaf, through the dreaded road section, and then finally finishing with nine rolling miles of buttery singletrack into Twin Lakes. It's a fast 40 miles of running to be sure, with only about 3000' of vertical spread over two semi-significant climbs.

Prior to this past weekend I hadn't run over four hours since a double-crossing of the Grand Canyon way back in November, so I didn't have a lot of confidence in going this far. Nevertheless, in the past, I've been a bit slow and maybe too relaxed on the run down to Mayqueen during the race, so on Saturday I decided to experiment a bit with a marginally faster initial pace.

A run like this assumes a very specific, goal-oriented nature. If this particular route weren't that of a race, I would never run it. It's simply too uninteresting, and quite frankly, includes too much road (especially when there's a perfectly good singletrack trail that would get you to the same place; alas, it resides in the Mt. Massive Wilderness Area, where organized races aren't typically allowed) and not enough hills. Yet, I have goals, and am willing and curious enough to occassionally sacrifice a little aesthetic appeal and running pleasure to satisfy such priorities.

The day went well with me covering the Leadville to Twin Lakes portion of the LT100 in 5:06. I may have been running off a little angst about not running in California that morning (nothing but complete respect and admiration for my buddy Hal, however). Life became difficult in the expected spots (long, monotonous sections of smooth road), but I was reminded of quite possibly the number one rule of ultrarunning: it doesn't always keep getting worse. One hundred mile runs, and even a forty mile run, are so long that the body tends to go through multiple peaks and valleys of energy and metabolism. The mind's will ebbs and flows. One's legs can ache irritatingly and seemingly without reason, and then be completely rejuvenated by sometimes the most confounding of stimuli (a precipitously steep uphill? a handful of salt? what kind of world is this that I live in?).

But this is (part of) the beauty of the endeavor. If I simply persevere, it is likely that something satisfying will occur. That "thing" may only be a mere finish of the ordeal--the run, the race, the climb--but when that run or race continues for hours upon hours upon miles, or that climb extends for thousands of vertical feet, merely finishing takes on a much greater depth of meaning.

Of course, for some of us, we like to operate with the hubris that "just finishing" is no longer such a big deal and that "finishing this thing as fast as possible" is a worthy objective. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I do know that striving to "finish as fast as possible" takes me much, much closer to flirting with that fringe-laden edge where life can either quite quickly go to shit or propel you into an indescribably satisfying blaze of achievement, personal transcendence.

And so Saturday went. I scooted surprisingly effortlessly down the final hill into Twin Lakes, a hill I had not run for two years--not since my participation in the 2007 Leadville Trail 100--punched my watch at the aid station garage, sat down in the shade, peeled my filthy shoes off, and reveled in the glow of a distance well run. For sure, I could not have run another 60 miles at a similar intensity, but it was a satisfying confidence-builder nonetheless.

Sunday's run was essentially the antithesis of Saturday's. Hope Pass is at once terrifying and inspiring. It sits there at the mid-point of the Leadville 100, waiting to be scaled not once but twice, precisely when things are just typically starting to get a little bit above-average tough--due to the accreted mileage--anyways. So, running that pass twice is a good thing to rehearse. Additonally, it is gorgeous. The 12,600' pass enjoys grand views of numerous 14,000' peaks and boasts extremely well-constructed--but still steep--trail nearly the entire way.

On Sunday, I was happy to be running with tired legs. Saturday's forty miler would give Sunday's Hope Double-Crossing a more authentic tinge of tightness, soreness, and fatigue as to what could be expected in the actual event. The first 3400' climb went well. Maybe better than it has ever gone before. My diligent scaling of the area's 14ers seemed to have been paying off and I trotted up and over the alpine summit with unexpected ease.

(Coming into the ~12k' meadow on the north side of Hope; LT100 '07)

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The descent down the other side never ceases to shock me. Every year, my first run down the south side of Hope Pass almost always disheartens me. The bottom half is steep. It pounds the shit out of my quads. And the entire time you know that you just have to turn around--after visiting Winfield--and grunt back up the thing.

