The Running Falcon: Winter Wonderland

Winter once again blasted the Boulder area the last few days. It started snowing Thursday night and by the time it cleared up on Friday around noon, we had 14 to 20 inches of fresh powder on the ground.

Despite the snow, and Boulder's curious habit of not plowing enough and not salting at all, I braved the rather horrible road conditions and headed up to Chautauqua for some "running." Despite a near accident (Boulder, for those who have not experienced it, has a curious habit of plowing the snow to the middle of the street in the theory that it will melt, which it eventually will. However in the meantime you are left with giant piles of packed snow in the middle of the street, making impossible to turn left in most areas, and where it is possible to turn left, making it impossible to see whether a car is coming. The only thing left to do is gun it in the hopes that a) no other car is coming and b) you can gain enough speed to ram through the barrier of snow and not get stuck on top of it) I made it up to Chautauqua, strapped my Microspikes on, and headed off.

Immediately I knew this was going to be a run only in the loosest sense of the word. I was forced to break trail across the Chautauqua meadow, plowing my way though knee-deep powder and hoping that I was at least generally following the trail. It took over 10 minutes to travel the (level) half mile to the Amp-Greenman trailhead.

There the going got considerably better since somebody, I am assuming Anton Krupicka or Scott Jurek, had been kind enough to break trail earlier in the morning, and clearly at least two or three people had already been by. I decided then that, since my parents were on their way from the airport, I would turn around at noon regardless of whether I made it to the summit, giving me a bit over an hour.

The trail was generally good, though unconsolidated, up through Saddle Rock. As far as pace go, I would call it a powerful hike, though at best I gave myself a pace of 20 or so minutes per mile. After Saddle Rock, though, it was evident that several people had turned around, and the remaining trail up to the summit would be minimally broken.

But it was absolutely gorgeous. I never get over the feeling of joy being out in that sort of environment. The snow was still falling, muffling every noise until it felt like I was the only person for miles. The only other things I saw moving were a few overly-industrious squirrels and a 10-point buck picking his way up the mountainside.

As it turned out, I did not quite make it to the summit by noon. I turned around a bit over an hour into my run, with another half mile to go to the summit. As the picture suggests, I was not entirely pleased to be turning around, but sometimes, family has to be the priority.

That said, the way down itself was fantastic! Nearly every time my foot came down, it slid another foot or two down the slope, lending me more of a bounding stride than any sort of normal running stride. And while I took a tumble or two, the snow was so thick that I barely felt it before I was up and off again (much to the surprise of a poor border collie, who gave me a few startled barks as I came flying around a bend).

I'll leave you with a couple more pics, just to fuel the envy I believe you should feel.