Plan B on the Spanish Peaks: 2020 MURCA Virtual 50K

The Spanish Peaks first caught my attention in 2003. Searching for a hiking destination, I stumbled upon a picture of the eastern most 13’er & 12’er in the U.S. and instantly became obsessed with the two impressive peaks.  Not yet an ultra-runner, the idea that someone could run up a mountain would not have occurred to me and at the time I had never even hiked above 11,000 feet.  That first trip to the Cuchara valley was life changing. I would return to explore the area over the next few summers hiking both West & East Spanish Peaks, Teddy’s Peak, Trinchera Peak, Quatro Peak, Leaning Peak, & Boyd’s mountain, and had made nearby trips north to the Wet Mountains and west to the Sangre de Christo’s around Blanca Peak. A deep love of the mountains was born in the Cuchara Valley. Becoming a trail and ultrarunner in the years since first setting eyes on “the Wahatoya”, I discovered that running in the mountains is not only possible, but that I was pretty good at it. Lately I had been feeling a strong pull back to the Spanish Peaks. When MURCA announced a 3^rd annual Virtual 50K, it was just the excuse I needed for a return to the Cuchara Valley after 12 years away.

MURCA, or the Marine Ultra Runners Club of America, is a group of Ultra-Running Marine Veterans. Made up of current and former Marines, it’s a group of legitimate bad-asses. It doesn’t take a long look at the MURCA Facebook page to understand these men & women are awesome. There are huge, epic, & humbling accomplishments posted every day! I am honored to be a member and have met great people both online and in-person since joining their ranks. As I said in last year's V50K run report; more than just a Facebook group, MURCAns across the country (and around the world) reach out, encourage, and support each other; it’s tangible. It’s a positive and motivating environment that also provides me with the connection to Marines that I'd been missing since leaving active duty ten years ago. 

One Marine who especially embodied this MURCA spirit was Bob “Iceman” Coolidge. In many ways, the Iceman is MURCA. Never having met in person, we developed a great relationship over face book. I became accustomed to seeing his input and positivity on my feed about not only ultra-running, but life in general. He was interested in my family, my work, and me not just as a runner but as a former Marine. We exchanged messages about running and anything else. Just brimming with positive vibes and encouragement, his phrases like “Getchu-some” and “nothing but a thang” started to weave their way into my vocabulary. And it wasn’t just me, many MURCAns have described a similar relationship with the Iceman and many more were fortunate enough to meet him in person. I too, looked forward to meeting him in the flesh at a future race. Bob passed away while travelling in February. A Marine’s Marine and instant friend to all Murcans; it is beyond fitting that the Murca V50K Most Epic Award is now named for him (an award he won in 2019 when he rocked out a 50K shortly after surviving a heart attack!). 

The 2020 MURCA V50K is also once again a fundraiser for the Warriors Keep, a non-profit organization whose “…mission is to unite, empower, and enhance the quality of life for veterans with the use of outdoor adventure and recreational therapies”.  The 2020 MURCA V50k window was here; it was time to run for Warriors Keep, time to run for the Iceman, and time to go on an epic adventure worthy of MURCA!  

With a 3am wake-up on Sunday morning, I set out for the Cuchara valley from my home in Topeka Kansas. I’d recently made some minor “overland” modifications to the X-Terra making it more suitable for trips to the wilderness and car camping and was excited to see it in action. It was good to get out on the open road. As the Director of a Health Center, I’d been going a thousand miles an hour since February due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With a deep exhale as I drove out of Topeka, it was like a weight was lifting. For weeks it had looked like this adventure wouldn’t be able to happen among travel bans and quarantines. Kansas had moved into “phase three” of the re-opening plan and Colorado had no Kansas travel restrictions in place. The case rates in the counties I would be visiting were very low (or zero) and going dirt-bag style would mean very limited human interaction. I had also left the health center in the more-than-capable hands of a leadership team who had been right there doing great things on the front lines of the pandemic. As a Healthcare professional, I felt confident my adventure was safe and responsible but more than anything, I felt grateful that it was happening. After a 10-hour drive I was in the Cuchara Valley scouting out the trail head and doing a short run around 11,000 feet. Feeling good to be back in the mountains, I drove down to around 8,000 feet, found a good camping spot on the shores of Monument Lake, ate one of my Wife’s awesome sandwiches, got my gear ready for the next day, and tried to get some sleep.  

