2013 Solstice Slog

Report of yesterday's stupidity. http://georgezack.blogspot.com/2013/12/solstice-slog-122113.html

GZ writes it up much better than I ever could.  I will add links to any other reports that go up in the next few days.  This run has me pondering doing something similar in Boulder with some peak summits thrown in.  Enjoy.

Kauai in Photos and Videos

Not going to write a big post on all the cool things we did, just thought I would hit the highlights with some photos and videos. This island is freakin awesome and the photos don't do it justice. These are some of my favorite photos out of the 600 plus photos that everyone took during the trip.

Thank you again Dad for having us!!! Enjoy!

Sunset







Trailrunning







Snorkeling














Food











Beaches



















Luau





















Ziplining












Waimea Canyon







Mahalo Nu'i Loa for reading!

Longs Peak Run

On Friday night I put out the word on Facebook to see if anyone was interested in doing a 14 mile trail run in the Boulder area. This lead to Donald inviting me to join him in trying to break 4 hours to the summit and back of Longs Peak on Sunday. Challenge accepted!


Due to the snow that we discovered from the Boulder Field up we did not summit. And the winds were outragous on the other side of the Keyhole as you can see in this video.


We turned around shortly after this at just over 2 hours. I think if we would have had our mountaineering gear it would have been game on but being in shorts in 30 degree weather with that wind just was not doable. We ended up with 12.5 miles/ ~4000ft of gain in 3 hours and 5 mins.

Red Bull Pony Express run

I got this from GZ who got it from Scott.

Karl is a nut case! That is all I can say. Enjoy.

Pacing at Hardrock

Not a lot to say but it was a kick ass time. I will wait until JT puts up his race report before I write one. In the mean time here are the photos that I took out on the 48 mile of the course that I was on. Enjoy!

Solo fun on Mount Lindsey

Friday after work I drove down to the Lily Lake trailhead with thought of climbing Mount Lindsey first thing Saturday morning. It took me 5 hours to drive from work which is located at the Longmont exit on I-25 to the trailhead, much farther than I was expecting. The main reason that it takes so long is the fact that this trailhead is way back there in the hills. It takes over an hour of dirt and 4x4 roads to reach the trailhead from Gardner Colorado. I arrived about 8pm on Friday and was asleep in the back of my 4runner by 9:30 or so.

Saturday morning about 4am a large group of 5-8 people started talking and making lots of noise at the trailhead waking me up. I laid there looking at the roof of the 4runner willing myself to move. I finally got out of my sleeping bag at around 4:45am to get ready and hit the trail about 5:10am after chugging an energy drink since I did not have any coffee and quickly eating a Clif Bar.

The first 2 miles can be confusing according to trip reports that I have read so I studied the hell out of the map in Roach's book and at the trailhead the night before. It was a good thing that I did because as you get into the thick trees the trail disappears then comes back only to disappear again. Basically after crossing the river (kept to my left to this point) I just angled to my about 50 degrees or so to my left (this is assuming 90 degrees is straight ahead)which is southeast and kept the stream to my right. I ended up picking up the trail again. After a short steep uphill I broke treeline and the rest of the route was laid out in front of me. I move pretty quickly in comparsion to most people so I was expecting to catch or at least be able to see the large group that started in front of me once I hit treeline but they were not in eye sight at this point which I thought was weird, were they that quick?

I pushed up the hill to gain the ridge between the Iron Nipple and Lindsey, what a site! This is a beautiful location. I just followed the standard trail up to the small notch at the top of the 1st gully. From here I got tired of dealing with the loose rock so I turned right and did some class 3/low 4 climbing to gain the ridge and followed the Northwest Ridge the rest of the way to the summit. By the point that I gained the ridge I was past crux wall on this route was able to easily follow the ridge to the summit never going above a class 2/3 climb.

I hit the summit 2 hours and 45 mins after leaving my car this morning. I only spent 15 mins on the top eating, drinking, and snapping pictures. I followed the standard route that I ditched on the way up heading down. This was a loose mess and was happy that I did ditch it going up, by doing that it made for a much more enjoyable climb. I saw the 1st people of the day heading up when I was coming down, I never did see that large group that left before me I have no idea what happened to them. I guess I was the 1st one on top today. On the way down I booked it and came across about 15-20 people total still heading up. Once I got below treeline back into the heavy trees where the trail was disappearing on the way up, I ended up using my GPS watch to follow my tracks back down to pick up the trail again. The trees in this valley are thick enough that I did lose signal a few times on my GPS watch. This valley is easy to get turned around in if you are not careful. It took me 2 hours to get back to my car for a round trip time of 5 hours on the dot car to car. 38 14er mountains down and 20 to go, getting there slowly but surely.