Which, of course, is exactly what I did. However, somewhere in the pounding descent, a gel--100 calories of life-giving sugar--managed to shake itself loose from my shorts pocket, leaving me to fend for myself among the rocks and roots and leaves. What, oh what, was I going to do without my sugar? Bonk, that's what. I started the second, 2800' (in 2.5 miles) climb with optimism: the first climb had gone well, why shouldn't this one? I thought for sure my snail's pace ascent would allow me to re-locate my errant Tri-Berry Gu foil packet amongst it's exceedingly more organic surroundings and I would just get the opportunity to slurp it down anyways. Finally, I knew I should complete the climb before three hours of running was up--my usual longest gel-less run length.

Some marmot must've happened upon a tasty breakfast. I did not spot the gel, and I suffered. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. But it did bring into stark relief the absurdity that ultrarunning can bring out in life. How can a packet of Gu become so important? The trickle of a spring? The relief of some shade? I was happily skittering giddily along that fringed edge.

Ultimately, the final climb of the day did not suffer too badly. I climbed as quickly as I ever have during a double crossing and the descent down the gentler northern side was enjoyed. The shallowness of one's energy reserves are not as easily exploited when gravity is on your team and not the opposing's.

Afterwards, in the positively raging Lake Creek, I sat, braced against the snowmelt rush. The hot, high-altitude sun on my upper body could not stave off the goose-bumps brought on by the swirling water. Chafing under my arms smarted. From whence my fitness has come I am still not sure.

Mt. Elbert

The public radio station (91.7FM, out of...Golden? Maybe?) is broadcasting the fantastic music program, World Cafe. Wisconisin band Bon Iver's excellent track Skinny Love strums through the speakers. I sit and read about the revolution occurring in Iran. I try to imagine what it would be like to live in a society where the government gets away with killing protesters. Relatively, running to the top of a mountain doesn't seem so important.

And yet, that is what I do the next morning. Mt. Elbert beckons. The highest point in the state at 14,440', and only 65 feet below California's Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous U.S. As a geologist, I wish I had a more coherent--or any, actually--explanation for why so many mountains fall within in the seemingly arbitrary 14000-14,500' range. Something to do with weathering and age of orogeny I'm sure.

As a result of this distinction, the Elbert trails are well-traveled, even mid-week. I pass my first hikers well before treeline, but they certainly aren't the last. I fight the desire to feel so possessive of the mountain, as if I should have it all to myself. There is nothing special about me or my chosen activity for this trail, and yet, this default selfishness is hard to fight past in my mind. I harbor a low-level dread for the customary, trivial interactions that I am forced to engage in upon meeting/passing each hiker.

Part of this, I suppose, has to do with the relationship I have with running in the mountains. I am not likely to be mistaken for a religous person, but upon reflection--while awash in a post-run glow, maybe lying beside a rushing mountain stream--running up a mountain takes on a meaning of almost sacred dimensions. The mountains are where I worship, where I honor and experience whatever greater oneness or connectedness there is in the world. As a result, disruptions can be...just that. Plus, there ain't a lot of extra air to waste with talking.

Above tree-line, the switchbacks seem to take on a predictable rhthym: I turn to my right and am greeted with steepness, a slight overdraft on my account of available energy and general muscular responsiveness; I turn to my left and the trail is discernibly flatter, my stride subtly lengthens and I am allowed a slight recovery.

At about 12,700', the trail flattens considerably in preparation for skirting a formerly glacial cirque, the headwaters of Box Creek. From my current vantage point, the top of this cirque erroneously appears to be the top of the mountain--the first of many false summits on this peak. The flat section reminds me of a stretch of the South Kaibab Trail on the Skeleton Ridge of the Grand Canyon in that it offers a brief respite at approximately the half-way point of a consummately arduous ascent, and then proceeds to climb even more steeply. Mt. Elbert is conspicuously without oppressive heat, ankle-deep red dust, and mules, however.

(Flat trail leading to the steep climb past the cirque, to a false summit.)

