Green Mountain….sigh

This was my favorite cactus on Green Mountain. He was a little old man that sat by the trail and waved, “hello!” to me when I would pass him every afternoon. I would always wave back which would earn me an awkward glance from anyone else that was nearby.

On average, I hike up Green Mountain three or four times a week, 52 weeks out of the year. For weeks after the ‘06 blizzards I found myself post-holing my way up the mountain wishing I had snowshoes. In the summer when it gets too hot for daytime hiking on Green Mountain I’ll start going late in the evening while the deer, fox, coyotes, and rabbits are all active. Occasionally the sun will set while I’m on top of the mountain and I’ll end up walking home in the dark, which I always loved.

Once, while walking home in the dark after a post-bar midnight hike up the hill, I stopped mid trail because I had an overwhelming sense of another presence nearby. When I looked around I realized that I had walked right into the middle of a heard of deer. I was within 10 feet of at least 3 of them. I could have mounted one and ridden him home. I looked up the hill as saw the silhouette of a buck with a huge rack of antlers not more that 20 feet away. All of them had stopped grazing but none were moving to get away from me. They were mostly just looking at me as though they were saying, “what’s up, man?” Over the last year I’ve walked through the middle of that heard three more times during my midnight walks.

Three weeks ago I stepped on a rattlesnake while coming down the mountain. We scared each other pretty badly, but we both walked (or slithered) away uninjured after some great HD video was captured. Another mile down the trail I found a massive gopher snake that was almost 6′ long, gigantic in terms of local reptiles.

This picture was taken during the Green Mountain fire. Yes, it is a moose. It was nowhere near the fire. Neither was I. The morning before the fire I locked up my place, turned off my phone, and headed to Grand Teton N.P. for a week. I didn’t find out about the fire until I got home on Saturday.

The official cause of the fire is reported as being lightning. I can stomach a natural cause like this much better than if it had been kids playing with matches or a cigarette carelessly tossed out a car window on C-470. Regardless, I still take it personally. The only part of the mountain that burned is the only part of the mountain I normally use.

Oh Green Mountain, I feel as though I have neglected you. We’ve spent so much time together and had our fair share of adventures but I rarely share them with anyone. When I left to go to Wyoming I left a key with my neighbor so she could watch over my cats, but I didn’t leave anyone to watch over you. Would I have been able to prevent the tragedy that is your northeastern face? Probably not, but I wouldn’t feel like things went to shit while I had my back turned either.

I’ve learned that I need to share the things that mean something to me, whether it be a fantastic adventure in an isolated wilderness or a simple day hike up a treeless, sunburned mountain with a grand view of Denver’s smog situation. I need to ignore the voice in my head that tells me that no one cares what I have to say about this and that. After all, the people who don’t care won’t bother reading, right?

According to the information I’ve found online none of the Green Mountain trails are closed at this time. I intend on continuing my hikes up the mountain on my normal trails, camera in-hand as usual. In addition to my opinions, tales of adventure, and some (semi)handy outdoor/survival information I intend on documenting some of the damage and the regrowth of the charred northeast face of Green Mountain. Without realizing it at the time, I found inspiration for doing this when I explored the regrowth of some of the 1988 Yellowstone burn zones last week. Time heals all wounds, and I hope to be reminded of that each morning as I drink my coffee on my balcony. Regardless of the color, it’ll always be Green Mountain to me.

GMF to Manitou, the Hard Way

Admittedly, my adventure stories tend to be painfully long-winded. I’m trying to use alternate multimedia options this time around in order to cut through my fluff and failed attempts at humor. I was hoping to post a few pictures along with the story, but my requests for access to the photos taken have been perpetually unfulfilled.

