Aug 5 - 11

8/5/2013
Mon-AM: 2:36, 5000' ~ Mt. Almagre (12,400')
Parked at the lot above Helen Hunt Falls again (7500') and ran up 7 Bridges to the N. Cheyenne Creek trail, which becomes a proper goat path after you leave Pipeline and stay next to the creek. Made it to the dam at 12k' in 1:23 and then continued on to the north summit, reaching it at 1:37. Kind of a cool hint in the air that felt ever-so-slightly like fall is on the way. Descended the exact same way I came up.

8/6/2013
Tue-AM: 7:35, 13,000' ~ Pikes Peak-Intemann-Sect. 16-666-Buckhorn-High Drive-Sect. 16-Intemman
Decided to take advantage of the smooth, runnable Springs trails to get in a proper running long run in preparation for UTMB (most of my longer efforts the last couple of years have included large chunks of hiking and/or scrambling that don't provide quite the same sustained training effect of running every step, in my opinion). Parked at Memorial Park in Manitou Springs and started off the day with a Pikes Peak Marathon in 4:09, 2:34 ascent and 1:35 descent. Running up Ruxton, I bumped into Peter Maksimow and we ran to Barr Camp together in 1:19 from the starting line (68min from Hydro), chatting all the way. I appreciated the early company on what was otherwise going to be a long, solo outing. The upper half of the mountain wasn't as casual as I would've liked---I always seem to struggle on this mountain---and I was only able to manage a desultory 43min split for the last 3mi. I would've thought my deep acclimation would've allowed me to go 40min or so. Ah well. I didn't even stop to go inside the tourist-mobbed summit house because I didn't have a shirt with me, and just turned at the marathon turnaround and started the descent, knowing I had a long day ahead of me still. Took it casual on the way down, keeping a steady groove, but never pushing. After hitting the finish at the bottom of Ruxton I continued back over to my truck at Memorial for a re-stock on gels (I'd eaten 3 on Pikes) to fuel the second half of the run. From the Roost, I ran up Crystal Park Road to catch the rolling Intemann Trail over to the Section 16 climb. From Manitou to the top of the Section 16 loop is approximately a 2k' climb, and it went really well despite the 90F heat and the 8k' of vert already in my legs. No problem running the whole way; I suppose the extra oxygen helps. From the top of Sect 16 it's a super cruisy 1k' descent to High Drive and then another 2k' climb in ~3mi up the 666 trail. I felt strong on this, but by time I got to the top I was super dehydrated---enough so that I drank from Bear Creek at the top; probably not a great idea. The water helped a ton, though, and the rest of the run I felt quite strong---down High Drive, and then another 1000' climb back up around Section 16 before finishing the run back to Manitou on the Intemann Trail. Great run.

8/7/2013
Wed-AM: 2:14, 5300' ~ 1st-3rd-5th Flatirons+Green+1st Flatiron
Biked to Chat. Awesome morning on the flatties...nice and cool and overcast, so scrambling was a real pleasure. After various creaks and crinks had loosened up my body and energy was actually really good considering yesterday's big outing and I just generally had a blast. Got me really excited about the fall scrambling/climbing season post-UROC.

8/8/2013
Thu-AM: 2:38, 5200' ~ Longs Peak
Up Loft/Skyline Traverse, down Cables. With Joe. Easy effort on tired legs, but a morning on Longs is always a blast. Showed Joe the downclimb into the Notch, which is fun, and then took the Stepladder to the summit. Cool, foggy, cloudy weather lower down on the Front Range, but a really nice day up high.

8/9/2013
Fri-AM: 2:29, 5000' ~ Longs Peak
Up NW Gully, down Cables. Great run, energy is back after Tuesday's long effort. After passing through the Keyhole I left the crowds and scrambled up the NW Gully, which is mostly 4th Class but has maybe 50' of easy, but wet, 5th Class. After the crux, it mellows to Class 3 and joins the spectacular  finish to the Keyhole Ridge. 1h35 to the summit, and then I took it pretty easy on the way down, scouting different options below treeline.

8/10/2013
Sat-AM: 2:05, 5000' ~ Longs Peak
Up and down the Cables. Decided it was time to really take a shot at going fast on Longs, establish a legit PR for myself. Ended up tagging the summit in 1:21:29 and descending in 44:24 for a roundtrip of 2:05:53. A little surprisingly, there were bits of fresh snow on the north face and the usual wet spots were all ice. This wasn't really an issue on the way up, but it probably slowed my descent by a minute or so as I had to be careful in the shady spots, and of course on the Cables downclimb itself. All in all, pretty happy with the effort. Chris Reveley ran 2:04:27 way back in 1979 (a couple weeks after he ran 3:39 to win the Pikes Peak Marathon), and Andy Anderson went 2:02:54 in 2011 and 1:56:46 almost exactly a year ago to establish, what is, to me, a pretty notable FKT (consider that he then went and set the Grand Teton FKT a couple weeks later, besting Kilian's effort--obviously he was in fantastic form after a summer of rangering on Longs Peak). I'm not the best pure hill climber so I knew I'd never approach his 1:14 ascent, but I was hoping to sneak under 1:20. Alas, running fast uphill at altitude is hard work.

8/11/2013
Sun-AM: 2:39, 5000' ~ Longs Peak
Up Kieners, down Cables. Woke up an hour late, which meant that I ended up running into a bit of weather that could've otherwise been avoided. As I was working my way up the Glacier Rib (scrambling next to Lambs Slide) a pretty dark-looking cloud was building just off to the north despite it only being 9:30am or so, but there were enough gaps in the sky to keep me confident. Once I entered Broadway, though, I started getting pretty nervous. Even though I hadn't heard any thunder or seen any lightning, the east face of Longs is just a very exposed-feeling place, so I suppose that was affecting my confidence. As such, I scampered up to the summit (1:44) as quick as I could and barely paused before heading down the north face over rock that was slick from the night's rain. There were plenty of other people standing around nonchalantly on the summit, but I don't like lightning, or even the prospect of it. As it would turn out, I didn't hear any thunder until I was literally 2min from the car, and then it started raining quite hard.

Hours: 22h16min
Vert: 43,500'

Really good week of running before heading over to Europe tomorrow for the next month.. Quality long effort on Tuesday,  and a good, hard sustained bit of up-tempo running yesterday, so I feel like I have all my bases covered. This morning was my 25th Longs Peak summit this year, and 40th lifetime. Part of me doubts that I'll see the 50 summits I was initially hoping for this year, but so far I've definitely gotten to know a lot of different routes on the mountain.

Downclimbing into the Notch on Longs Peak on Thursday. Photo: Joe Grant.

Stepladder: the pitch of 5.5 leading to the skyline and summit of Longs Peak after exiting the Notch.

  More Montreal action.

July 29 - Aug 4

7/29/2013
Mon-AM: 3:44, 7100' ~ Grand Teton
Up and down via Owen-Spalding. Still pretty tired from Speedgoat, duh. Lazy 2:16 up, 1:28 down. Nasty weather was lingering to the west all the way up, so I spent very little time on the summit, fearing electricity in the clouds. Just as I got past the Belly Crawl and back to the Upper Saddle it started snowing quite hard, which was interesting, and then it was raining on me the last 20min before the parking lot. Always good to get up this mountain, though.