The summit cone of Elbert is still mostly covered in snow, but previous footprints afford a convenient if inconsistent staircase of sorts to the top. After much effort and multiple wellings of false hope, I am finally there: the highest point in Colorado, the apex of the morning's run, the cessation of significant effort. But, someone forgot to tell me about the party. The top of the mountain is veritably crawling with people. Nearly a dozen or so folks from Wichita alone. A portly fellow sporting an enormous backpack, full ear-coverage noise-canceling headphones, and a t-shirt with a "Polska" insignia. Can I take his picture? Sure, why not.

Again with the selfishness. Am I really that bad of a person? I guess so. It doesn't help that I--wearing only shoes, shorts, and a watch, with a 3 oz. jacket stashed in my waistband--am so obviously different from every other person up there. But so it goes. The morning is stunning in its beauty. The sky is indescribably blue. Royal blue. Like the blue you would paint a house. There is not a hint of haze. And eventually the crowd leaves, disperses, descends.

And eventually I do to, after a few moments alone. On the descent it occurs to me that running up a mountain could be seen, in its own way, as an act of protest. A temporary flinging aside of all the things that constantly clamor for our attention. An outrageous confirmation of agency in a world where we can often feel a little lost in the shuffle. At its core, for me it is the most authentic expression of personal freedom I can conceive. And, if nothing else, it is selfish. But, for now, I am okay with that.

Kokomo Pass and Area Peaks

Sometimes you must wait. I had planned on doing this run on the Colorado Trail on Saturday, but when I awoke the day was cloudy and dark even though the sun should've already been making it's daily arc across the sky. Low clouds, heavy with moisture, scooted past the surrounding peaks. I anticipated thunderstorms and lightning, which is never a fun thing above tree-line, so instead opted for a comparatively tame thirty miles on the Leadville 100 course around Turquoise Lake and up and over Sugarloaf Pass. Shortly after my run it began raining and didn't stop until the sun went down. I had made a good decision.

Sunday morning started in much the same way, however. When I awoke to rain tapping lightly on The Roost's roof I merely grunted and rolled over, taking refuge beneath a thick layer of goose-down. Thirty minutes later, I gave up sleeping and resorted to reading; waiting, waiting for the rain to stop. Of course, it eventually did.

The Colorado Trail between Camp Hale and Copper Mountain Resort has two 12,000' high points, Kokomo and Searle Passes. I eyed this section of trail on the map mostly because it promised a substantial amount of time above tree-line and because of its proximity to Leadville. Plus, a double-crossing of a mountain range between two highways (Highways 24 and 91) sounded neat.

I made quick work of the 2700' climb to 12,022' Kokomo Pass. Whenever I am on the Colorado Trail my mind inevitably wanders to the prospect of running the entire length in one go. My friends Hal and Ian had run a then-record effort of nine days or so back in 2003, and I tried to imagine what it must've been like to toil up a pass such as this with so many miles behind you and so many more lying ahead. Daunting, I would guess.

(Looking towards the northern Sawatch, from Kokomo Pass)

At Kokomo, the trail traverses the northeast-facing side of Elk Ridge, contouring at 12,000'. This is where the snow began. Colorado's unseasonably wet and cool spring has delayed melting in the high country, and the portion of the CT between Kokomo and Searle Pass was no exception.

No matter. One of my favorite things about running is its versatile nature, its infinite adaptability. Before mechanized travel and the domestication of beasts the best way to get around quickly was on one's own two feet at a steady, sustainable aerobic pace. Our own soles were the first--and are still the best, in my opinion--all-terrain vehicle.

By sticking to the grassy tundra of the high ridges and peaks in the area--12,000 to 12,600'--I was able to stay clear of any significant snow and enjoy the unfettered freedom of true cross-country running. Additionally, I was afforded the luxury of unparalleled views of Mount of the Holy Cross and the Mosquito and Ten-Mile Ranges.

In high school and college "cross-country" had meant relatively flat and fast anaerobic sufferfests of 5K or 8K in length, typically over an outrageously manicured and watered, golf-course grass surface. Conversely, cross-country running on the alpine tundra of Colorado hews a bit closer to the phrase's literal meaning: I'm standing "here" and I'm going to run across that majestic landscape to "over there" and maybe come back. I much prefer the latter.