Yeti emailed me in the middle of the week asking if I would want to attempt an ultralight off-trail jam up Pikes Peak. I had sworn off any additional ascents of Pikes Peak via the Barr Trail Hiker Interstate after my last one, two years ago, but Yeti was offering an alternate route so I took the bait. We planned to break out on Friday afternoon after work and return about 24 hours later. I’m all for any adventure that gets me above treeline on foot and still gives me a day to relax at home before returning to work on Monday, so we gave each other the virtual nod and started packing. After some skillful persuasion of (lying to) my employer to sneak out of work two hours early I was on my way to Green Mountain Falls for a late-day start.

This is a map of the trek we took. You will find a similar one on the Upadowna page created by Yeti. Along the way we talked about mapping adventures like this online, so please pardon the redundancy of both of us having a map posted. Personally, I find the full sized version a little more user-friendly, but you get the same details off of either version.

View Larger Map

Getting Started
It was hot in Denver, hot in Colorado Springs, and no better by the time I got to GMF so first things first; a round of PBRs while we reviewed our proposed route on the three maps we took with us; the 7.5 minute USGS quads for Woodland Park and Pikes Peak I grabbed from the Map Store, and a 1:75,000 map of the Pikes Peak region owned by Yeti. After the cans were crushed we hit the trailhead and started uphill at exactly 4pm. Within the first 20 minutes we both agreed that due to the heat we were both glad we opted to pack light.

GMF to South Catamount
As we passed through the Garden of Eden Yeti made me promise that in the event of a mountain lion or bear attack either of us would stay and battle it out beside the other until the bitter end. I thought this was a given, but I guess Yeti doesn’t trust me.

Catamount to Glen Cove
About one mile past South Catamount the forest opened up into a meadow where we found a group of four ladies and two dogs who had packed in from the reservoir along the same line that we followed. They were a friendly bunch so we stopped and visited for a moment. After departing again we crossed a marsh on a man-made dirt dam and began a 2.5 mile, 2000 vertical foot, forested ascent to Glen Cove following game trails and a creek. Bears had marked up hundreds of trees in the area. I started wondering if Yeti would really hold me to that promise.

By 8:30pm I was running on empty but I pushed it till 9. There was barely any daylight left for us to set up a quick tarp shelter so we were really under the wire, but we did make it to Glen Cove as we had planned. My sense of accomplishment was completely overshadowed by the physically ill feeling I had from my lack of nourishment. One bag of noodles later I was good to go.

Overnight at GC
I was really comfortable but I didn’t sleep all that well. I was like an overstimulated child, I think. There was an occasional flicker of cloud-to-cloud lightning accompanied by a distant rumble of thunder, and a few times we got the click-click-click of just a little sleet falling on us. Yeti and I stayed up and b.s-ed for a little while until he fell asleep mid-sentence. Poor little guy was plumb tuckered out.

We woke up to thunderous engines screaming up the highway. These were no commuter vehicles. We could see activity on the switchback directly above our campsite; Pikes Peak Hill Climbers were taking practice runs up the road. We watched what we could while we had breakfast.

Glen Cove to the Peak
We departed camp and did a 1000′ tundra ascent to get up to Devil’s Playground. I should have thought to measure the incline we were on but there was so much happening at once. I bet it was a 35 degree slope. We saw some grazing deer up there but mostly we kept looking back down at the highway, watching the racers tear past Glen Cove and drift the corner afterward. I just bought a new Impreza last week. It made me want to blow this trip off and go try those corners for myself.

At Devil’s Playground we joined a trail to get us the rest of the way to the top. The farther we went the less obvious the trail was and the larger the cairns became. By 11am the clouds had started rolling in on us, a little earlier than expected. We probably summited at exactly the right time; there was one cloud forming and boiling, filling up Bottomless Pit, and we had a clear, albeit brief, view of the tops of the overcast skies down in Colorado Springs. It was exactly what I wanted to see when I got there.

Pikes Peak Summit
The Pikes Peak Summit House features a wide variety of keychains, sweatshirts, and other overpriced, touristy crap. The real excitement is in the free donuts. I’m not sure where Yeti found that coupon, but I treated that donut like “my precious” even though Mr Buzzkill at the next table over just “couldn’t see how anyone could eat a sugary donut after climbing the Peak.”