7/30/2013
Tue-AM: 3:50, 5600' ~ Teewinot
Jodee wanted to go up a mountain, and I needed an easy day, so we decided on Teewinot. Strong hiking on the climber's trail (only a few minutes slower than when I'd done it on Sunday) but then the last 1500' of mostly 4th Class terrain (understandably) slowed Jodee down. Tagged the summit in 2:15 and then took our time getting back down through the techy stuff before jogging back down to the cars. Weather didn't move in as quickly today, which was fortunate.

7/31/2013
Wed-AM: 3:27, 7100' ~ Grand Teton
Up and down the O-S again. I had to be back in SLC in the evening, so decided I needed another lap on the Grand before the drive. Yesterday's easy outing definitely helped and I felt quite a bit better today, going up in 2:07 and descending in 1:20. I lost a bunch of time on the descent, though, as it took me several tries to find the correct chimneys to complete the O-S downclimb. Legs felt much better on the descent than they did two days ago, though.

8/1/2013
Thu-AM: 2:51, 6000' ~ Twin Peaks, SLC
Up Stairs Gulch and down Broad Forks with Joel. I didn't pull into SLC until late last night, so I was pretty groggy this morning. Stairs Gulch is a pretty great line, ascending a vertical mile in ~3mi to the 11,300' Twin Peaks. Lots of Class 2 and 3 terrain marching up low-angled slabs of slate and schist with a few moves of Class 4 thrown in. We opted to make it a loop and descend the trail, where I nearly stepped on a groggy rattlesnake. Finished with a fast mile+ running the road back down to the car. Always fun getting out for a scrunble with Joel.

8/2/2013
Fri-AM: 2:20, 5300' ~ Twin Peaks, SLC
I was really indecisive about what I was going to do this morning, so ended up just tagging Twin Peaks again, this time just running up and down the Broad Forks trail. 1:26 to the summit of the East Twin. Ran into two moose on the trail in the upper basin, above the lake.

8/3/2013
Sat-AM: 2:20, 5000' ~ N+S Olympus via West Slabs, SLC
Parked at the junior high school at Oakview Dr just off Wasatch Blvd and ran the streets up to the West Slabs TH. Scramble up the Slabs was a ton of fun, and then lots of scrambling up the ridge to reach Olympus' North summit. The downclimb from there into the saddle below the South summit is definitely the crux of this whole run. Tagged the South summit, and ran the trail easy back down to Wasatch Blvd where I then took the contouring use trail until having to run the road the final mile or so back to the school. Great loop.

8/4/2013
Sun-AM: 2:15, 4500' ~ Mt. Rosa (11,500')
Down in Colorado Springs. Parked at the upper Gold Camp lot (above Helen Hunt Falls), and ran up 7 Bridges to Pipeline to Frosty's Park to the summit of Rosa. Descended Buffalo Canyon to St. Mary's Falls and back to the car. Awesome loop. The trails in the COS are so smooth and runnable, it's really a lot of fun after spending all summer on off-trail, techy terrain. Tagged the summit of Rosa in 1:27 before enjoying one of the funnest, most flowy 4000' descents that I know. Really great trails back there with no one on them.

Hours: 20h47min
Vert: 40,500'

Really fun, varied week of running. Ended up being too tired in the Tetons---and the weather ended up being too uncooperative---to really get in any long days and do any scouting of the Traverse. No worries, though, those mountains are so incredible it's really hard to go wrong.

Also, finally got my Speedgoat 50K race report posted. The 10 days post-Speedgoat were pretty busy for me (Tetons. Outdoor Retailer, visiting family), so I apologize for it probably feeling like old news.

The complicated terrain between Teewinot (in pic) and the Grand Teton (standing on it). Mt. Owen isn't even visible.

A tip from a comment on last week's post turned me on to these guys. Good ol' Montreal, getting things done in the music scene.

Parlovr - 3 songs in a tunnel - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Parlovr - Hell Heaven - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

July 22 - 28

7/22/2013
Mon-AM: 2:33, 5200' ~ Longs Peak
Up the Loft/Beaver/Notch/Stepladder, down Cables. After yesterday's scoping of the downclimb into the Notch with Joel I decided to do the full Skyline Traverse from the Loft and give it a shot. Headed up the ridge from the Loft to the summit of the Beaver is just simple Class 2+ to Class 3 boulder scrambling, but then you get to the summit and the Notch's abrupt and breathtaking abyss. From there, I headed down to the left searching out the descent chimney--it was easy and obvious. After a relatively low-angle 4th Class-ish chimney, the descent eventually cliffs out and there seem to be many options for getting down into the base of the couloir. However, the best looking to me was a traverse to descender's right across a steep, exposed face, but with really solid holds. I think this is the so-called "Gorrell's Traverse". It went fine, and then it was just the Stepladder to summit ridge. Really fun route.

7/23/2013
Tue-AM: 2:38, 5000' ~ Longs Peak
Up Kieners, down Cables. Took it easy today but was still moving well on the mountain. Made the summit at 1:46 (traversing around the top of the Lambs Slide ice to get to Broadway takes an extra 10min more than if I could just kick across the couloir) and then after downclimbing the Cables just cruised easily back down the hill.

7/24/2013
Wed-AM: 2:43, 5000' ~ Longs Peak
Up the Notch Couloir, down Cables. Yesterday I considered climbing the Notch Couloir instead of Kieners, just for a change of scenery, so today I did. While this is typically a snow climb (and would be better as such), it was a fun scramble, too, if a bit loose/gravelly in spots. Once I got to the actual Notch I just took the usual Stepladder finish to the summit. I was a on a hot base to the base of the Notch on Broadway, but then going up the couloir took longer than Kieners normally would. 21st summit of Longs for the year.

7/25/2013
Thu-AM: 1:10, 3000' ~ First Flatiron+Green Mt.
Biked to Chat, cruised a mellow 12:45 scramble on the way to the summit, and ran back down via the front. Cool, humid/drizzly morning, but the rock was dry.

7/26/2013
Fri-AM: 1:02, 1000' ~ Skyline Drive Manti-La Sal Nat'l Forest
Drove to within 90min or so of Salt Lake City yesterday, and then slept in a surprisingly nice spot next to a stream just off the highway. This was an easy out-n-back shake-out jog up a dirt road with a gradual climb on the way out.

7/27/2013
Sat-AM: 5:09, 11,000' ~ Speedgoat 50K
Solid day overall, 2nd place. Didn't quite have enough race course left at the end to catch up to Sage, but was generally happy with my race-day execution and effort. No real low patches (a little bit from mile 15-21), and I thought I closed the last 10mi pretty strongly.

7/28/2013
Sun-AM: 2:41, 5800' ~ Teewinot
Up and down the east face, from Lupine Meadows. Teewinot is the furthest north peak in the Grand Teton massif and the climber's access route provides a very direct grunt to the summit, capped with over 1500' of 4th Class scrambling at the end. I went mellow today, mostly to just get out and get the legs moving. A few hundred feet below the summit I was trending way too far left, but didn't realize my mistake until I ran out of mountain. Ended up having to downclimb ~300' or so to get back on track, but all in all an awesome outing to a super proud summit.

Hours: 18h06min
Vert: 36,000'

Quality week. Lots of fun on Longs Peak earlier in the week, a solid race, and a new Teton summit for me. I should have a report on Speedgoat later in the week.

East face of Teewinot. An inspiring, in-your-face route from the parking lot.

Electric guitar, epic horns, and doo-wopping lady-hipsters. Hard to beat.