As a result of my off-trail exploits, I was granted the view from many lesser summits in the 12,400-12,600' range: Corbett Peak, Sheep Mountain, and North and East Sheep Mountains. Despite the snow, it was still an idyllic day with almost 2hrs of above-treeline time followed by a requisite dip in the Eagle River. And I now know that waiting for this particular section of trail to fully melt out will be worth it.

Mt. Antero and Boulder Peaks

The past two days have granted me the fortune of many a summit view. I am often queried by folks for advice regarding running training, usually for ultramarathons, and I almost always feel somewhat sheepish in my response. I know that people are merely interested in what, empirically, has worked for at least one individual to achieve a certain measure of success in a discipline that they themselves are interested in maximizing their respective potentials, but I'm always afraid that people will feel a bit miffed when they hear my seemingly overly-simple approach.

When I left the frustrations of my collegiate running and racing career behind, I resolved to follow a much more intuitive, mountain/trail-based, often excessive, typically fueled-by-joy, approach to my running that doesn't easily lend itself to the logic and rationality of more typical running performance programs.

So, my advice is typically: think of what inspires you and use that to fuel your running. I happen to be pretty intensely inspired by mountains, so as a result of doing it consistently, and doing it with joy, over the course of a season I tend to improve at the singular skill of running up and down mountains. Which is typically what trail ultramarathons ask us to do. So that is what I do in my training. I run up and down mountains. Not coincidentally, I enjoy it. To a certain degree, I believe in doing the things that make me happy. (I'm not entirely prepared for an in-depth discussion of the finer points of John Stuart Mills' theory of Utilitarianism, so I'll just leave it at that.)

This week has seen me run up and down a lot of mountains.

On Wednesday I needed to be in Boulder for a meeting regarding my graduate research, so I planned for an early morning of running up mountains before my 9:30am appointment. Boulder's western skyline is dominated by the uniquely slicing profiles of the Flatiron peaks, three in particular: Green Mountain, Bear Peak, and South Boulder Peak, all of which top out somewhere between approximately 8100' and 8500'.

(Flatirons of Boulder, CO)

I've run Bear and Green a few times before, but there seemed to be a certain pleasing symmetry or aesthetic to summiting all three in the course of a single run. Additionally, I wanted a full tour of what will soon become my backyard, home ascents. However, after 2:20 minutes of running, and a total of four summits (Bear twice), I knew that I'd be attempting the next day's run with an unadvised level of residual fatigue.

(Mt. Antero, 14,269')

On Wednesday evening, my buddy Alex and I sat on the tail gate of my S-10 pickup with its convenient, hinged loft and fiberglass cap--my cozy living quarters of The Roost--and ingested our respective dinners. I chowed on PB&J after PB&J while Alex drank cold soup from the can. Deep in the valley carved by Chalk Creek, Mt. Antero and Mt. Princeton looked down on us from either side. The occasional mosquito buzzed. We discussed the possibility of giardia in Baldwin Creek. I contemplated a third PB&J.

Suddenly, a beat-up red Jeep Wrangler came bombing down the rough Mt. Antero road at an alarming rate. The vehicle rolled to a stop at our roadside pull-out and bobbed ominously. Alex commented on the clearly broken front left shock.

The driver leapt from his seat with a swagger as if the endless jouncing of his downhill ride had affected his inner ear. It probably had. With his stringy hair in a ponytail, John Lennon glasses, a Lebowski goatee, and dust-covered clothes, this man was a sight.

"You fellas headed up the hill tomorrow?"

"Yup." I'd decided on the third sandwich and was in mid-construction.

"What for?"

A worthy question, but a bit strange coming from another human being that had clearly just been somewhere up on that hill. Indeed, why were Alex and I going to run up that hill tomorrow morning?

"To see the view." The smart-ass in me takes over sometimes.