Summit to Timberline A-Frame
The clouds had rolled in and started to form a little precipitation as we started down the mountain right around 12:15pm. We got waves of pea-sized hail almost the whole time on our way down to the A-frame. When there wasn’t hail there was dense fog. Aside from the occasional hailstone to the back of the ear or the nipple, it was fun. There was a steady rainy drizzle by the time we got to the A-frame so we took a break to read the graffiti in the old building. After a 30 minute break we topped off the water and hit the trail again. That is the last time we would stop until Manitou.

Timberline to Barr Camp
The forest kept any more precipitation at bay for this part of the trail, but the fog was still there. We weren’t getting the grand views through here, but the fog through the forest was very picturesque. When we got to Barr Camp we just kept on truckin’.

Barr Camp to Manitou
Zzzzzz, zzzzz

Finish Line
We were trying not to think about it on our way down, but we both had our mouths set on the Loop (corner of Manitou Ave. and Ruxton Ave.) for our final stop. Sadly, when we got there at 5pm the wait for a table was around 45 minutes and we were in no mood to linger. We called our shuttle to come get us and haul us up to Pine Gables for a pitcher and a pie.

Please ignore my pessimism of the lower Barr Trail. Overall I was very happy with our journey. If I were to alter anything at all about the way we approached the mission, I would have started around 3pm rather than 4 so we would have had a little buffer time when we got to camp, and so we weren’t walking through bear terrain right at dusk. Also, I would have printed out more donut coupons.

Snug Runners

I think I found just what I need to motivate me to get a little running in each week. I’m not much of a runner anymore but I know I need to have the ability to run a few miles for the upcoming Muddy Buddy. Plus, Yeti tells me about his weekly attendance of the Jack Quinn’s Running Club, and much like him, drink specials will motivate me to do just about anything. Last week I became an official member of the Irish Snug Running Club and I ran my first Snug Run 5K on Thursday in the sweltering heat.

I have a few friends in the Capitol Hill neighborhood who were interested in the Snug Run as well so we rolled up at the Snug with a posse of four. I didn’t catch the total attendance for Thursday, but there were 63 new members, myself and friends included, and the club just surpassed the 2000 member mark last week.

The course is relatively flat and laps around Cheeseman Park and the Denver Botanical Gardens. I did much better than I thought I would since I don’t really do much running. Not that I needed to show up and represent but any means, the attitude of the club seemed very laid back and non-competitive. They break the run up into two start times; 6:15 and 6:30. We went with the less crowded 6:30 start but would regret it when we finished and tried to find a table Under the Snug, in the downstairs portion of the Irish Snug where the club meets. Everyone helped themselves to complementary spaghetti and salad and $3 Guiness and Miller Lite. I believe the Snug has $3 carbombs available after 8pm also. We were enjoying ourselves so much we were actually around until 9pm, but I start losing memories when the carbombs are served so I held off last week.

All four of us decided to try and make the Snug Run our regular Thursday evening. I’m shooting for the free Snug Runners t-shirt after 10 runs. If you are planning on going you should make sure to register before Thursday and show up by 6pm to get signed in. Along with your free membership comes access to the member forum. I heard other members talking about similar runs at nearby bars on Monday and Tuesday evenings also but I missed the details on those. I bet an ambitious person could find that information in the forums, but for now it’s back to work for me….

Stinkiest Sandals Ever

I bought a pair of Keen Newport H2 sandals about a year ago after I blew out my former pair of sandals. After one year of use I feel prepared to tell you what I think of these sandals.

In my never-ending quest to simplify my life and minimize my belongings I wanted to find a sandal that is suitable for casual social settings as well as fully functional in the outdoors. Without boring you with details of my shopping endeavors, I opted for the Keen Newport and I paid full price for them, which was right around $90. I don’t even like to spend that much on sneakers so the expense was hard to justify but I went with it anyway.