July 15 - 21

7/15/2013

Mon-AM: 7:58, 12,000' ~ Chicago Basin 14ers (Eolus, N. Eolus, Sunlight, Windom)
Started from the Purgatory TH. Animas River bridge - :37; Needle Creek bridge - 1:26; New York Creek bridge - 1:47; turn to Twin Lakes - 2:36:30; Eolus summit - 3:45:30; N. Eolus summit - 3:55:30; Twin Lakes - 4:12; Sunlight summit - 4:45; Windom summit - 5:11; turn back on to Needle Creek trail - 5:46; New York Creek bridge - 6:15:30; Needle Creek bridge - 6:28:30; Animas River bridge - 7:14:30; back at trailhead - 7:58:34
It'd been a really stormy few days in the San Juans, but I fortunately awoke to clear skies. After waiting for it to get light enough to run sans headlamp, I took off down the Purgatory trail toward the Animas. This trail descends ~1000' down to the river, but rolls up and down along the way, so it takes a minute. The next 50min of running were flat and quick along perfect, groomed path until I crossed Needle Creek and started heading up that drainage into the Chicago Basin. It was surprisingly wet back in there--moss dripping off of trees, humidity in the air--and the creek itself was exceptionally scenic with lots of water flowing over slabs and down drops. Finally turned on to the trail up to Twin Lakes and decided that I would take the southeast ridge up to the summit of Eolus to make a cleaner loop of the 14ers. Roach calls the south ridge "Discovery Ridge", and it is good fun with lots of 4th Class scrambling, maybe a few 5th-Class moves if you don't take the time for judicious route-finding, and a couple of significant notches that were a little tricky. Tagged the summit under sunny skies (but with clouds building) and scurried down and over the famed Catwalk to the summit of N. Eolus. I took a direct descent off this down into a steep scree couloir that deposited me right at Twin Lakes and then it was lots of slab scrambling to get up to the summit of Sunlight. Dark clouds were building and moving in at that point, so I didn't linger long there before heading over to Windom. I took the most direct line possible up Windom's jumbly northwest face and was slightly relieved when I'd hit the summit and begun descending back to treeline. The clouds never rumbled or really threatened, but after the long run back down to the Animas the skies eventually started rumbling and the final 20min or so of slogging back up to the Purgatory TH I enjoyed a welcome, cooling drizzle. I pushed this last climb hard to sneak in under 8hr, so I was happy it wasn't any hotter than it was. Apparently this whole outing is ~42mi and about 30-32 of that are 100% trail running, so it was nice to get that kind of effort in the legs.

7/16/2013
Tue-AM: 2:05, 3700' ~ Mt. Sneffels
Started from the Imogene Pass Rd turn-off on Camp Bird to make it a little longer run. Up the SW ridge and down the south slopes. It was a really foggy/cloudy/cool morning, so there were no views from the summit and the rocks on the 3rd Class ridge were quite slick. On the descent I was taking a narrow/steep side-couloir to access the standard descent couloir when a microwave-sized block came tumbling down from above. The gully was quite narrow, so I had nowhere to go and just hugged the wall as closely as I could with my hands covering my head. Luckily, it exploded on a small ledge just above me and my neck/shoulder was hit by only a softball-sized rock along with a bunch of smaller stuff. Afterward (and days later) my shoulder was super sore, but the whole thing could've been a lot worse.

7/17/2013
Wed-AM: 4:44, 7500' ~ Little Bear-Blanca-Ellingwood Pt Traverse
Parked the Roost at ~8000' on the Lake Como Rd (~2mi in from the paved road) and ran from there. The run up the 4wd road was pleasant and I reached the east end of Lake Como (where the stream comes in) at 1:14. Continued on up the road and decided on-the-fly that the NW Face of Little Bear looked more appealing/direct than the standard Hourglass route. Crossed the stream higher up at 1:22 and reached the "black hand" at the base of the NW Face route in 1:35. The crux of the whole thing was definitely surmounting the headwall right at the base. The line I picked was probably no more than 4th Class but it was very exposed---there would certainly be a lot more of that later on! After the initial bits of 4th Class the route moved back left into the broad/shallow gully and eased to 3rd Class before kicking back up to 4th Class before gaining the ridge and hitting the summit of Little Bear (2:06). Now for the mile-long low-5th Class traverse over to Blanca. This ridge is super aesthetic and classic and I was excited to get to it. Some 4th Class slabs led down to what I felt was essentially the crux of the route--traversing around Capt Bivwacko tower. I knew to go on the left side of it but was a little shocked at just how narrow, steep, and exposed the ledge was. It made Broadway on Longs look like the comfy superhighway it is. Hands were mandatory on this traverse and I was uncharacteristically gripped. Somewhat surprisingly, the whole first half of the traverse pretty much lived up to the hype with innumerable knife edges (all way more airy than Capitol's much-vaunted Knife Edge) and a couple more hyper-exposed north/west side traverses. It all required way more focus and attention than I had expected. I didn't feel like I was moving very quickly or smoothly, and definitely wasn't getting into the nice flow that I usually enjoy about scrambling. Eventually, though, the large gendarmes on the second half of the ridge showed up and I reached the short talus/scree traverse at 2:46. After this, things seemed considerably more moderate (or at least less exposed) and I moved a lot more efficiently, soon reaching the summit of Blanca at 3:03. Some wispy, swirly clouds had moved in and with the abundant and brilliant sunshine the whole scene was pretty magical. The rest of the day was much less gripping with a fun traverse over to Ellingwood Pt (3:23) and then a descent of its SW ridge (more Class 3) before dropping down a talus chute to the extremely well-maintained trail down in the lake basin. I reached the end of the 4wd road at 3:53, was back at the east end of Lake Como at 3:59, and then it was just a casual run down Como Rd back to the Roost. Awesome morning.

7/18/2013
Thu-AM: 3:21, 6000' ~ Harvard & Columbia (Rabbit Ridge traverse)
Started from the N. Cottonwood TH and had a lot of fun on the long running approach up the Horn Fork Basin. Unlike last summer, I feel like I've been able to get in some longer runs with a lot of true running this year, which is nice. Hit the summit of Harvard at 1:34 and noticed that there were actually already a few clouds building, in the east, oddly enough. I felt on-point for the ridge and it felt like it went quite quickly. I did some investigating around the short 5.7 downclimb notch, but I think the beta I gathered the first time is still the best and it actually goes quite easily. On the second half of the ridge I started bonking really hard, so the hump up to Columbia was a bit of a slog, but I made the traverse in :58, hitting the summit at 2:32. The summit was crazy crowded and clouds were moving in quick so I hustled down Columbia's south ridge, taking the most direct line I could. I spent some time frustratingly 'shwhacking around through young aspens in an avy gulch, but still made the Cottonwood Creek bridge in :37 from Columbia's summit and then just cruised the trail back out to the cars, under increasingly dark/thunderous skies. Glad I was off the peaks/ridge when I was.

7/19/2013
Fri-AM: 2:17, 4000' ~ Flatiron Quartet (1-2-4-5)
Ran from Chat w/ Joel, going 1st, 2nd, 5th, 4th before descending back to Chautauqua. I would've liked to have scurried to the summit of Green, too, but didn't have the time. Super hot morning on the slabs, but, thankfully, some clouds and a cool breeze rolled in toward the end making things tolerable.