"A lot folks go up there for a lot of different reasons. I've got a claim up there with aquamarine in it. I'll give you guys something with zero agenda and expecting nothing in return."

With that he reached into the pockets of his filthy jeans and pulled out two of the tiniest crystals of somewhat bluish-colored, quartz-looking material. Neat. He happily roared away in his Jeep that was visibly listing to the left.

The next morning, we enjoyed precisely 19 seconds of flat warm-up before leaning into the 8 1/2 mile hill that lay before us and getting to work. Antero features an excellent mining/jeep road for 7 1/2 miles of the climb. At 13,700' the road ends on a flat shoulder where the aquamarine can be found. Alex commented on how the surrounding mountains looked like the Alps. A certain amount of snow is decidedly aesthetically pleasing.

(Final switchbacks leading to the 13,700' shoulder.)

A certain amount of wind is not. For the last mile of the climb, our existence became that of merely surviving the wind. Fighting, defying, pleading with the wind. The trail climbed straight up a steep talus ridge for the last 500' of vertical and on this we entered that world where emotional objectivity disappears and only the screaming, unflinching, uncaring wail of the cosmos can be heard. It could be terrifying if one lets it.

And then, as if we'd entered the eye of a hurricane, the very pinnacle of the mountain was an incredible, eery refuge from the battle being waged immediately below. Alex and I sat at the summit, amazed. Sitting on the summit of a 14,000' mountain in central Colorado is like standing on a bluff on the California coast and staring west into the incomprehensible vastness of the Pacific Ocean. The immensity of the void, the sheer scale of the landscape, the unquantifiable nature of what you are viewing, is, most of all, humbling. I am nothing. These mountains simply don't care. Despite all usual evidence to the contrary, I am clearly not the center of the universe.

But then the Canadians we'd passed on the way up huff their way to the summit, the spell is broken, and it is time to go. Alex and I step not three feet below the peak and the raging hurricane returns. The next 10 minutes are, upon reflection, comically hair-raising with the wind trying with all its might to send us spiraling into the great beyond, but soon enough we are back down to the road, have once again shed our shirts, and tuck into the glorious descent with the giddy glee that can only be induced by having just touched the top of a mountain. It never gets old.

(A view of the descent.)

Mt. Massive

(Was a mountain ever more appropriately named?)

Running up a big mountain is dramatic on so many levels. But, Mt. Massive sneaks up on you. The drama is given a chance to build gradually, first climbing easily out of the creek valley, then striding oh-so-comfortably contouring through the trees with the morning sunlight filtering through to occasionally warm my numb hands, and then the trail turns upward and I'm out of the trees and on the tundra and holy shit, THAT is a mountain, until suddenly there I am toiling up an impossibly steep slope, stubbornly refusing to give into the storm raging inside my skull, the world seems to be screaming so loudly that eventually it drowns out even the internal voices imploring me to walk, stop, sit, repose, rest.

Like I said, dramatic. If one could simply summon the presence of mind to objectively look at the situation, the absurdity and general calm would be obvious. However, stuck in my head, in my situational psychic reality, it feels as if the world is falling to pieces around my ears. A pleasant breeze is elevated to the level of howling gale, every simple rock step-up becomes a nearly insurmountable obstacle. If only the trail were always as consistently smooth and forgiving as this short stretch of sublime alpine singletrack I could emotionally bear the thought of continuing my cadence all the way to the summit. But it's not, it quickly turns back into the rock-strewn, ice-encrusted rut that is the norm.

But therein lies the beauty of grinding inexorably up a mountain face. Eventually, thought is forced to cease existence. It can no longer be born. It is the only way I can cope. I somehow even forget that I want to walk. Don't look up, don't look at the summit--for chrissakes don't look at the summit!--it's simply too soul-crushing to contemplate the objective, the final reprieve, whilst laboring at what feels to be the absolute zenith of effort. At what cannot possibly be a sustainable effort. But, of course, by turning off one's goal-oriented brain, it becomes sustainable.