The design of this sandal is fairly logical; burly, shoe-like sole (supposedly featuring an anti-microbial footbed), thick nylon webbing upper, and a neoprene liner between the webbing and the foot. It all synches up with that stretchy shock cord. It all actually makes for a really nice fit for me, but that is attributed to two things that I really don’t care for in footwear; shock cord and neoprene. Both are lacking durability and prene breathes for crap and holds your stink. That is possibly why some of the reviews I read say that they wear out quickly, but after one year mine are still going strong.

I’m a wet-wader. Most Colorado fishermen look down their noses at me for it, but I really don’t care. In my opinion, anyone who needs to wear a $200 pair of Gore-Tex waders to stand in a river in the middle of the summer is a slave to their own gear. The Newports seem to work well as a warm weather fishing sandal. The closed toe is helpful for hiking in on grassy or rocky riverbanks, but it also makes it difficult to quickly unload any pebbles that decide to come along for the ride. The soles on my model don’t provide great traction on mossy rocks so if you are looking for a sandal specific to fishing then maybe consider the Simms version with the felt sole.

Speaking of that sole, I’m not sure if Keen gave theirs the yellow accents to try to fool the consumer into thinking it is a Vibram sole or not. They shouldn’t need to, it stands for itself. In fact, the sole is going to be the last thing about this sandal that wears out. It wraps all the way around to the top of the toes covering all of your toenails and making you imprevious to any and all toe stubbings. I frequently do air pressure checks on my car in these as I would in any sneaker. The top side of the sole, aka the footbed, is said to be treated with an anti-microbial agent. If it was ever there it took me about two months to walk it off. Since I am rarely prone to any type of foot odor it took me another month to figure out, “what the hell stinks so bad right now?!?” Let’s face it, using a barely-breathable layer of neoprene to solidly hold a foot to a non-breathable lunk of rubber is going to cause some perspiration. Even gal-friends of mine wearing the same sandal admit to manly foot odor after wearing their Keens for a day. At least they don’t stink while being worn, only after they are removed, so they probably aren’t a great “date sandal” if you know what I mean.

There are a few other things I wouldn’t, or don’t, do in my Keens. They are a little on the heavy side so I don’t bother taking them along as camp shoes when I’m backpacking. You might be better off with an old pair of thongs. I also don’t do much hiking in them. If your day hikes include wet but warm weather, waiting on kids or family, or going to the mall then they are well suited, but if you are just covering some ground then you should probably lean toward some light hikers and socks.

Without breaking down Keen’s whole product line, I was considering three of their models while shopping; the Newport H2, the Venice H2, and the Zerraport. The Zerraport has the same sole as the Newport, but it has this minimal, one strap design that zig-zags across the top of your foot which was just too minimal for my needs. The Venice is similar to the Newport but with a little less sole and a little less webbing on top but all for the same price. Admittedly, I followed the herd and went with the Newport, the Keen model of which I see the most on other people. They also offered a leather version of the Newport and Venice when I was shopping last year. It looks like they may have changed the names on them, but the models are still there. They have also added a hemp model of the Newport. It doesn’t appear to be waterproof, but damn it looks sharp.

Overall, these are my go-to shoes once the temps climb into the 70’s and above. Concerts, farmers markets, movies, happy hours; I pretty much do it all in my Keens right now. I even wore them to an outdoor wedding last week. They are the best, albeit most expensive, pair of sandals I have ever owned. I just have to remember to throw a little can of foot spray in my pack if I plan on taking them off before I get home, otherwise the offensive odor of my otherwise well-kept feet is subject to ridicule.