7/20/2013
Sat-AM: 2:33, 5200' ~ Longs Peak
Up Kieners, down Cables. Within about a minute or two of the trailhead, my legs felt great and I charged up to Chasm Lake having one of those lovely days where the footing is spot on and nearly any grade seems runnable. However, once I started scrambling up the Glacier Rib, it became obvious that all the hot weather in the past month had shrunk Lambs Slide to a chunk of hard, blue ice and I had definitely missed the "tent peg" window on Kieners for the year. Ah, so it goes. I still got to the Broadway level on PR pace for me, but had to spend an extra 10min climbing up a couple hundred extra feet, traversing across the couloir, and then downclimbing back to Broadway before I could continue on my usual path. Broadway itself was in exceptional shape--dry with only a couple convenient rivulets of water and absolutely bursting with wildflowers. What a place. The scrambling up Kieners went smoothly and was only occasionally damp. I emerged onto the summit to find a veritable mob up there enjoying the perfect day, so only lingered long enough to tally my 17th signature in the summit log before scampering down to the Cables. They turned out to be wet but not icy, so the downclimb was simple, and then it was a fun run back down to the trailhead. I decided to dial in the descending skills heading through Jim's Grove and had a blast plummeting through the forest to finish off the day feeling great and with a descent just under 48min. These are the days I live for.
PM: 1:08, 3000' ~ 1st Flatiron+Green Mt.
Did the customary evening lap. There was a whole bunch of people on the summit of the First, so I didn't even pause and just moved right into the downclimb before heading to the top of the hill. Hot and humid (compared to the high country).

7/21/2013
Sun-AM: 2:53, 5000' ~ Longs Peak
Up Loft/Clark's Arrow/Notch/Stepladder, down Cables. Ran easy with Joel. Clark's Arrow is always a little frustrating because you drop a couple hundred feet from the Loft to get into Keplinger's Couloir, but I think we scoped out Gorrell's Traverse (the downclimb into the Notch from the summit of the Beaver), so I'll try that tomorrow and get the full Skyline Traverse. The Stepladder was a really fun pitch up to the skyline finish leading to the summit; wish it was longer. On the way down, the Cables downclimb seemed to be even more dry than yesterday, and then we just cruised mellow back down to the trailhead.

Hours: 27h04min
Vert: 46,400'

Really fun week. Ticked a couple significant summer objectives, especially the Chicago Basin 14ers and the Little Bear-Blanca Traverse.

Heading up to the summit of Eolus via the south ridge. The Catwalk leads to N. Eolus in the distance.

Summit of Eolus.

Looking back to my orange descent couloir (and N. Eolus) from Twin Lakes. 

Sunglight, Sunlight Spire, and Windom as seen from Eolus.

Jagged Mt and the Grenadiers from the summit of Sunlight.

Eolus and N. Eolus (and Pigeon and Turret) as seen from Sunlight.

Base of Little Bear's NW Face. The route goes up the talus slope and engages the rock just right of the "black hand". 

Summit of Little Bear with the mile-long connecting ridge leading to Blanca behind me. 

Looking back to Little Bear from the summit of Blanca.

The traverse to Ellingwood Pt as seen from Blanca.

Blanca and Little Bear from Ellingwood Pt.

Rabbit Ridge---the connecting traverse from Mt. Harvard to Columbia.

Looking back at the crux downclimb crack halfway across Rabbit Ridge.

Wildflowers on Broadway.

The direct line through the Loft headwall. Photo: George Barnes.

Joel downclimbing the Cables on Longs' North Face.

July 8 - 14

7/8/2013
Mon-AM: 1:48, 3500' ~ Mt. Sneffels
Up the SW ridge and down the standard south slopes route, from a little bit below the Governor Basin aid station location on Camp Bird road.

7/9/2013
Tue-AM: 7:38, 12,000' ~ Hardrock Course - Grouse Gulch to Silverton clockwise
Handies summit - 1:16; Burrows - 1:51:30; Sherman - 2:21:30; Pole Creek - 3:53; Maggies - 4:44:30; Stony Pass - 5:18; Cunningham - 5:55; Little Giant summit - 6:43.
Started at Grouse Gulch (mile 58) and ran the 42mi back to Silverton. Kept a steady pace all day and was able to feel really strong and push quite hard on the final 2700' climb up Little Giant. The course is surprisingly rolling/runnable from the top of Cataract Gulch (out of Sherman) through Pole Creek and over to Maggies. The final mining road descent down Arastra Gulch was a bit of a bummer, though, and seemed to drag on forever.

7/10/2013
Wed-AM: 2:44, 5000' ~ Vermilion Peak (13,894') & Golden Horn (13,780')
I knew I wanted to run up and scramble something in the Ice Lakes Basin, but I didn't decide on these two striking peaks until I got up there. The ridge descending from Vermilion to the north seemed to cliff out so I ended up going down a nasty scree chute before climbing Golden Horn. Really fun run even if my legs were tired. Wished I had the energy to do the full ridge scramble over to Grant-Swamp Pass.

7/11/2013
Thu-AM: 4:19, 8500' ~ Ice Lakes Basin Traverse - US Grant Peak (13,767'), V4 (13,502'), Pilot Knob (13,738'), Golden Horn (13,780'), Vermilion Peak (13,894'), Fuller Peak (13,761')
From the South Mineral Creek TH. Grant-Swamp Pass, 0:54; US Grant Peak, 1:13:30; V4, 1:33; Pilot Knob, 2:27; Golden Horn, 2:52; Vermillion Peak, 3:15:30; Fuller Peak, 3:27; Ice Lake, 3:51.
Really fun morning in the mountains. After yesterday's run I was thinking it would be nice to do the full traverse of these high-13ers, but I wasn't planning on that this morning. However, once I got up in the high basin it was pretty tough to not be inspired, so I just went for it. Grant wasn't too bad--maybe one short section of 4th Class--but then there was some delicate 5th Class choss negotiation going on to get to the summit of V4. Definitely the most technical bit of the whole traverse and not something that I would've enjoyed downclimbing. From there it was a long traverse on heinous scree/talus slopes to get to the climb up to Pilot Knob. Again, some mellow 4th Class stuff to tag that one and then a pretty straightforward ascent up Golden Horn. From Golden Horn I wanted to take the ridge up to Vermilion instead of the nasty scree chute I descended yesterday and it actually worked out quite well. I was able to find a reasonable enough weakness in the cliff band that turned me around yesterday and I was soon on top. From Vermilion it's easy talus over to Fuller and then some pretty crazy scree/talus surfing to get back down into the basin. Awesome day, but a gel and a little water would've made the second half a little more enjoyable.

7/12/2013
Fri- off, crewing for Joe at the Hardrock 100. Unfortunately, we didn't get to do the planned long march through the night.

7/13/2013
Sat-AM: 1:55, 4500' ~ Handies Peak
After sleeping in, went up and down the mountain from Grouse Gulch. Pushed the uphill pretty hard to tag a 1:06 ascent and then jogged the downhill. Lots of monsoony swirling clouds and sprinkles.

7/14/2013
Sun-AM: 2:18, 4500' ~ US Grant Peak & V4
From South Mineral Creek TH. One last run up in one of the most beautiful basins in the state. After running up to Grant-Swamp Pass I scrambled over the two mountains and then took the Kamm Traverse for a little longer descent back to the car.

Hours: 21h04min
Vert: 38,000'

A great week down in the San Juans. There is a ton of super high quality stuff down here, but a lot of it requires long running approaches, which is fine. I've gotten to do a lot---notably the Grenadier traverse, the Chicago Basin 14ers, and the Ice Lakes Basin traverse---but I'm excited to head back north and get out of this perpetually rainy/damp monsoon weather cycle.