The original plan was to set out from the Cordova Pass Trailhead (11,243 ft) and summit West Spanish Peak (WSP) via the Southwest ridge route, drop back down the ridge route and hit the Apishapa Trail connecting it to the long and unforgiving Wahatoya Trail that, according to the map, descends around the south side of WSP only to climb up again to the saddle between WSP and East Spanish Peak (ESP). From there it would be a scramble up the west ridge of ESP and retracing the path back on the Wahatoya, the Apishapa, and finally, the WSP trail to the trail head. According to my official map, this would put me right at 32 miles and around 10,000 – 12,000 feet of vert. But things don’t always go as planned in the mountains.  It already started going awry on Sunday night as I climbed into the sleeping bag nursing a massive headache. This was new for me. My modus operandi for running at altitude is to arrive and immediately do some running & hiking around 10,000 to 11,000 feet, forcing my body to work. I then drop down to around 8,000 feet or below to sleep. The next day, I’m always good-to-go for ultras up high. Climb high, sleep low. Doing this on more trips than I can remember, altitude had just never caused any issues beyond slowing my pace a little. However, past performance at altitude never predicts future success or so I’d heard…I was about to see for myself.

I awoke headache-free at 0330 on Monday morning and made the drive back up to the Cordova Pass trail-head for a “first-light” start. Normally, I prefer Alpine starts but with WSP’s intimidating west ridge only a couple miles from the trail head, it would be better to not climb in the dark. With no actual trail up the steep ridge, it is class 2 unless you wander off course in which case there is plenty of class 3 & 4 to be found. I stepped off at 0520 and made short work of the approach trail and the switchbacks up to tree-line. At 13,628 feet, WSP looms over the whole region and while the standard route starts at 11,243 feet, it gains the final 1,600 feet to the summit in less than 1 mile. Hitting the ridge, my pace really fell off. Even in the morning light, I somehow got off route and ended up doing a lot of class 3 scrambling. I knew it was a bad start to the day as the minutes were ticking…     

Looking back down the class 2 portion.

Finally, I hit the summit ridge and ran up to the top, took some pictures and enjoyed one of the finest views in all of Colorado as I looked back home to Kansas, south to New Mexico and Wheeler Peak, west to the snow covered Culebra range, northwest to Blanca, Lindsey, and the Sangre de Christos, and North to the Wet Mountains and Pike’s Peak just barely visible beyond. On the way up, I had gotten frustrated about losing so much time, but standing there on the Summit it didn’t matter. There would be a chance to make up time with a quick descent; besides, the summit was a reminder of why I was there…of what I was doing. It was supposed to be hard. As I usually do in the mountains, I thought of Anatoli Boukreev’s words

“…mountains are a completely different world…You cannot conquer them, only rise to their height for a short time; and for that they demand a great deal. The struggle is not with the enemy, or a competitor like in sports, but with yourself, with the feelings of weakness and inadequacy. That struggle appeals to me”

I was certainly feeling slow and inadequate but like Iceman would say, “ain’t nothin but a thang”. It was time to get moving again. Dropping down the west ridge was fast. Maybe too fast as the quads were really working. Having just decided in a moment of Zen on the summit that time didn’t matter, I looked at my  COROS anyways as I hit the WSP/Apishapa trail junction; it read 13:49 pacing. Cool. If I could keep the pace reading between 10:00 & 16:00 on the roller coaster Wahatoya trail, it would more than make up for the time I lost scrambling up the class 3 crap. From the WSP/Apishapa trail junction, it was an uneventful 2-mile low grade descent to the junction with the Wahatoya trail. Actually, “uneventful” is not a word to use in the mountains. The views to the south and west were phenomenal and demanded a few picture stops!

Looking NW from the Summit. Blanca Massif in the distance.

At the 7.3-mile mark I hit the Apishapa/Wahatoya trail junction hoping to refill my water bottles. I was counting on the many stream crossings for water refills. As it turned out, the entire area was in a drought and had a burn ban in effect. The streams were bone dry. I hoped that water wouldn’t be an issue but at that point I was still feeling fine and also had on my hydration vest w/2L of water. I turned onto the Wahatoya trail and kept moving.