Team UpaDowna Registered

Team UpaDowna, consisting of Yeti and myself, has thrown their collective hat in the ring for this year’s Muddy Buddy in Boulder. We have intended on doing this for a few years but have never been able to for various reasons. We are locked in this time around though because we coughed up the obnoxious $140 entry fee (plus some administrative charges and a mandatory $7 parking fee, no point in taking the bus I guess). I won’t complain about the cost too much in advance. Heck, I may have $200 worth of fun. But if I don’t, and my goody bag disappoints me, then I’ll just drink my weight in free beer.

I think I’m also on-board for the Run the Rocks 5K on Oct. 12th. This one just runs the roads around Red Rocks then finishes by running up the stairs on the south side of the amphitheater. It’s only $25 and there are free bands so it seems worthwhile. I live fairly close to the amphitheater so I’m a big fan of events at Red Rocks. In fact, I have a few other Red Rocks-related posts upcoming.

Eventually I would like to build up a little circuit of adventure races to give me weekly or monthly activities to look forward to. Yeti tells me he has a weekly 5K that gets him a free meal and beer specials. I’m sure there is plenty like that in the Denver area but I’m unaware of where they are. I’d like to get something like that started on this side of town. If I could get Chad’s or the Yard House on as a sponsor/host then I think enough people would be drawn in to make it fun and regular. Chad’s would be great because you could go directly from the restaurant out on 2nd, then up Green Mountain, and back down to the restaurant (although that would be more like a 10K so maybe it would be a bike ride).

The only other event I have planned is the Marmot Grind at Arapahoe Basin, and no information on that has officially been posted yet. Hopefully it will return to A-Basin next year because I sure enjoyed myself last time.

Western Rattlesnake

The only poisonous snake we really have to worry about in the Front Range is the Western Rattlesnake. Varieties of these range from the eastern plains into the foothills of Colorado, western CO, southwestern Wyoming, and southern Idaho, normally at elevations below 8000′. From April to October they are active in grasslands, sage brush, rocky woods, and canyon sides (where I found one). They will generally attempt to avoid human interaction but if surprised or cornered they will become aggressively defensive by holding their ground, posturing, rattling, and striking if anything comes in range.

I had actually never seen or heard a rattlesnake before this one (zoos don’t count). I thought they were more of a plains snake so I didn’t think I’d ever find one on the foothills side of Denver, but I was obviously mistaken. I was hiking down through Chimney Gulch listening to an iPod when a bush I had just passed started rattling at me. I had read many times that the rattle is a distinctive sound, but having never heard it I questioned how “distinctive” it really would be. I can now testify that when you hear a rattlesnake rattle you will know what it is without seeing it (or at least I did, even over my music). I instantly grabbed my camera and turned around to start looking for him.

Admittedly this isn’t the best video since I used the video feature of my still cam, but it’s better than nothing. You can see the snake coiled with his head ready to strike (look for his little black tongue poking out) and his rattled tail out in front. I would estimate him to be about 24-30″ long.

USGS Map Store

If you are in the Denver area and you need 7.5 minute topo maps there is a place where you can buy the official ones right off the shelf. There is a USGS Map Store in the south west corner of the Federal Center in Lakewood. You have to enter the Federal Center through one of the visitor entrances off of either Kipling or Union, just south of 6th Ave. Check in with the guard who will check your driver’s license and tag. Ask him for directions to the Map Store if you need help finding your way through the Federal Center.

This place is a bit of a “candy store” for those who love maps. Personally, I never considered myself as one who “loves” maps, but through my fascination with this store I have realized that perhaps I am. In the store you will find a centrally located table with large maps of Colorado and the neighboring states, each broken down into grids representing the quadrangles. It allows you to quickly reference any 7.5 minutes map in Colorado, find the name, and then turn around and find the map in the gigantic, motorized, alphabetical racks of maps in the back of the store. If you want anything from outside of Colorado then you just need to ask for it, but according to the gentleman working there they have every single 7.5 min map in the US in the adjacent warehouse. You can see this warehouse right off of Alameda (you just can’t get there using any of the Alameda gates), it’s the monster 4 acre building with the wavy roof just east of Union.