Here is a slide show of the photos that I took:

Hardrock with a side of Sneffelupaguses

"You have to wonder at times what you're doing out there. Over the years, I've given myself a thousand reasons to keep running, but it always comes back to where it started. It comes down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement."
- Steve Prefontaine

Hardrock 100

I could not think of a better quote to sum up what I saw this past weekend at the Hardrock 100 mile trail run. There was nothing but guts and glory on display at the finish line as I watched people come across the finish line to kiss the rock.

I am going to give a short recap of Hardrock and leave the race report to JT. I will link to his report when it is completed.

JT had me pace him for about 15 miles of the course on Friday night. We left the GG aid station outside of Silverton at about 7pm arriving in Ouray at about 11:30pm. He was able to move pretty quickly through this section which was about 15 miles/3000ft of gain and 5500ft of loss. After dropping off JT with Paul Smith, I had to drive Paul's truck back up to Silverton via the Million Dollar Highway, this is scary when it is late and you are tired from running for over 4 hours. Click on the link to check it out. It is basically a cliff highway with a huge drop off just on the otherside of the white line, no room for error!

Here are some of the pictures that I took:



Here are some of the pictures that JT, Katie (crew) and his other pacer (Paul) took:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jteisher/Hardrock

After getting about 4 hours of sleep in the back of my 4Runner I headed back down to Ouray to knock out a 14er called Mount Sneffels on Saturday morning.

Mount Sneffels

I arrived at the lower trailhead at about 9am to hit the trail by 9:30am. I choose to start at the lower trailhead instead of 4X4ing up to the upper trailhead so that I could get a few extra miles and vertical feet in. This climb/hike ended up being about 6 miles and 3000ft of gain. It took me 3 hours and 15 mins car to car.

Here is the link to the route description on 14ers.com: Mount Sneffels

This climb is really straight forward and easy to follow so I am not going to write up a long trip report. Basically it is a very beautiful part of the state. It is a toss up between Aspen area and the San Juans for the prettiest places that I have seen so far in my quest of the 14ers.

Here are my pictures from the climb:



After the climb I headed back to Silverton to hang out at the finish line and watch people come across. I just love the aura that surrounds a 100 miler.

Hope everyone has a great week! I am planning on doing Mount Lindsey this coming Saturday so I will post pictures/report next week on that.

Mount Sherdian 2-8-09 and upcoming Red Hot

This past Sunday a group of 6 of us went to climb Mount Sheridan at 13,748ft above sea level. It was Kirk, Tracy, Chris Deck, Matt (Chris's cousin), Art (Kirk's co-worker) and myself. The road to the summer trailhead at Four Mile Creek on the Fairplay side of the mountain was closed due to snow about 3.25 miles from the trailhead. With this added mileage the hike came out to be about 13 miles round trip and 4500ft of gain. It took us 6 hours total which is not a bad clip considering the 30mph winds and snow that was thrown at us. Out of the 6 of us, Tracy, Chris, and myself hit the summit and the others turned around about 400 vertical feet from the top due to the cold and shivering wildly. I never took my snowshoes off my pack the whole day, the snow was hard enough that I could just walk on top of it and only sink a few inches. Here are a couple of pictures that were taken by Tracy. They show Chris and myself on the summit and a group picture at the end of the day.




This upcoming Saturday 2/14 I have my 1st race of the year, Red Hot 50K. I am more nervous about this race than I have been in past races and I can not figure out why. Is it because I have been working with a coach the past 3 or so months and now I feel higher expectations? Or is it because it is just the first of the year on my way to another 100 mile attempt? I think a huge part of it is the first question I raised, higher expectations. After feeling like I let down lots of people with dropping from Leadville at mile 78 last summer the last thing I want to do is have another let down due to a slower than expected time, hell I don't even know what time I should be shooting for or what pace I should try and run. I know that I am stronger than last year the question is how much stronger am I? I just don't want to let down myself, Ashley, or anyone else for that matter.

Well that is enough rambling and whining for today. I have to get back to work. I will post a race report next week and let you know how it went.

Mount Sherman & Gemini Peak

I have been kind of slacking on my posting lately and for that I am sorry. I started using an on-line training journal so I no longer post my workouts here. There is a link on the right hand side of the page that will take you to my on-line log at www.attackpoint.org. This is an awesome site. I will also in the next few months be laying out my 2009 race schedule. I am excited about that.