This Friday and Saturday are the Boulder premieres of Joel Wolpert's new film In The High Country, at the Dairy Center. Friday night is sold out, but there are still tickets available for the Saturday screening, which you can purchase here. I, of course, will be at both screenings along with Joel himself.

Golden Horn.

Left to right: Fuller Peak, Vermilion Peak, and Golden Horn.

The trail leading up to Grant-Swamp Pass and US Grant Peak.

Island Lake with Fuller Peak, Vermilion Peak, and Golden Horn in the distance.

Standing on the summit of V4, there's still a lot of ridge to go.

Summit of Pilot Knob with Golden Horn, Vermilion and Fuller coming up.

From the summit of Pilot Knob, looking back to V4 and US Grant.

Vermilion and Fuller from the summit of Golden Horn...almost done.

Looking back at the full ridge: Vermilion, Golden Horn, Pilot Knob, V4, US Grant and Grant-Swamp Pass on the extreme right.

July 1 - 7

7/1/2013
Mon-AM: 3:15, 5300' ~ Maroon Bells Traverse
From Maroon Lake, up South Maroon and down North Maroon, 3:15:37 car-to-car. Splits: Crater Lake, 17:10; S. Maroon turn-off, 36:10; ridge, 1:22:55; S. Maroon, 1:51; Saddle, 1:57:30; N. Maroon, 2:16:50; Crater Lake, 3:02. I did this once before last September, but Joel was filming on that run so there was a lot of stop-and-go and I wanted to get a true, no-stops time on the route. The descent off of North Maroon and back to the parking lot could go a lot quicker if your tolerance for kicking rocks down the mountain and elbowing past tourists after Crater Lake is a lot higher than mine. Wasn't in the mood to be an asshole, so just took it pretty casual.

7/2/2013
Tue-AM: 2:42, 4700' ~ Pyramid
From Maroon Lake, up the West Face/NW ridge and down the NE ridge (standard route). 1:47 to the summit, :55 descent. Wanted to scout this ascent for a link-up of the Bells with Pyramid, and it was classic Elk choss. After crossing West Maroon Creek the talus field and grassy rib ascent went well but then I erroneously chose a 5th Class chute instead of staying further left on the bits of grass. After emerging from that it was lots of route-finding and choss-management to finally make the summit.

7/3/2013
Wed-AM: 6:58, 8500 ~ Capitol-Snowmass Link-up
From the Snowmass Ranch TH, ran up West Snowmass Creek, bushwhacked up to Moon Lake, summited Capitol, traversed back over the Knife Edge to drop into Pierre Lakes Basin, cross the Snowmass-Capitol connecting ridge and finally ascend Snowmass' west ridge before dropping down to Snowmass Lake and running the trail back to the trailhead. Really fun day with hours of talus hopping and some good bits of scrambling.

7/4/2013
Thu-AM: 2:44, 4800' ~ Castle & Conundrum
Up Castle's NE ridge from the Ashcroft road, over to Conundrum, and back down. Tired legs from yesterday, but the mellow 4WD road was a nice change after all of yesterday's scrambling. This finished off the Elk 14ers then.

7/5/2013
Fri-AM: 2:23, 4400' ~ Oscars Pass
Up and down Bear Creek/Wasatch Saddle from the Telluride Town Park, with Joe. Since the Hardrock course is going back to its original routing this year, Joe wanted to check out the trail. It's awesome. This is the best course in the world.

7/6/2013
Sat-AM: 7:16, 10,800' ~ Grenadier Traverse (well, Arrow, Wham, & Three Trinities)
From the Molas Lake TH I enchained Arrow Peak, Vestal Peak, and the three Trinities before running back. Splits:
Animas River, :27
Elk Creek Trail beaver pond, 1:05
Vestal Creek crossing, 1:46
base of Arrow, 2:03
summit Arrow, 2:33/34
base of Wham Ridge, 3:04
summit Vestal, 3:39/40
Vestal/W. Trinity Saddle, 4:00
summit W. Trinity, 4:17/18
summit Middle Trinity, 4:44
Middle/E. Trinity Saddle, 4:49
summit E. Trinity, 4:58
Elk Creek crossing, 6:00
Elk Creek Trail (beaver pond), 6:03
Animas River, 6:34:30
Trailhead, 7:16:45
The run in on the Colorado Trail/Elk Creek Trail was on very good tread and the climbers/use trail heading up Vestal Creek was easy to find. It was a bit choppy at first negotiating a fair bit of deadfall but not too bad. The ramp up the northeast face of Arrow is super obvious and most of the way is just marching up a giant slab, turning into some minor 4th-ish class stuff at the top. About half-way up I ran into Timmy Parr, who was climbing with a partner, but I didn't chat long knowing I had a lot of vert/scrambling ahead of me. My only major mistake of the day came in my descent off Arrow. For some reason I thought the gully down its south face would be quicker than retracing my route down the ascent ramp. Oy, bad choice. The top was full of loose debris and then about 2/3rds of the way down, the gully narrowed and cliffed out. I'd already dropped about 6-700', so I was reluctant to head back up over the summit and instead decided to try out the steep, definitely 5th Class downclimb. It's hard to grade something you're on-sight downclimbing, but with the water-slick rock and in running shoes it felt like 5.5-6 for me. Definitely stressful and cruxy. With that behind me, I was good and warmed up for Wham. I suppose if I had only been interested in traversing the peaks I could've just gone up Vestal's SW ridge/face, but Wham Ridge is one of the most classic alpine routes in the state so I was psyched to drop all the way to 12,200' or so to climb its full extent. The bottom half is super mellow, fairly low-angle slab marching, but eventually the grade kicks up a bit and the terrain becomes 4th Class on solid rock. The crux was a maybe 30' crack unavoidably out on the face and massively exposed, but 5.4 sounds about right---holds were there whenever you needed them. Above that was more 4th Class with the odd easy-5th move and soon enough I was on the summit. West Trinity was the least interesting/engaging peak of the day being mostly 3rd Class but then Middle Trinity probably served up the most complexity of the day for me. I stayed right on the ridge crest for too long and eventually dropped to the south and negotiated a Broadway-like ledge that required one spicy bit of downclimbing before lots of 4th Class led to the summit. Fairly certain I did not find the easiest way up this peak. Mercifully, East Trinity was the most straightforward route-finding of the day--straight up a 3rd Class gully with a little 4th Class at the top--and only required an extra 500' or so of vert. The run back out to the car went well enough, but the nearly 2000' climb back up to the car from the Animas River was a kick to the nuts in the hot mid-day sun as I stubbornly refused to pop one final gel. Good practice to run up a climb like that late in an outing, though. Overall, one of the more satisfying runs I've had in the mountains. I suppose some day it would be worthwhile to come back and tack on Silex, Storm King, and The Guardian, but I really enjoyed the aesthetic of this outing.

7/7/2013
Sun-AM: 2:03, 4500' ~ Handies
Up and down from Grouse Gulch. Nice mellow outing on tired legs. The 500' drop into American Basin is always a little less fun (as a climb) on the way back down.

Hours: 27h21min
Vert: 43,000'

A fun week exploring the Elk Range that was punctuated with the particularly satisfying traverse of the Grenadiers, something I've been wanting to do for a long time. This week I'll be pacing Joe at the Hardrock 100 on Friday, with hopefully a couple other San Juan adventures thrown in.