In addition to the USGS topos they have locally relevant Trails Illustrated maps, topo atlases, Forest Service and National Forest maps, wall maps, road atlases, educational tools, and a bookshelves with field guides, hiking and biking books. Each time I talk to the guys working in there they are eager to assist and seem to enjoy doing their jobs.

It’s worth a visit if you haven’t been before and you need some sort of map, especially a good topo map for a backpacking journey. The USGS 7.5 minute topo maps are $6 each. All of the other books and maps seemed to be marked at MSRP, and there are some custom maps and older/sale maps that you probably wouldn’t find elsewhere. The only downfall of this cornucopia-o-maps is the store hours; Monday – Friday, 8am – 4pm, closed holidays. I usually end up going on my lunch break.

Happy Hour Map

I actually went through and updated my Happy Hour Map the other day. It’s almost more of an “Interesting Bar Directory” than a happy hour directory right now, but it’s a work in progress. Eventually I would like to drop all of the chains from the list and just have it as a local bar happy hour map, but until then I’ll leave the franchised bars with good happy hours up there. (There is always a link to UTM’s Happy Hour Map on the right side of this page under Beer.)

I sure could use some help with this though since I really don’t have the time, gasoline, money, or liver to just tour around the mountains looking for good bars during happy hour. If you have a favorite Front Range or mountain town happy hour or bar that you really like please send me some details about it and I’ll post it on the map and probably even drop by the bar for a beer sometime. Cheers!

Tahoe: Kirkwood

In January I had an opportunity to check out the Lake Tahoe area for a three day snowboarding excursion. I had never been to the area before so this was all a first for me and I feel like it was a really positive experience overall, but not without it’s adventures and downfalls. After three days I am in no way equipped to write you a guide, but I think I came away with some fairly handy information that you could probably exploit if you were to head that way. I’ll probably have to break this up into several posts.

When I booked my plane tickets at the end of December the snow accumulation at Heavenly was looking pretty bleak. They only had around 50% of the mountain open. I was nervous. I have no interest in spending hundreds of dollars to go out of state and pay for lift tickets to ride groomers all day. Then in the middle of January the skies opened up and the whole region started getting pummeled with snow so we got pretty excited.

Kirkwood

Day one was a Thursday and there was a storm moving through the area. We went to Heavenly but we were stopped short at the ticket window. The ticket fellow warned us that three of the lifts were already shut down due to hight winds and another four would probably be closing as well, making most of the mountain inaccessible. Additionally, they were expecting 130mph winds on top of the mountain so there was also the potential that they would just shut the whole mountain down. “No refunds.” We just weren’t down with paying full price to get kicked off of the mountain so we decided to pick a different mountain. After calling various mountains for snow reports we decided to try out Kirkwood, which is about 45 minutes from Heavenly.

It was snowing and blowing pretty hard at Kirkwood and this turned in to a half day ($56, I think it was $68 for the full day), but Kirkwood isn’t a huge place so I got to see most of the mountain. I started off doing some laps on the Sunrise lift. This area is probably the closest thing Kirkwood has to a “back side”. Visibility was low so I didn’t make it out to an area called The Wave, which looked like it had a ton of potential. I stuck with other runs accessed by taking a right when getting off the lift and cat-tracking over a bit. The upper portion is fairly steep with very few trees and a few rock outcroppings, but once you get into the lower portion everything flattens out and gets a little dull. After 3 laps I had seen everything I wanted to see back there and decided to head back to the main portion of the mountain. To do this, I took Larry’s Lip over to a series of chutes that fall right under the very rocky and dramatic peak of the mountain. I believe the one I took was called Two Man Chute and it offered a really steep shot through some nice, untouched snow. Maybe people stay away because it takes two lifts to lap the area. If you were to shop around you would probably find a half-dozen nice rock drops in this area. I managed to hit a smaller one on my way through. In retrospect, a two-lift lap would have been worth it to hit that area again but I didn’t make it back there again.