Now to get down to why I am even posting anything. This past weekend Ashley, Kirk, Tracy, and decided to take on Mount Sherman at 14,036ft above sea level. This is a straight forward and pretty easy hike. While we were up there I decided that I might as well knock out Gemini Peak which is just a short ridge walk away. That will be one more top 100 in Colorado done. There are all kinds of neat mine structures all over the mountain that you can check out, see the pictures below. This is a great mountain for 1st timers that want to try their hand at climbing a 14er.

We had a great day with the exception of the wind and I could not have asked for better company. Below are some pictures from the hike.

Happy Trails.

Shad

Crestone Traverse (Peak to Needle) 9-7-08

I was going to type up a long drawn out route description and trip report but decided against it. The reason being that this is a dangerous traverse and I do not want to be responsible for leading anyone on the incorrect route. That happened to us and we got stuck in some hairy areas for about an hour by following someone else's trip report. Anyway the main key is to stay on the Cottonwood Lake side of the mountain until you are ready to head to the summit, do not cross over to the South Colony Lake side of the mountain. Also make sure you do your research! The route is not marked very well if at all in a lot of areas. Also it is better to go from Peak to Needle. I would not want to try and downclimb off the Needle without a rope, that is just asking for trouble.

Here is a very short breakdown of the climb:

Last Saturday Chris Deck, Kirk Tubbs, and I went down south and did the Crestone Traverse, one of the four classic 14er traverses in the state. We took off from Castle Rock at 4:30pm arriving at the upper 4X4 trailhead around 8pm. It takes about 1 hour to 4X4 up the 5-6 mile road from the main turn off. We slept at the trailhead Saturday night and climbed on Sunday.

The hike was about 13 miles round trip with about 6000-6500 feet of gain/loss. It took us about 11.5 hours and would have been quicker if we would not have gotten into some hairy spots during the traverse.

Here are the pictures from the climb so enjoy:

Log for the week of 5/12-5/18

This week has been a challenge just to be active for some reason. I have been tired and run down all week. It just seems like I am not recovering like I was last year from my workouts. By the end of the week I had a raging head cold. Good times. Anyway here is the breakdown for the week.

Monday: Off.. Took the day off work also and just relaxed. Even went to the movies.

Tuesday: Run 6.25 miles on the treadmill @ easy pace; 45 mins lifting weights

Wednesday: Easy run at Green Mountain to the top and back (4.5 miles)

Thursday: Run 6.25 miles on the treadmill @ easy pace; 30 mins lifting weights

Friday: Run road around Green Mountain the home over the top of Green Mountain (9.5 miles) Sore throat starting

Saturday: Run around Green Mountain for 12-13 miles. Turning into head cold

Sunday: Hike Pikes Peak via Crags route (14.5 miles, 4400 feet of gain, 8.5 hours, suffered due to feeling like crap from the cold, it was a long day but willed myself through it.

Total miles ran this week: 38.50 miles

Total hours for the week: 16 hours (8.5 spent on Pikes hiking)

It was a productive week overall, it was nice to get my 1st 14er summit for 2008 out of the way. That will make me 1 out of 3 for the year, not a good start. I was pretty much uneventful hike but I did suffer due to the head cold I had. Pounding head ache and could not breath because I was stuffed up. Hope this goes away, I want to put in over 60 miles this coming week running. We will see. Here is the link to all the pictures from the hike on Pikes. I am not going to write up a trip report like I usually do because this is such a common mountain for a lot of people. One thing that I will say is that the road and the building on top sure is an eye sore on such a pretty mountain.

http://picasaweb.google.com/shadmika/PikesPeakCragsRoute

Have a great week.

Shad

Weekly Log 3/17-3/23

This week did not quit go as planned. Holidays always seem to make me lazy and eat a lot of food. We went to Nebraska for Easter and all I did was eat junk food and did not run. I was planning on doing 2 hours or so on Easter Sunday but with all the family around and all the junk food in the belly that did not happen. Anyway here is a log for last week.

