Thursday, March 6, 2008

Started out at 5:36am. Cold, snowy, but little wind. Probably 8 degrees.  2 1/2 hours, about 11.5 miles.  5.5 miles up in 1.5 hours. 6.5 down in a lot less time. Ran to 9800 ft.



Red Sandstone Road on other side of Highway 70 is a winding road that cuts through two mountains.  It turns into a snowmobile road, closed to other vehicles. It is a wonderful winding road with a deep ravine on the left going up. At about 9100 ft. the road splits and either goes down to Piney Lake or up to Lost Lake. I went up, but Lost Lake proved true to its name. I walked almost the entire trip up. I tried to run sections, but could only maintain a jog for 2 minutes at best. Coming down was more difficult than going up. Wind was stronger, feet kept breaking through the snow and the snowmobile tracks kept my ankles wobbly. Saw no animals at all.


This was looking out at Vail ski runs at about 8800 ft.








The path looked like this about 80% of the time. Off in the distance, I saw great clouds of snow blowing off the peak of some mountain. I thought is was a 14er, but there are none north of Highway 70.




Here the path split. Great views.









  

At 2 1/2 hours, I stopped, took this photo of my watch, took a few other photos (including this one that shows that the trail continues to go UP!), ate a BLOK and S-Cap, and turned around.




One last photo coming back into Vail/Lionshead.

3 comments:

GRIMEYRUNNER said...

I'm jealous! I haven't been able to get motivated to run since you've been gone. I've reached my limit with the cold apparently. My road runs from town are also less than motivating for me. I need trails! and temps above 30.

The Beginning Farmer's Wife said...

Those are some neat views and great photos, Joel!

Sometime you should come and do a run around our town with your camera. I'll bet you can find quite a few interesting sites that would be blog worthy to take pictures of here too.

tiffany said...

Great view! I too am jealous! There's something about being out in the wide open quiet space. I think I need to go for a run now...