I skipped the Wagon Wheel and The Wall area. There are 6 chutes and a lot of double diamond terrain high up and right in the middle of the mountain that looks promising. Next time….

From the Cornice Express lift I traversed across to the Sentinel Bowl area for several laps. This area is a two-lift-lap as well but worth the effort. From what I rode it was my favorite part of this mountain. Sentinel offers some gullies, trees, and small rock outcroppings and drops all through lots of nice snow. I traversed as far to skier’s left as possible to stay in nice powdery snow against the OB rope. Apparently I overlooked a gate that was higher up on the rope and closed the day I was there. It wasn’t until talking to some locals at Heavenly that I found out that a boarder had been buried and rescued in an avalanche in the Palisades area the day before I was there, which was possibly the reason for the closure.

Overall, Kirkwood didn’t seem to bad to me at all. It had a small mountain feel with fun little spots here and there. I could definitely see how the place could grow on a person that rides there a lot. I’m not sure if I would travel all the way from Denver to Lake Tahoe just to exclusive this mountain though. A traveler could probably get everything they would want out of this mountain in one full day, but they could stay entertained for two.

I have lots to tell about Heavenly as well, but I’m going to save it for another day.

A Basin: The Marmot Grind

I invited as many people as I could out to do this with me, but the favorite reply was, “I’m not in shape for that.” In fact, I heard it so many times that I began to believe that I was not in shape for it either. Then I had these visions of 30 minutes after the starting gun, me being the only person in sight, only half way up High Noon and stopping to catch my breath.

I really did think this would be something that would take me 3 – 4 hours to complete. And my fears were further compounded as I started thinking that I was the only boarder entered when I couldn’t find a single other snowboarder with a number bib on. None of this held true though as I finally ran into Ben, another boarder that entered and ended up being the first in our division to cross the finish line. There were a total of 8 snowboarders that entered the Recreational division, and none in the Racer division. It was really no big surprise that no boarders went in the Racer division as The Grind is mostly geared toward telemark skiers. Some of these people are really hardcore too, with their skin-tight body suits and born-to-win attitudes. (Not to say that I caught any attitude from anyone. Everyone was very much there to have a good time.)

The Rec Course: It all basically started right outside of the A-frame (you know, where EVERYTHING happens at A Basin) and went straight up the High Noon run. At the top of the first major slope on High Noon you cut across Sundance to Chisolm Trail then go up to Wrangler. Hang a right on Wrangler, pass the top of the Exhibition lift, and get on the Grizzly Road traverse (it doesn’t look like a traverse on the trail map, but anyone who rides the mountain knows it is a traverse). Take Grizzly Road to the top of the Pallavicini lift, then the West Wall/Cornice Run ridgeline all the way to the top of Norway Lift. From there you cut over to the North Pole Hiking Gate and hike to the top of North Pole Chute. (Then we finally got some downhill.) Ride the North Pole Chute down to the avalauncher (just above the base of the Lenawee Lift), do a very short uphill to jump over to West Gully just above Wrangler, then follow the original course down to the Start/Finish Line. You follow all of that? No? It may help to look at a trail map.

The whole course covered 2000 vertical feet for rec competitors. The Racer course was 4000 vertical. Racers started at the same time and place as Rec, but they split off at the top of Norway and dipped down into Zuma bowl. Once they came back out of Zuma they went through the North Pole hiking gate with everyone else, but when they rode down North Pole they had to stop at the traverse, then turn around and hike up Willie’s Wide, then ride down to the bottom along the rest of the course from there.

Everyone started out on foot with gear on the ground 100 feet up the hill. Snowboarders kinda had the advantage here (although it would be quickly lost on the uphill) because we could all leave our boards strapped to our packs just sitting on the hill, meaning we all just had to run up and put a backpack on and start walking uphill while everyone else wrestled with bindings.