Why? Because, all I really have to do is take one more calculated, perfectly-placed, as-efficient-as-possible footstep. Certainly I can take one more step? Of course, and, little by little, the ground is covered, the delta elevation is scaled, the absolute presence is experienced. Nothing else even exists but the here and now of inching my way up this goddamn mountain. And that, my friends (a phrase I will never look at the same way again, courtesy of John McCain), is an indescribably beautiful, important thing. It is living. In the end, it's all there really is.

And, thankfully, running (uphill, without much oxygen, it seems usually) is the one thing I've been fortunate enough in this life to find that reliably transports me to that psychic/emotional space of living, relentless, rife with effort (suffering?), but somehow, unexplainably fulfilled. Filled with life.

And then I get to the top. And my organism can't even express how ecstatic it is to be asked to do nothing else but BREATHE. Enormous, gulping, body-consuming breaths that each originate somewhere deep in my thorax, my spine, my soul. Hands on knees, elbows locked, praying to the decomposed granite between the toes of my shoes, I sway slightly, dizzily, in the ubiquitous mountaintop wind and, not so much inhale but consume the delicious, sweet, chilled air.

Finally, gradually again, on the downhill, making my way back into the valley carved by Halfmoon Creek between Mt. Massive and Mt. Elbert, I re-enter the world where the mind wanders, thinking of other things than the task at hand, deftly stepping over roots and rocks, so unconsciously engrossed in something else that I forget to stop and drink from the spring that saturates the trail just after Willow Creek. But, that's okay, because for at least the next 24 hours, my psyche will be nourished by the fact that--for at least some, nontrivial amount of time--I was there, I was in it--life--and nowhere else.

Leadville

(14,421' Mt. Massive watching over the town of Leadville)

This morning, on my jaunt down to Turquoise Lake, I noticed that the leaves on the aspen trees lining The Boulevard have only just reached a stage that could be considered anything beyond merely "budding". It is mid-June. Down on the Front Range, or in my home state of Nebraska, temps have typically moved on to the consistent 90F range by now, and the fact that it feels like summer is generally without dispute. Not in Leadville, at 10,152'.

(Mt. Massive as seen from the shores of Turquoise Lake)

It rained here briefly yesterday evening, as I was snugly burrowed into my sleeping bag, nose in a book (David Foster Wallace's mammoth opus, Infinite Jest), dry, courtesy of the fiberglass shell a foot above my head. I thought nothing of the quick (but shockingly violent, as most high mountain weather cells are) shower, but as I strided comfortably shirtless down my narrow dirt path this morning I was mildly surprised to see a fresh dusting of snow above tree-line on the Sawatch and Mosquito Ranges, shimmering in the morning sun.

The gently undulating profile and soft, decomposed pine needle padding of the trail on the shores of Turquoise Lake provided my legs with a welcome respite from the more rugged surfaces and arduous grades that I've pursued this week.

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(Sugarloaf Pass, 11,200': mile 20, LT100 '06)

On Mount Princeton, Bald Eagle Mountain (reached by ascending the Leadville 100's famed Powerlines climb to Sugarloaf Pass), and Prospect Mountain earlier in the week I'd begun the process of acclimating my legs and chest to the rigors of running extended up- and downhills without the aid of more standard amounts of barometric pressure to force the oxygen into my lungs.

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(Padding around Turquoise Lake, mile 94, LT100 '06)

I remember a camping trip that my family took to the Canadian Rockies in 1995, my first summer of running. Doing loops around the campgrounds in the evenings, I couldn't figure out why I was never able to achieve the same feelings of relaxation and comfort that I could while running at home in Nebraska. It wasn't until later that I learned of the effects of altitude on aerobic performance. Nevertheless, it was trips like that--hiking to alpine, glacial lakes, sitting around campfires at night--that unconsciously provided the impetus for me to permanently gravitate towards the higher elevations as an adult.

