Almagre Mountain solo trip

Yesterday's Almagre summit was just what I needed. Sometimes I wish I could climb up to the high country and just stay there. Usually I get 15 minutes at best to stand on a high point and soak in the view before I have to rush back down the mountain.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning.

I set out yesterday from the top of North Cheyenne Cañon. I started out on Seven Bridges, and since I got a late start, it was already quite hot. The views from the trail (622) were clear blue skies.

The 622/Seven Bridges trail is washed out in several sections.

Soon I reached the junction with Pipeline trail (668). If you're following this route, make sure you go left up the steep hill once you see the metal sign in the photo below, and you'll soon come to the junction with the multi-use trail. Continue to the left (south) from there.

This is one of my favorite sections of trail. It is fairly rolling/flat, and opens up to a great view of the valley beyond.

After following this trail for a while, I came to the area designated as "Nelson's Camp" on the Pikes Peak Atlas. Although I'm not sure who Nelson is, or why he camped here, there are a few ruins on the trailside that indicate the area. If you're trying to follow this route up Almagre, pay attention for this, as you're about to turn off the trail.

After you see these ruins, go just a bit further and you will come to another one of the old metal signs. Cross the creek here, and immediately after crossing the creek, turn off the trail to the right (west). You'll very quickly pick up a solid class 2 trail that follows the drainage up to Almagre Reservoir.

I saw some other trail runners coming down this route! Generally the trail is in pretty good condition. It passes by some very nicely flowing waterfalls.

It feels like this part takes forever! Eventually you will come to the crossing of trail 701. I always tend to loose the trail here, but the best route (if you can find it) picks up at the next switchback to the south along the 701 trail and continues following the same drainage.

Eventually you'll get close to treeline and the route will get a little scrambly, like a class 2+ or easy class 3 rock hop.

And then before you know it, you'll see the brick wall in front of you that is the Almagre Reservoir dam.

Climb up on top of the wall and you'll feel like you've entered an alien landscape. Almagre Reservoir isn't actually there, and I'm not sure if the dam actually works or just isn't in use, but a solid creek was still flowing through the basin.

The plant life in the basin is strange, delicate, and completely unlike the flowers you see below treeline.

There's so many cool rock outcroppings in the basin area. I really want to hike up here with a tent someday and set up camp and just scramble around on as many rock outcroppings as I can.

I decided that since I was pretty tired already, and my way down would add at least an extra mile or more to the return trip, I would just climb the saddle between the north and south summits and soak in the view before heading down.

The view down to the west showcases the South Slope Recreation area, plus the Bull Park off road area. Pikes Peak is to the northwest, along with the long stretch of the Cog tracks that goes from Windy Point up to the summit of Pikes. If you look far in the distance to the west, you make out a number of fourteeners, like Mt. Princeton.

Obligatory "I was actually there" selfie.

I sat contemplating life and the mountains for a few brief minutes before I had to return. The view down into North Cheyenne Cañon as I began my descent was amazing. I swore I could make out the parking lot where I'd started this morning, although I'd probably need binoculars to confirm that.

I began descending on the road, stopping for a few more photos on my way down. I love the view across to Mount Rosa.

There is a trail that is a little bit of a "shortcut" down towards Frosty's Park. The trail is marked by a cairn along the road.

I took this shortcut trail down and joined up with the road 379 right by Frosty's Park, taking the standard 701 to 668 to 622 route back to the parking area, where I met up with my husband.

Afternoon thundershowers began to build as we left, wrapping up my adventure for the day.

What a fun adventure! I have to say again that I'm thankful to my husband for supporting my adventuring. And I think my spirit lives up there in the high mountains. I hope that someday I'll be able to take an overnight trip to the Almagre Reservoir basin. I bet the stars are amazing up there.

First Pikes Peak summit of the year with Sharon!

The weather gods smiled upon us yesterday, when the forecast changed from rain and snow to mostly clear skies.

We set out just before 7am on our summit bid.

The temperature was cool, but the wind wasn't terrible for most the trip. I definitely could have layered up more, as when the wind did hit, it left an impression. I was really only "too cold" for one brief section.

I can't say the same for Sharon. She got frozen once we got above treeline and never fully recovered from that. I guess we both should have brought even more layers than we did. The top of the mountain is still "winter conditions" even though it's almost July!

Here are some of the views we enjoyed on our way up:

Right when we reached the summit, a big cloud quickly passed over us, making the top of the mountain *very* cold.

That's when we discovered that the summit house was closed today. At the end of June! In the week of summer solstice!

Sharon started to panic a little, worried that we'd be in for a long descent. I knew that the road usually opened up to Devil's Playground on days when the summit was too windy or icy. So I figured we'd have about 5 miles of easy descent on the road until we reached a ride. I tried to calm Sharon with this information, but unfortunately she was just freezing and it's hard to keep a positive attitude when you're so cold. I'm proud of her though, she really stuck it out!!