There are a few things I’d change about the way I approach this deal next year, or suggest to those that are going to make an attempt in the future. I opted to go without trekking poles (because I don’t currently own a pair) but I think I’ll have some ready for next year. I think I used a lot of energy keeping my balance and I lost my footing on a few steeper spots. I’m sure you know the feeling of having a foot slip while walking uphill, then taking those three running steps to try to catch yourself and scramble back to where you were, and then feeling like you wasted half-a-day’s energy on what equated to taking one step uphill. Trekking poles would have helped there as well as some type of crampons. I noticed at least one of the boarders had some little plastic, buckle-on crampons that would have really helped me keep footing (I actually fell in behind him and used his footprints on some steeper spots), but I think a full-on spiky metal set of crampons would have been overkill.

Also, I carried 70 oz of water with me but that turned out to be excessive, especially after my Camelback tube froze with 60 oz to go. That basically added up to 4 lbs of water I carried with me for no reason. Camelback makes those little thermal sleeves for the tube but people who use those have told me that it only slows the freezing and doesn’t prevent it. From the top of Palli to the top of North Pole the wind was really howling, so I doubt anything could have been done to prevent freezing. Next year I’ll probably just pre-hydrate and take more like 40 oz so it isn’t such a burden if it freezes again. I thought they may have a water stop along the way but they didn’t, so take water with you unless you can push yourself for 2 hours straight without drinking anything.

I also learned that dressing in proper layers is crucial. It was a chilly morning at the base of the mountain but I still started out in nothing more than a base layer and light fleece hoodie. By the time I was at the top of High Noon I was drenched to the bone with my own sweat. My clothes wicked well but when I got to the ridgeline on Grizzly my sweat-soaked fleece froze solid. This would have been a good spot to add a shell but I just kept going all the way to the North Pole gate before adding a layer as I was trying to dry off a bit the whole way. I’ll also remember to take a neck gator next time. I skipped it thinking that a high collar on my hoodie would be sufficient, but being blasted with that icy wind while pouring with sweat proved to be rough on my neck. In fact, my face was so numb that by the time I reached the top of North Pole I had no sense of the snotsickle that had fanned out from my right nostril all the way across my right jaw line. I’m sure it was entertaining for anyone who watched me pass.

I’m not sure if there was a rule posted about music players, but I assume there wasn’t judging by the number of people I saw wearing headphones. Music was essential for me. It gave me a beat to walk to and kept me from talking to or listening to the other people around me (although the cluster of people from the start line was widely dispersed by the time I got to the top of High Noon).

At the after-party we were all given goody bags with a variety of Clif treats, drink mixes, coupons, a t-shirt, and a copy of Backcountry. There was also a raffle, in which I won nothing, and a casual awards ceremony in which all of the 1st place Rec winners got a Marmot backpack and some other swag. Overall, not a bad deal for the $25 entry fee. Oh yeah, and how could I forget the beer? New Belgium brought some Springboard and Skinny Dip for all of the competitors. I crossed the finish line and pounded 3 of them right away and found myself hoping that I wouldn’t get called in the raffle so I wouldn’t have to stagger up to the front of a room full of people.

As an honorable mention, 59 year old Bill Moody was the only person in the Veteran Snowboarder division. I remember him from walking next to him for a while; he was trucking up the hill. He finished 3rd of all of the snowboarders with a time of 1:55:32. Congratulations, Bill.

Here are the rest of the results. Most of the teles came in under the 2 hour mark, snowboarders averaged around 2 hours. If you are thinking about entering next year (or if you are one of the people that I will pester into going next year) then I would estimate that someone of modest athletic ability and endurance could complete the course in 2:30 if you picked a pace that you can maintain.

If you’ve already told me that you’ll do it next year, (it’s funny how many people will say that within a few days after the event) then I’m holding you to it.