Of all the towns that I've been to, in my mind Leadville's geography is only rivaled by Silverton or Ouray in it's ability to provide inspiration and instant access to the contiguous U.S.'s highest mountains. And I would argue that Leadville has the single best 360 degree skyline with the towering Sawatch Range to the west, the Continental Divide wrapping around to the north, and the 13-14,000' ridge of the Mosquito Range directly to the east. Leadville sits so high, and the peaks of the two highest mountains in Colorado--Elbert and Massive--are so imposing, that it's easy to forget that the bump of Mt. Sherman right behind town crests 14,000' as well. I am grateful to be here.

Creede

Mountain stream water is not supposed to be orange. Yet, the water flowing out of the Commodore Mine’s Nelson Tunnel portal and into West Willow Creek (which, in turn empties into the mighty Rio Grande about a mile and a half later) about one mile north and upstream from Creede, CO makes the adjective “rusty” seem quaint. “Intriguing”, “repulsive”, and “toxic” seem more appropriate.

As a runner whose preferred environment is the alpine landscapes of Colorado, I have been an unfortunate witness to innumerable examples of this type of water due to Colorado’s rich mining history. Most of my favorite launching pads for trail runs in this state—Leadville, Aspen, Silverton, Ouray—began as mining boom towns where environmental concerns (The mountains are so big! We could never permanently mess them up!) couldn’t be bothered with when there was so much money to make.

As a result, waste rock from mines was piled where ever was most convenient and watershed hydrology was never even considered. In the case of the Commodore Mine in Creede—as with all kinds of mines all over the Mountain West—thousands upon thousands of cubic yards of waste material was dumped directly into West Willow Creek where exposure to air and water oxidizes the iron pyrite (FeS2) and other sulfides in the ore resulting in extremely acidic creek water (typically a pH of 3 or 4) that in turn sends the heavy metals in the waste rock (all sorts of frightening stuff: zinc, lead, copper, cadmium, manganese, even arsenic) into solution where it then flows downstream and typically disallows the existence of any kind of significant organic life. Vegetation and fish cease to exist. The water is clearly unfit for human consumption. It can’t even be used to irrigate crops as it kills the crops and/or collects in them in unhealthy levels. Fun stuff.

This sort of blowback from Colorado’s mining heritage makes mining easy to hate. However, the fact is, mining is an integral part of human history in the state, and most towns’ historical identities revolve around it. This cannot easily be ignored or trivialized. Nevertheless, it also doesn’t do anything about the ongoing ecological disasters that continue to occur across the state.

Now, as part of my becoming a graduate student at the University of Colorado in Boulder, I will be spending the next two years learning a lot and ultimately contributing to the reclamation of Creede’s Commodore Mine by parsing out the finer details of the hydrology of the West Willow Creek watershed and ultimately of the Commodore Mine itself. The goal is to come up with a sustainable, workable solution to stopping the flow of acidic water out of the mine and into the creek.

Creede, like many Colorado mining towns, is a visually stunning place. The region’s extensive historical volcanic activity has resulted in a landscape of towering volcanic tuff cliffs that are several hundred feet tall, idyllic aspen-covered mountains, and roiling mountain streams that is all located at the foot of the impossibly high reaches of the snow-capped Continental Divide a few miles out of town.

The mountain running is outstanding. The town itself sits at 8800’ on the banks of the Rio Grande River. The single track Wason trail is available one block off of Main Street and climbs immediately into the surrounding mountains. Within 1h15 I was above treeline in Wason Park—a strange, perfectly flat tundra plateau at 11,800’—and marveling at the cloud-enshrouded reaches of La Garita Peak (13,707') and the Continental Divide directly in front of me as a herd of a dozen elk galloped away from me across the massive meadow.

Additonally, Creede--for an old mining town--has a pretty vibrant tourism industry. Although only about 300 people live there, the town maintains a downtown/Main Street with varied shops and classic, old Victorian buildings and there is even a fair bit of culture. There are a number of art galleries, but the main draw is the historic Creede Repertory Theatre. I look forward to going back.

My participation in this project is not an accident. It is all motivated by my deep connection and appreciation for the mountains that I am privileged enough to run in on a daily basis, and I expect that working to improve the health of those mountain’s watersheds—all while learning, respecting, and preserving the cultural history endemic to the region—will be as fulfilling an activity as actually running through them.