Long and strong...

Nothing good ever happens after midnight. ~ John D. Roach
(Particularly if you are breaking more than one law at a time.) ~ Rachel Bellamy

Yesterday: Nada
Today: Run - King's Lake to High Lonesome to Diamond Lake to home, 8 hours
Tomorrow: Nada

Today's adventure was awesome. Luke picked me up at 6:30 and we headed to Hessee to start our big run. The weather was pretty much perfect and, with the wildflowers in full effect, we were treated to a wonderful run up King's Lake trail to High Lonesome and back around to Diamond Lake trail.

We started off slowly and maintained a steady pace most of the day. The moon was setting over Rollins Pass as we headed up from the valley floor. Everything was lush and green and we ascended up above treeline (topping out at 12,200 feet). The views from the summit were amazing. We were able to look down on Winter Park/Mary Jane ski areas from our vantage point atop the ridge and there is a remarkable amount of beetle kill on the back range. This seems to be slowly creeping over the divide too which is not good news. I think the best we can hope for is an extreme winter to help cull the beetle numbers as the last few winters have been relatively mild temperature-wise.

We headed north along the ridge line to Diamond Lake trail and dropped down into this great little basin. There are a bunch of fun-looking ski lines up here but, as Luke pointed out, getting to them with all your gear would be a bit of a slog. We continued down the trail, making it back to the truck in about 4 and a half hours. Luke had to jam back to Boulder so I refueled and started my trek back home from Eldora.

Running back down the main road toward Ned I felt great. I was taking it easy, run/walk cycles along the pavement back to the Shelf Road. From here, I took a cut off that deposited me at the far west end of Magnolia and then the fun began.

I jammed up some singletrack and quickly linked into the Habitrail - a fun singletrack mountain bike trail. This trail got its name because it loops around the forest like those cages one can but for their hamster. I took a peek at the map and noticed they have it listed as the Hobbit trail which is just lame but pretty funny. Gotta love it when the forest service is out of the loop.

I intended to follow my old standard back to Rollinsville but then got a wild hair and decided to hook up with 105 which should have dumped me at the top of a gnarly descent to Rollins Pass. Unfortunately, I got a little lost and ended up on some new singletrack that didn't go where I expected and probably burned about an hour dinking around trying to get back to familiar territory. I finally made it back to my standard route and made it to the Rollinsville store prior to running out of water (barely). I refilled and headed back up the Peak to Peak highway. A storm seemed to be moving in behind me and I made it my goal to reach home in less than 8 hours or at least before getting hammered by the rain. I was able to run when the road wasn't too steep and made it home in front of the storm but 5 minutes shy of my 8-hour goal. Pretty awesome.

I was able to run, eat and drink the whole run today, which was very good news. I did have some issues with my left shin in the final hour or so which I will need to address but overall, this was a great run. I am feeling more and more prepared every week.

View full album here.

Movie time: Yesterday, Rage and I went to see the new Pixar joint, Ratatouille. I believe this is the best to date and given that it is from Pixar, says a lot. Just a fun movie. Amazing CGI. Go see it on the big screen immediately. Rage has indicated that she has a nice, crisp $5 bill for anyone who can go the whole movie without wanting to tweak the nose of the main character.
(Offer not valid in Wisconsin, Tennessee or Washington D.C.. Offer only good for first person who successfully completes the challenge and reports findings via a certified letter of non-tweakage and passes a lie-detector test (test must be paid for by contestant).)

We also watched Neil Young: Heart of Gold which was a cool concert film. Rage and I got to see Mr. Young play at Fiddler's green several years ago and this concert film is considered by many to be a great example of how to shoot and edit this type of movie. I can't say that I necessarily disagree. Good flick.

Tomorrow I plan to do a whole lot of nuthin' and may hit that up again on Friday. Planning to do Hope Pass Saturday if my leg feels better. I am icing it now so hopefully I'll recover quickly.

See you out there.

~stubert.