Looking at the traverse over to North Maroon Peak, Monday morning.

Goat on the summit of Pyramid Tue morning with the next day's objectives on the horizon--Snowmass & Capitol.

Vestal and Arrow Peaks as seen from the approach up the Elk Creek drainage Saturday morning.

Arrow Peak's NE face, the morning's first objective.

Vestal Peak's famed Wham Ridge (north face). Can't believe this one came out blurry. Dammit.

Starting up the iconic face.

Approaching the crux on the ridge.

Summit of Vestal, with Arrow behind.

Next up, West Trinity.

Looking back west along the line-up of five peaks, after having summited and mostly descended East Trinity.

Vestal and Arrow Peaks, from the northeast.

June 10 - 16

6/10/2013
Mon-AM: 2:33, 4300' ~ Huron
From Rockdale, ran the road up to Winfield and then over to the west side of Huron before heading to its summit. Climb was pretty standard, but the real fun came on the descent. Usually the drop down to Clohesy Lake (east side of the peak) is a fairly nasty scree/cobbles/talus/boulder chute, but today it was still all snow and was in perfect condition for a long, steep, run-out glissade that dropped over 1000' of vert. Awesome. Found the goat path down to the lake and ran the 4wd road back down to Rockdale to complete the loop. Proper mountain run. Legs were a little tired from yesterday's long outing, but not bad at all.

6/11/2013
Tue-AM: 2:22, 5300' ~ Princeton
Up and down Grouse Canyon. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite runs in the Sawatch. Proper goat path up the canyon, perfect footing for the march to the ridge at 13k' and then an engaging scramble/talus hop to the summit. Doesn't get much better. Seemed to be a bunch of smoke/haze in the air today, though. Legs had a bunch of energy despite waking up feeling groggy.

6/12/2013
Wed-AM: 3:14, 6000' ~ Princeton
Parked at the S. Cottonwood TH on the CT (8900'--this is the low point of the entire Nolan's route) and took the CT 4.5mi over to Maxwell Gulch to head up the mountain. Came back the same way. Definitely an out-of-character run for me since it started with 46min of flattish running (only 1000' of elevation gain total, more with the rollers), but once you get over to Maxwell Gulch things get interesting. Had no trouble finding the old trail on the northern side of the basin and took that up to ~10,500' where I broke left to bushwhack through the aspens in the avalanche gulley. After only about 4min of 'swhacking, though, I was on fairly open tundra/talus and marching uphill unimpeded to Princeton's NE ridge. From there it's just an extended talus scramble to the summit. CT to the summit was 1h16 (for 4300' vert), so it's actually a very comparable climb to any other 14er in the Sawatch, but just starts with the 1hr+/7mi contour on the CT from Yale's Avalanche Gulch TH. Definitely the longest sustained running on the whole route. Took 40min to descend from the summit back to the CT; feeling really good about doing this route in the dark now, think I have it dialed.

6/13/2013
Thu-AM: 2:11, 5000' ~ Yale
Up and down NE Ridge/North Face from N. Cottonwood Creek TH. After what felt like a fiasco last Sunday afternoon, I knew I had to get back here to find the best line up this side of the mountain. Took exactly 15min to jog from the TH to where a bridge crosses back over to the north side of Cottonwood Creek. An avalanche gulley empties directly onto the trail right here, but I felt like I wanted to be in the next gulley to the west. Traversing/'swhacking over to that gulley through the forest proved to be surprisingly easy and within 10min I even found a (very steep) elk path heading up the left margin of the avy gulley. I crossed over to the righthand side when things looked good and then it was just a simple march up very good tundra and talus (and past airplane wreckage) to the ridge saddle at ~12,600' or so. Took 42min to get from the bridge to the ridge. From there I contoured below the ridge (and Pt 13105 that I'd actually summited on Sunday) on the left into the basin below Yale's north face and ascended directly up the center of this face to the summit. The last couple hundred feet of vert was kicking steps in steep snow, but it'd only taken 1h12 to get from the creek to the summit, so I was feeling really good about my newly scouted line. The descent was even more fun, glissading directly off the summit and contouring over to drop into the very steep avy gulley that deposited me right back at the bridge/trail 33min after leaving the summit. Really glad I went back to take another look at this side of the mountain.
PM: 0:58, 3000' ~ First Flatiron+Green Mt.
From Chat; really good run. A PR for ascending Green via scrambling the First (39:35 at Green summit; 10:55 to base of First, 11:15 scramble, 2:05 downclimb), and then I think maybe a PR for descending Greenman-SR-Amphi in dry (non-snow) conditions (15:55 from summit to Baseline trail junction) before realizing that I had a shot at breaking an hour for the Chat-to-Chat roundtrip, so I picked it up on the run back across the meadow for a 58:54. Funny thing was I didn't even start picking it up on the descent until about half-way down Greenman (wasn't planning on going all-out on the descent), but maybe sometimes you just need to wait for the flow to come to you. Was feeling a little extra motivation in the first place because I was trying to squeeze the run in before an appointment, thus no pause on the summit.

6/14/2013
Fri-AM: 2:58, 5000' ~ Longs Peak
Up Kieners, down Cables. 1:55 to the summit, which was only a couple minutes slower than when I went up the Cables last week. It always surprises me how quick a route Kieners can be in the right conditions. I was feeling great on the run up to Chasm Lake despite carrying crampons and an axe on my back. The scramble up Glacier Rib (left of Lambs Slide) was a little bit more methodical than usual because there were patches of snow to dodge, but when I got the axe out to cross Lambs Slide the snow was surprisingly kickable, even in the shade. The first crux on Broadway was still snow, so I was careful on this small downclimb/traverse, and then there was a little more snow to cross at the top of the Yellow Bowl/Alexanders. From there, it was essentially dry to the base of Kieners. The chimneys were all wet but there was only snow/ice at the top of the Bombay Chimney. On the 4th Class section up to the Staircase I stayed a lot farther right (toward the edge) than usual so as to skip the snow, but soon enough I was on the summit. The North Face proved to be, by far, the crux of the outing. I stubbornly didn't put on my crampons on the summit, so I lost a lot of time pussyfooting down the kicked steps in the snow above the Cables dihedral. When I got there it became very obvious that I wasn't going to downclimb the upper part without some metal on my feet, so I finally stopped and put on my crampons and then carefully downclimbed over the snow/ice/rock. If I'd had a rope I probably would've just rappelled the upper part and never messed with the crampons.The snow below the Cables was in terrible condition--crusty, and punching through to my knee with basically every step, super frustrating. Finally made it down to dry rock for the always enjoyable cruise back down to the trailhead.

6/15/2013
Sat-AM: 2:31, 5000' ~ Longs Peak
Up and down the Cables for 2013 ascent #15. Woke up groggy and unmotivated---almost decided to just head up to Chautauqua to scramble some flatties---but that would have meant running right away, whereas running Longs would give me a 45min drive to wake up, drink some coffee, and feel like a human. By time I got to the trailhead, of course, I was in olympic form, ready to take on the day. Back at the hut, not feeling very brave, I had packed my vest with a 6mm rap cord and a harness (along with crampons, axe, and gloves), planning to rappel the top half of the Cables on the descent but in the parking lot, brimming with confidence, I thought better of that and took them out. Ah, the games we play. Legs were surprisingly poppy heading up the hill for the second day in a row, and by time I got to treeline I was undecided as to whether I would head back up Kieners or take the Cables. Eventually, I decided to just do the Cables. It's funny; in my head, in the current conditions, I feel like the Cables are actually technically a little more difficult than anything I encountered on Kieners yesterday, but the amount of time that one is in a precarious position (just a couple of minutes on the Cables) is SO MUCH less than on Kieners (things are at least moderately technical for almost an hour). The climb up the Cables went really well, but I'm ready for that chunk of alpine ice on the top half of the dihedral to fall/melt out already. The descent of the north face--while soft in the hot sun--went way better than yesterday wearing crampons this time, and the downclimb was, of course, no problem. Happy I didn't bring the rope. And then it was just the usual run back down to the trailhead. Quick and efficient.