Monday- Run treadmill 4 miles
Swim for 30 mins
Weights 45 mins

Tuesday- Run 7 miles at Bear Creek State Park

Wednesday- Run 6.5 miles at Green Mountain

Thursday- Run 7 miles at the track (2 mile warmup; 3X800 with 400 recovery; 2 mile cooldown)

Friday-Snowshoeing attempt on Mount Columbia (9.75 hours; 15 miles; 4200 feet of gain) did not summit

Saturday- Run treadmill 6 miles

Sunday- off

Total running miles this week: 30.5 (does not include the 15 snowshoeing miles)

Here is the trip report and pictures from Friday's attempt on Mt. Columbia.

http://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=4122&cpgm=tripmain

This week has started out badly with me being lazy and eating like crap. It is time to turn that around. We are heading out to Moab on Friday to do some camping and running. Hopefully I can get some miles in. I will have an update on that next week.

Doing the Bells with Traverse (South to North)

This is the trip report that I wrote on 9/1/07 for the Maroon Bells climb. Enjoy
Maroon Peak & N Maroon Peak
Date: Saturday, Sept 1st 2007
Route: ascend S Ridge of Maroon Peak, traverse to N Maroon, descend N Maroon NE Ridge
Team: Kirk (KirkT) and Shad (Shad)

I have been zeroing in on these peaks all summer after seeing them on my 4 pass loop trip around the Bell in June. That was the first time that I have been in this area. The first time I saw the Bells I got the urge to climb them. They were officially on my summer of 2007 list.

One week before Labor Day KirkT called me to see what my plans were for the Labor Day weekend. I was supposed to go down to the San Juans for a few days but really was not in the mood to drive that far and had to be home on Monday. He made the suggestion of the Bells and it was game on from that point on.

Friday night at 5pm we left the Denver area and headed to Aspen arriving around 8-9pm. The overnight parking lot was full so we had to park in the overflow parking about 1/4-1/2 mile down the road. I was a little worried about this. How many people are going to be on the mountain tomorrow? Was it going to be safe? We will see.

After a great night of sleeping under the stars we were off at 4:15am hiking up the road to the trailhead. After about 45 mins into the hike I realized that I should not have been leading without my head lamp on. I was on the wrong trail and was doing the loop around Maroon Lake, I missed the turn off for Crater Lake. So an hour was wasted, oh well. After getting on the the correct trail we hit Crater Lake and the turn off to head up the ridge by the bent tree in no time. At Crater Lake I thought about hiding my rope and climbing gear here and picking up on the way back because I had a pinched nerve or something in my neck and the weight was bothering me. I decided to take it anyway and suffer with the weight so I popped a couple of pills. Good think I did as you will see later. From here on out it is going to be an uphill slog.

The first half of the trail to gain the ridge was easy to follow but we lost the trail once we got into the rocks so we decided to make our own way up. Here is a trail map. In blue is the standard route and in red is our route. I may be off a little but should be very close to where we went. We tryed to stay as direct as possible.


At this point in the game we have passed 2 or so people and could see 3 head of us. I guess all those people were somewhere else and not on the Bells. We only saw about 10-12 people all day.

We finally gained the ridge by the notch.

From here we just followed the carins to the summit.

It took us about 6 hours to get to the top of South Maroon with the 1 hour side trip around Maroon Lake that I lead us on. But we made it no problem.

After spending a half hour on the summit watching the clouds we decided that we both were ok with the weather and that we were going to commit to the traverse. We left down the traverse around 11 or so. The first part of the traverse from South to North is the down climb down into the bottom of the saddle. This down climb is not bad if you take your time and not rush it. After hitting the bottom of the saddle the fun begins as you climb up North Maroon.

It took us two hours to complete the traverse from South Maroon to North Maroon.

The decent off of North Maroon took all of my energy and I did not take the time for pictures. This was one of the hardest down climbs that I have ever done. We did the traverse without using the rope but due to how poorly the route was marked on the decent of North Maroon we kept getting off route and caught in cliff bands. We ended up doing 2 repells to get off this mountain, one of about 30 feet and one of about 100 feet. It was the longest and most tiring decent I have ever done. It took us 6 hours to get from the top of North Maroon back to the car.

We finally reached the lovely site of Kirk‘s truck at 7:30pm, 15 hours after starting. What a day!!! We were both beat and in trouble, Kirk with his wife and me with my girlfriend. It took us 5 hours longer than we thought it would and they were worried. They had every right to be for we under estimated how hard the route finding on this mountain would be. Even with all of this this has been my favorite climb so far as I hit the halfway point of my 14er list. I would gladly do it again for everyone that knows me well knows that I am sucker for punishment.

Here is a link to all my pictures.
http://picasaweb.google.com/shadmika

Link to trip report on 14ers.com, just cut and paste into browser:
http://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=3754