After 2 miles on the road, a nice ranger picked us up and took us the other 2 miles down to Devil's Playground, where we hitched a ride. Do not, I stress, DO NOT do this - it's normally illegal to run on the road and you can't expect a ride down on days when the road is fully closed. However, the nice ranger was understanding. We thought it was a clear day and the road would be open; I mean it's almost July!

On our way down the road, we saw a car that had driven off the side, and was stuck on the mountainside slope at a steep angle, teetering on the brink of turning over. The ranger mentioned that this happened the day prior on a patch of ice, which is likely why they were so hesitant on opening the summit.

Despite our adventure taking an unexpected twist at the end, I had a great time. I had fun running on the road, which was super smooth and enjoyable - something you can't normally do.

And I'm glad Sharon braved through the dangers and we made our first summit of the year!

Oh yeah - my summit time was 4:27 and Sharon was just a few minutes ahead of me. Felt pretty solid for the first of the season!

Hopefully the mountains will heat up this week and we will see easier summit conditions in the upcoming weeks.

Summer solstice week - Weekly training update

I love this time of the summer. The actual summer solstice is the 21st this year, but it varies from year to year. Nonetheless the days are quite long all week, making for wonderful training.

On Tuesday I did a usual Palmer Park run. I kept delaying my run, setting out about noon and I just barely mistimed the rain storm, getting pretty rained on in my last mile. Still quite fun! About 6.5 miles total.

On Thursday, I ran down to my favorite pullup bars in Monument Valley first.

After a few quick sets, I continued on to Mesa Open Space, where I did a full loop of the dirt bike trails before running home, this time avoiding the rain. I netted 11 miles, a solid amount for a midweek mid-length run.

Then, on Friday evening, I went on a hike with my husband and our friend Felix. We tried out the Talon trail at Cheyenne Mountain State Park. This is the primary way that connects to the Dixon trail, which summits Cheyenne Mountain. Of course it was evening, so we didn't go that far, but we still got a great preview of the trail!

I should mention that Friday was very stormy in and around the Springs, but we found the perfect "pocket" away from the weather. We never got rained on, but we got excellent views of the city and the storms all around us, especially to the east. The total hike was 3.5 miles on slightly uphill trail encircling Cheyenne Mountain along the primary "spine" that gradually climbs the ridge.

I look forward to running the full Talon -> North Talon -> Dixon trail route and seeing the summit area!

Tomorrow I'm running with Sharon on Pikes, and definitely looking forward to that as well! Despite the forecast calling for more rain and even snow up on Pikes, I know we will have a great time enjoying our big Colorado backyard playground!

Regular training update + Barr Camp with Sharon

What a busy week for training! I didn't feel like I did that much, but when I reflected back on my week in preparation for my blog post, I realized that I'd done a lot of hiking this week.

While not the same as running, hiking is a good form of training, especially for a mountain race which involves a lot of climbing.

On Tuesday, I ran to the gym. I went through Palmer Park, opting to take the Templeton Trail to the Palmer Pointe Trail and go down through Greencrest.

Thunderstorms threatened, but never materialized.

At the gym, my husband drove over and met with me! He is picking up a more regular exercise routine to get back into better shape. I'm glad for this and I am doing what I can to support him. I warmed up for 15 minutes on the exercise bike with him, then I went to do some weightlifting, and capped it off with a cooldown swim, 15 minutes of laps.

Then on Tuesday night, we did a short sunset hike at the Pueblo Reservoir. It was a perfect lakeside loop that went right by the water near the Fisherman's loop.

On Thursday, we took our family for a short sunset hike at Spruce Mountain Open Space.

This gorgeous little open space is near Larkspur, and it offers shaded trails and rocky mesas.

On Saturday, I took an evening hike with my husband and a couple friends. We hiked up into the Red Rock Canyon quarry, and back around the west side of the mesa. I figured that it would be a perfect back-to-back with my Sunday morning run.

Sunday morning was misty, cool, and overcast.

Sharon and I set out on the Incline. The weather was nice for quick times, and Sharon was ahead of me in the 36-minute range. I was 38:18.

We power hiked most of the way to Barr Camp and got there in about 2:05!

Just before Camp, Lindsay passed us on her way to A-frame! What a perfect day for a long run since the weather was cool.

Sharon and I hung out at Camp for a few minutes before heading down. We went down on the first mile of Lake Moraine trail, which was so much fun to see in the mists, considering I'd just been on it last weekend in the sun.

We also saw plenty of wildflowers!

When we got down to the bottom, the shuttle had arrived so Sharon headed back the parking lot, but I decided to take the "back way" to the parking lot, via Intemann trail.

I'd never done this short section of Intemann, which runs right along the ridgeline, providing views of the whole Manitou Springs valley. Plus, I got to see even more wildflowers!

Finally, to cap off the week, I went on another hike with my family and our friend Felix at the Pueblo Reservoir on Sunday evening.

Now it's already Wednesday and I'm running with Sharon and J'ne again tomorrow morning! I intended to update this blog earlier in the week, but life kept me busy. I've been hiking a lot with my hubby, so I will write more about that in the next update!