Week Summary: June 4 - 10

6/4/2012
Mon-AM: 2:21, 4500' ~ La Plata Peak (14,336')
Up and down NW ridge, with an extra 15min of warm-up. On the descent I punched through some snow and gashed my shin to the gleaming white bone on some talus underneath. Clean-up back at the Roost revealed a likely need for some stitches, but things seem to be healing up fine.

6/5/2012
Tue-AM: 2:35, 4000' ~ Huron Peak (14,003')
Up the West face trail from Winfield.  Descended the East face via a fun scree chute/boulder field before finding a surprisingly nice use trail that switchbacked down to Clohesy Lake. 1:49 from Winfield to Clohesy Lake (1:17 at summit). Ran back to Winfield via Rockdale. More Nolan's 14 scouting.

6/6/2012
Wed-AM: 7:38, 13500' ~ Massive (14,421'), Elbert (14,433'), La Plata (14,336')
Really fun day in the mountains.  Started at the Leadville Fish Hatchery with Gavin, headed up the Highline Trail for 40min before cutting cross-country directly up the East ridge to the summit. Hit the top at 1:43. Descended the SW slopes trail down to cross Halfmoon Creek on FS Rd 110J (2:27) before continuing up the road and up Elbert's West ridge to the summit at 3:49. Descended over Bull Hill from there to the Golden Fleece Mine and Echo Canyon, getting to Highway 82 at 4:50. Ascended standard NW ridge of La Plata in 1:39 from the highway (6:45 total on the summit) before descending La Plata's South ridge and getting to the Winfield campground at 7:38 total. Really strong on the first two peaks, but I bonked like a champ above treeline on La Plata (not enough gels). Felt great on the LP downhill, though more than nine gels for the run would've been ideal.  The enormity of the Nolan's 14 project is humbling.

6/7/2012
Thu-AM: 2:15, 4500' ~ Torreys (14,270') & Grays (14,267') Peaks
Parked at ~10,500' on the approach road to the summer TH and ran from there. Took the Kelso Ridge up Torreys. Really tired this morning after yesterday's long effort, but it was still great to get in a couple of peaks before making it down to Boulder by 9:30am for meetings with Ultimate Direction and New Balance.

6/8/2012
Fri-AM: 2:44, 5000' ~ Longs Peak (14,259')
Started from the East TH and took the standard Keyhole route to the summit and back. Went up the mountain in 1:41:58, spent 30min on the summit, then descended in 1:02:54. There was quite a bit of frozen snow still in the Trough, so I lost a lot of time there--especially on the descent--but I ran really hard below the Boulderfield on the descent. Stopped a couple of times to take some pictures when I was descending back through the Boulderfield---would've gone sub-1hr for sure on the way down if I hadn't done that, even with the ice-induced pussyfooting in the Trough.

6/9/2012
Sat-AM: 0:31 ~ All-day photo shoot with NB.  Sun-up to sundown. 4am wake-up call.

6/10/2012
Sun-AM: More photo shooting with NB, but no running.

Hours: 18hr04min
Vert: 31,500'

Another solid week in the high country, but I definitely needed the rest that the weekend's NB activities necessitated. The pounding downhill on Friday might've been a touch more than the shin was ready for, so it was good to take a couple days easy.  Still having such a blast tagging a different peak every day.

Huron summit.

The Three Apostles.

Looking back up at the scree and talus descent from Huron's northern saddle.

The Diamond, Longs Peak.