6/16/2013
Sun-AM: 7:19, 14,500' ~ Princeton, Antero, Tabeguache, Shavano
Started from the Avalanche Gulch TH on the Colorado Trail at the base of Yale, with Joe. Finished at the Blank Cabin TH on the east slopes of Shavano where Joe's wife, Deanne, graciously picked us up. Joe and I did some actual running today---1:04 to go the ~7mi on the Colorado Trail from the Avy Gulch TH to Maxwell Gulch on Princeton. Once there, the marching commenced and I hit the summit at 2:24 into the day. I was surprisingly quick down Princeton's talusy SW ridge to Grouse Canyon, but just wasn't really in a groove yet...feeling drowsy and unmotivated. Once I hit Rd 292 at the bottom and started running over to Alpine, though, that all changed and I had tons of energy, running every step of the Baldwin Gulch Road on Antero to 11k' (shortly after the creek crossing) where I tried out a new, super-direct line that goes up the ridge straight to the summit. Not sure why other Nolan's folks have never mentioned this as it by far makes the most sense and has solid footing the entire way. Summited at 5:03 and didn't even pause as it was time to get off the high ridges with weather moving in quickly from the west/north. It only took me 29min to get from the summit of Antero down to Brown's Creek at 11,200' where I took a 30min break waiting out the storm that was passing through. I had a bit of a picnic here---drank four bottles of water, ate 3 gels in a row, dumped rocks out of my shoes, hunkered down in my jacket under a fir tree staying out of the rain---and when things seemed to be clearing I headed up the gulch to the Tab/Shav saddle. Another fast-moving storm cell was coming in as I made my way up, but this one turned out to be snow and a lot of it. By time I hit the saddle at 13,500' I had broken into blue skies and was surprised how close the summit of Tabeguache was, only taking 51min from the creek---I was mentally prepared for a much longer climb. Did the short bop over to Shavano and ran the trail all the way down to the Blank Cabin TH, this being my first time ever on the mountain, managing a 56min descent from the summit of Tabeguache. The trail seems like it takes a direct-enough line from the summit of Shavano to the TH. Finished with the legs still feeling really good, plenty of run left in them. 10 gels.

Hours: 24h11min
Vert: 48,100'

After this week, I'm feeling really ready for Nolan's and am targeting an attempt for the 24th or 25th, depending on weather, starting at 2am from the Leadville Fish Hatchery. Right now, it looks like it will be the 24th, which coincides nicely with a full moon. It's been a blast learning everything I can about the Sawatch, but post-Nolan's I'm also definitely looking forward to spending the rest of my summer pursuing objectives in other mountain ranges. The Sangres, Elks, Tetons, San Juans, and Indian Peaks in particular. I'm feeling about as fit as I ever have right now, so am mostly just curious to see if I have the discipline and stubbornness and luck to fulfill my potential on the Sawatch 14ers next week.

Marmot's-eye view of the march to the summit of yet another Sawatch 14er.

What Nolan's mostly consists of--scrambling up talus slopes. Summit of Yale w/ Columbia and Harvard behind.

Looking back across to a duo on the entry crux to Broadway on Friday morning.

Broadway.

Seriously good.

June 3 - 9

6/3/2013
Mon-AM: 2:37, 6000' ~ Belford & Oxford
From the Missouri Gulch TH, out and back to Oxford, via Belford. Felt like I was still carrying some heaviness in the legs from Saturday's big run, so just cruised up and down the hills. Feeling weak above 13k' again on Belford, so I almost didn't make the run over to Oxford, but was really glad I did as I felt surprisingly strong on the pair of 700' climbs before the descent off Belford back down to the trailhead.

6/4/2013
Tue-AM: 2:24, 5300' ~ Mt. Princeton
Up and down Grouse Canyon. More Nolan's 14 scouting, this will be the descent I take off Princeton in the middle of the night, which is kinda too bad because it's a simply awesome line. Parked just off of FS Rd 292 and marched up the canyon, surprised to find an obvious use trail all the way to treeline. Gained Princeton's southwest ridge right around 13k' (right where it changes from a fairly mellow, grassy shoulder to a proper technical ridge) and enjoyed another 30min of jogging/scrambling to the summit of Princeton. Discovered that there is no skipping unranked Pt 13971 on the east side--it's a fairly dramatic drop-off there--ah well, it's only an extra 100' or so of elevation gain. After reaching the summit in 1:35, the descent was one of the more fun lines I've experienced in the Sawatch, starting with the 24min of rock-hopping back along the ridge and then plummeting back down through Grouse Canyon; the footing just feels really good from the ridge all the way back down to the road. I think I dropped the 1500' from the ridge to treeline in only 6min, sans snow. Hopefully Joe's Ferei light will make this section feel like daylight during the attempt. I was also very pleased to see that I felt fully recovered from Saturday's long run. Lots of energy, even above 13k', way more than the last couple days.

6/5/2013
Wed-AM: 2:27, 5000' ~ Mt. Antero
Up and down from Baldwin Gulch. Ran the road up to the gulley at 12,000' or so, which, with its current snowpack, made for an extremely expedient path up through all the road switchbacks on that shoulder. Not sure how well this gulley will go once the snow melts out, though. After ~1k' of vert I left the snow and headed straight up the talus, shooting for the saddle/ridge just south of Antero's summit. Didn't pick a great line (should've been further left) so I had to cross some unpleasant ball-bearing-scree-on-hardpack slopes before taking the ridge to the summit (1:36). It still seems to me that a better line up this mountain would be to gain the rib at ~10,900' (just after crossing Baldwin Creek) that goes directly to Antero's summit. Will have to check this out, but it might just be a bunch of loose scree, which would make it terrible. On the summit, I was very disappointed that I'd decided not to bring the camera today as there was an epic inversion layer of clouds off to the east. Descended via the road so that I could get a gander at the traverse over into the Browns Creek Basin (which separates Antero and Tab/Shav)...looks to be a suitable, slightly grassy rib to ascend between the Tab/Shav saddle and the summit of Tabeguache. We shall see. Once I got to the snow-gulley at 13k' I just flew back down that to the road.
PM: 1:34, 4000' ~ Decalibron
Parked maybe a half mile below Kite Lake at 11,500' or so, still a couple of snow drifts remaining that would take 4wd to bust through. Jogged a few minutes up to the usual parking lot and started my watch at the trailhead kiosk, thinking I'd give the circuit a solid effort despite this morning's outing and the fact that 4pm snow conditions were predictably horrible, i.e. lots of plunging in and tons of mud and running water. Took me a minute for my legs to get going (and by a minute, I mean, like, 30min), but once I got on the solid talus I was climbing pretty well and tagged the summit of Democrat at exactly 38min flat. This can definitely go a few minutes faster sans snow. The snow descent back to the saddle (43:40) was non-ideal, lots of knee-deep plunging, and then a ridiculously strong wind threw me around on the grunt up to Bross (1:01:05); I almost gave up trying to go hard right then because of the wind and because snow was preventing me from taking the best lines on the ridge. Ran hard over to Lincoln (1:07:05), though, which is really hard to do above 14k', and then tried to keep up the intensity over to Bross, too, but snow stymied a lot of my effort, and I was beginning to fade energy-wise, too. Tagged the summit of Bross at 1:21:55 and then threw myself down the 2k' of vert back to the trailhead, dropping the first 1000' on nice scree in only 5min and then taking another 7+ to descend the last 1k' and posthole/plunge back across the stream just before the trailhead for a total time of 1:34:43. I guess it's at least a standard for other people to chase now if so inclined, but in dry conditions (or firmer snow) I think I could definitely take it under 1h30. Especially with fresher legs.

