The kids are off to camp, so TZ and I headed up to Fairplay for a little bit of RnR up there (which really means poking around on doing stuff on the hut). On the way, we stopped at Kenosha Pass and hiked in with the with dogs for a bit. I will be dropping in with JZ and his Scout pals to backpack Colorado Trail on that section to Breck There will also be various parents participating who might be more challenged by this adventure than the Scouts. I am playing with the idea of recon’ing the whole section on a run on Sunday. It is 33 miles with only 4k of gain, so it ought to be do-able. If interested, give me a holler.
TZ and I found this “trail magic” at the start of the trail. Cool that people do that.
The dogs love any excuse to get out.
The views from just a short way out of the trailhead are one of my favorites in Colorado.
She seemed to like them too.
Tuesday night I got out and scouted the lower part of the Pack Burro Days race course. I headed down to Rte 9, crossed the road where it was close to the course and then followed it back into town. I do always find the last section coming back up to South Park City a tad confusing but I think I have it dialed in now. I headed over to the Hand Hotel, checked the sign (still no names updates to the winners since 2011), gave the Prunes grave a knock and headed back out. Of course you can’t go through South Park City at this time so I headed back around to where the high dirt trail connects with 9 as it comes into Fairplay. That trail there is just insanely stupid. I am not even sure why it is called a trail. It is a sick combination of boulders of varying sizes, loose dirt and scree, broken glass, rusty metal, etc. It is a bit of an accident waiting to happen. I headed back north along the course, and finding that my multiple times on it has made it a bit easier on me to navigate now. It is still hardly a trail in most places but I seem to forget that come the day of the race. At the power station, I turned around and stuck to the bike path on the east side of 9 and rounded it back home. 10.2 miles, surprisingly averaging sub 8 which I would not expect for an easy run at 10k elevation.
Of course being on the course had me thinking about the race there over the last three times I did it. Probably a bit too much so actually. There are parts of me that have come to terms that I got really lucky in 2012, and I enjoy what that day meant. There are parts of me that see how close it was in 2013. Not sure what it means in terms of outcomes in 2014, but if I race, I am just going to look to enjoy it as a day in the hills. Expecting anything else probably is a recipe for not getting anything you want.
Wednesday – a long day of work at the hut, including chainsaw and other work. It usually takes a bit of the wind out of me so I decided to take it easy. This also made sense given I expect to race Thursday night (BRR mile). I headed up Platte River, around down to the National Forest entrance near Beaver Creek. I came up the back way via Quarry and found this loop to be nearly 10k on the nose. Might need to file that for future reference. I realized how flat last night’s effort was in comparison to today’s – and today’s was not hilly at all really. The climb gear is not really there right now. I am not sure the flat gear is there either but it is slightly more fake-able than the climb gear. Got hit by some afternoon snow-ice (I think the mountaineers call this graupel), and finished off with 7.
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