More specifically, Conundrum Creek trail up to Triangle Pass, down to Copper Lake, up to East Maroon Pass and down East Maroon Creek. The route can actually be completed in either direction, in our case Todd Clark, Christy and I began the day at the Conundrum Creek Trailhead (8800 ft.) and ran most of the popular trail up 8 miles or so to the famous hot springs (11,200 ft.) that bear the trails name. FYI, the lowest...
His Holiness the Dalai Lama was in Aspen this past weekend.
Sunday was the inaugural running of the Leadville Silver Rush 50 miler. Christy’s first 100 miler is only 6 weeks away (Wasatch Front 100), it sounded like good training.
It’s July 16th, a.k.a. the most important day of the year, and if you haven’t seen Christy and her long red dress and wished her a happy birthday yet, you can still acknowledge the significance of the day at the Aspen Club tennis courts until 8, then at the Sky until about 10 and finally at the Belly Up for the ‘Jes Grew’ reunion show until midnight(w/ cake, thanks Troy)....
One of the best things about having some big goals on the horizon is getting prepared. Friday evening we went up to Turkey Rock for an easy two pitches of rock climbing. The next morning, we headed over the pass towards Twin Lakes to Monitor Rock where we had a climb of the ‘Trooper Traverse’ planned. At 5 pitches in length and with a crux difficulty rating of 5.8 it was...
The Hardrock 100 starts at 6 am friday and though my feet are glad to miss this one, I must admit feeling a bit bummed that I won’t be there. The results of the February lottery had me at 40th on the waitlist behind 140 accepted runners, and I thought it to be a long shot that some 30% of the accepted field would drop. I was wrong. Yesterday I moved up to 2nd on the...
At 13,988 ft., Grizzly Peak is the tallest 13er in the state and a regular on many ski mountaineers spring tick list. Dirk and I found it in pretty good shape last Thursday. [singlepic=13,361,500,,center] Technically, Grizzly falls in the Sawatch Range and not in the Elks but with popular access beginning a short way up Independence Pass on the Aspen side, it feels pretty local. If you put together a list...
So it was a record breaking ski season and snow year in most of Colorado. That’s good, right? Well it was way back in January that Christy, Richard Betts and I made plans to run this race. The mountainous course touches 13,300 ft., has more than 12,000 feet of elevation gain and spends the majority of miles well above 10K(with a huge stretch above 12K). Last June Christy had ideal conditions and a...
Memorial Day Weekend – The Official Summer Kickoff Someone needs to let Snowmass Lake know it’s Memorial Day weekend and not midwinter. It’s still totally frozen up there. Christy, Josh Hirshberg and I headed that way last Saturday for a few days. Getting up the 8 mile trail is adventure enough for most. We had two peaks to ski– Snowmass Mountain and Hagerman Peak. Christy was happy that what in...
San Juan Ski Weekend – Day 2 We were up early. The forecast called for a beautiful spring day and with a goal to ski Handies Peak(14,048 ft.) from the east we knew we had to stay ahead of the sun. In 1999 I skied here from the American Basin/west side of the mountain and was eager to return, trying for the more exciting east side. There’s a great couloir(NE)...