6/6/2013
Thu-AM: 2:27, 4500' ~ Torreys & Grays
Parked at the 1.4mi/private property sign, like usual. Took the Dead Dog couloir up Torreys and felt like I was kinda pushing my luck with snow conditions, leaving the truck at ~6:15am, getting to the base a little after 7am and summiting at ~7:45am (1:16 from the trailhead). About a third of the way up a single fist-sized rock came whizzing by really close, but that was it for the whole route. That made me really glad to be wearing a helmet, though. Super warm on the climb, that chute is like a reflective solar oven with the rising sun. Legs were definitely slow and tired from yesterday's efforts. Left my Kahtoola crampons on for the quick drop and climb over to Grays (snow the whole way), but after that things had softened up just enough to make running shoes sufficient for the descent back to the car. Total time trailhead-to-trailhead was 1:58. Way more snow on these peaks than in the Sawatch.
PM: 1:07, 3000' ~ First Flatiron+Green Mt.
Typical afternoon outing: biked to Chat, scrambled the rock on the way to the summit of Green, descended the front. Notably, I had one of my faster efforts to the base of the rock (low-11min) without really trying---I could really feel the extra oxygen compared to what I've been breathing for most of the past two weeks. It also felt (comparatively) humid; I was sweating buckets.

6/7/2013
Fri-AM: 4:16, 4500' ~ Keyhole Ridge (Longs Peak)
This wasn't really four hours of running. More like 2h30. Planned on summiting Longs via the 5.6 Keyhole Ridge and descending the Cables, but Joe and I were chased off the ridge about half-way up. Ran at a casual pace to the Keyhole with a 7.7x37m rope in my pack and some stoppers and four cams in Joe's pack. Got there in less than 90min where we opted just kick steps in our running shoes across the snowfield leading to the 3rd Class ramp that goes to the False Keyhole. This ended up being a bit spicier than I anticipated as the snow as very soft and only a small margin of moss/loose rock was bare right on the extremely exposed edge of the ledge. We scrambled this carefully before roping up for a very easy pitch of climbing up to the escape saddle just before the first tower. Conditions were still brilliant, so we were quite jolly pitching out the easy rock that leads up the tower. There was still some snow on a lot of things, though, so we were happy to be roped up for the on-sight. Less than a pitch from the top of the tower, though, it was clear the weather was going to get nasty very quickly and we heard several rolls of thunder, which was more than a little unnerving. I refuse to mess with lightning, and we were in an extremely exposed position on a knife ridge near 13,700'. So, I quickly lowered Joe then rappelled/downclimbed off a pair of stoppers before scrambling back over to the escape saddle by which time the wind was raging and it was snowing hard. Another bank of clouds was moving in fast from the west so we scrambled west back down to the Keyhole and called it a day, running back down to the trailhead through drizzle.

6/8/2013
Sat-AM: 2:52, 5000' ~ Longs Peak
Up and down the North Face. After yesterday's failure to summit, and anticipating tomorrow's long outing, I opted to just cruise up and down the shortest line on the peak. There were crazy winds in the parking lot, but above treeline it turned out to be just a standard breezy day. Didn't even put crampons on until I was half-way up the Cables dihedral, and then on the way down I didn't even get out my rap cord or harness. Still a ton of snow above the Cables, but way less than last week. Great run, can't wait to start hitting this mountain in just shoes and shorts again; it's getting there.

6/9/2013
Sun-AM: 8:21, 17,000' ~ Missouri, Belford, Oxford, Harvard, Columbia, Yale
Pretty epic run. Started with Joe from Rockdale, ran the 4wd road up to Clohesy Lake and started the Nolan's 14 line. Misouri, Belford, and Oxford are all cruises, but then the drop into the Pine Creek drainage marks the beginning of basically all off-trail running for the rest of the day. Nailed the descent to Pine Creek and the march up Harvard and then was psyched to complete the traverse to Columbia via Rabbit Ridge instead of doing the usual drop to 12,800' on the east side. Staying on the ridge necessitates a fair bit of 4th Class and low-5th Class scrambling with a short, maybe 20ft crux downclimb that allegedly goes at 5.7. It was a vertical crack, but it felt easier than that to me, considering I was on-sight, solo, in running shoes, at ~13k' after almost 5hr of running. The descent south off of Columbia marked the beginning of new territory for me and it went pretty well as I found a pretty good line in the trees, aiming for the base of a giant avalanche chute on the south side of N. Cottonwood Creek that would take me up to Yale's northeast ridge. This felt like bumbling wreckage through heinous bushwhacking on extremely steep terrain and even a few cliffy outcroppings, but eventually--after much swearing and cursing--I found myself postholing near treeline and then it was just the endless ridge leading to Yale's summit. Once on the summit I didn't think I could stomach anymore bushwhacking, so I started out planning on just taking the east ridge down to the Colorado Trail, but a couple of perfectly glissade-able snow slopes lured me into the Avalanche Gulch basin between Yale and Mascot Peak and even though there was some more bushwhacking around 10,800' or so through many many downed trees I kinda hit the line perfectly and was down at the Avalanche Gulch trailhead only 49min after leaving Yale's summit and with legs that still felt like they had a ton of run left in them. 10 gels. Joe had a few navigational issues (as is wont to happen when traveling all day off-trail) and came in four hours later, thankfully before a headlamp was needed.

Hours: 28h25min
Vert: 54,300'

Obviously, a great week up high. Yesterday's run has me seriously reconsidering my Nolan's plan. Given how hideous the route-finding is in the North Cottonwood Creek drainage between Columbia and Yale, I think I want to do my best to hit this in the daylight, so will probably end up starting from the Fish Hatchery at 2 or 3am instead of my initially-planned 5am/first light start. A start in the dark will also help ensure that I take it easy for the first couple peaks. Other than that, Sunday's run was great. Depending on what the sky is doing at the time, I'm pretty sure I'll take the more technical Rabbit Ridge between Harvard and Columbia, purely for aesthetic reasons as I was only a minute or two slower on it Sunday than when I dropped to the east when linking them up last summer. Also, energy-wise I felt very solid yesterday and finished the run remarkably fresh, which is, of course, a boost to the confidence.

The final ridge leading to Princeton's summit from the SW. Taken just below Pt 13971.

Dropping down Princeton's SW ridge, the nearly vertical mile climb to Antero looms straight ahead.

Dead Dog Couloir (center-right) offers 1500' of 45-50 degree snow climbing to the summit of Torreys (14,267').

Nearly to the top of Dead Dog.

No summit of Torreys is complete without standing atop Grays (14,270') as well.

Longs Peak summit #13 for the year on Saturday.