Road Trip!

Sunday afternoon James and I began our journey to Colorado.  We are both on the wait list for the San Juan Solstice 50 miler this coming weekend in Lake City, Colorado.  If we don't get into the race, we'll do the Manitou marathon, It's almost 27,000 ft of climbing in 26 miles.  It's not an actual race, just a masochistic self-propelled repetition of a 1 mile uphill that has 2,100 feet of climbing.  Sounds awesome.  It looks like this is the only guy who has ever done it.  Can we beat his time of 13 hours
 15 minutes?! 

Manitou Incline: 2,100 feet in 1 mile

Last scramble to the top of Rock Creek Butte at 9,100 feet.

Back to the road trip, James' trail finding/race directing skills sure come in handy on these kinds of trips.  He managed to find one of the coolest trails I've run on in a while.  It was a 6.5 mile out & back (13 miles total) up to Rock Creek Butte, a 9,100 ft peak.  There's a nice scramble up the last 1/2 mile to the peak, where we saw a couple of mountain goats, one was a tiny baby.  I call it "nice" but full disclosure: I expressed how much I hate climbing up scree on the way up.  The route climbed 4,000 feet.  I'd love to explore more of the trail.  The Elkhorn Crest Trail is almost 24 miles and would make a great high altitude training run, since most of it is over 8,000 feet.  

Almost at the top of Rock Creek Butte, enjoying the view of Twin Lakes

After our adventure in Lake City or Manitou Springs this coming weekend, we'll make our way to Silverton (with some exploratory detours) to train and for James, to run the Hardrock 100 mile Endurance Run in mid-July.  Right after Hardrock, I'll be heading to Lake Tahoe CA/NV to prepare for and attempt a FKT on the 165 mile Tahoe Rim Trail. 

James trying to move rocks on our Elkhorn Mountain run.