Not a part of either peak’s standard route, the Wahatoya trail does not get much traffic beyond out and back day-hikers from the Apishapa trail head looking for quick views of the many large dikes that jut out from all sides of the peaks. The trail climbs and descends many times as it navigates around, over, and through some of these dikes. The terrain was extremely variable. It alternated runnable single track with some of the most gnarly talus and scree I’ve ever had to run over. Running the flats & descents and power hiking the steeper talus covered climbs, the miles were now ticking off. I was feeling decent but also felt the temperature increasing. It had been windy & cold on the summit of WSP but down on the south flank of the mountain it was starting to get pretty warm. About 10 miles in, the Wahatoya trail started to fade & got tough to follow. The lack of use was really becoming apparent. At the point my watch read 12 miles the trail was completely gone and I was travelling overland, bush-whacking through wretchedly difficult terrain. All my senses were on alert and I started to worry about getting lost. The WSP wilderness is vast and unforgiving. Legend says Spanish militia never made it out of the wilderness. Supposedly, their treasure from the lost Spanish Mine is still out there somewhere.

Trail got really gnarly in places

Attempting to follow what seemed to be the most logical path, I lost a ton of time going cross country. When I climbed to the top of one of the dikes to get a look at the surrounding terrain my heart sank. It was obvious I was way off track. Achieving the saddle would be possible but would likely take many hours bushwhacking over brutal country and would put me on the ESP summit way too late in the day for a Colorado summer that’s notorious for storms. Being already far behind schedule and far off course, I decided to reverse and make my way back to the point the Wahatoya trail disappeared into the wild.

Feeling a little dejected, I followed my mental map backwards and emerged onto the trail about 45-minutes later. Now I knew why no one had ever connected the two peaks by this route. A double summit was off the table. As I ran back west along the Wahatoya trail, some mental math revealed that a run back to the trail-head without the planned ESP summit would leave me 9 miles short of a 50k. The previous night’s headache had also come back. My pace slowed dramatically and with a couple of hours already lost to bushwhacking it was shaping into a long day. The inner monologue was telling me a 22-mile day would be fine and the solo 50k at Lake Perry I had run in April would be a good MURCA 50k to turn in. The inner monologue can act like a little bitch sometimes. A bad day in the mountains is still a day in the mountains. I had the Spanish Peaks Wilderness all around and decided I would find a way to get the full distance, no matter how long it took or what route I had to run.     

Hitting the Apishapa/Wahatoya Junction again, I realized that I could run down 1.5 miles south to the Apishapa trail-head. This “little” out-and-back would leave 6 miles to make up instead of 9. Descending the 1,000 feet could also be good for the headache. I took off down Apishapa with a renewed sense of energy, bombing the many switchbacks and enjoying the changing variety of trees and geology with the descent. 

   

Apishapa/Wahatoya Junction

Whenever I’m running alone in the mountains, I talk out load to myself about decisions, options, or even just nonsense. I try to verbalize something every few minutes in order to alert big, bad animals (cougars, bears, moose, etc.) to my presence. Most of the bad encounters that humans have with these animals are due to surprising them. Bears especially want nothing to do with us and if they hear you first, you’ll never know they were there since they go in the opposite direction. Quietly hauling ass down a heavily forested mountain trail is a great way to throw a surprise party. I came off a switchback and turned onto what looked like a straight section ahead for at least 80-100 yards. I slowed my pace planning to pull out an energy gel. As soon as I switched from running to walking, I heard a sound to the right and a big black bear burst out of the bushes, crossed the trail just two feet in front of me (the way a squirrel darts in front of a car) running back into the trees on my left and launching itself up the side of a steep hill. This dude ran up that hill at full speed. It was impressive how fast something so big could move. At the moment it crossed the trail in front of me, I heard someone yell “Jesus!”, turns out it was me. The Bear stopped about 30 feet up the hill and turned to look back at me. I started talking to it:

         “dang dude…you’re big and fast…you should play football, you would be an awesome pulling guard on a sweep play…how about you go up that hill, and I’ll just keep going down this hill…nice to meet you”.

It resumed its fast climbing into the thick forest and was quickly out of view. It suddenly occurred to me to get my phone out for a quick picture or video but I wasn’t fast enough. Snapping a picture isn’t the priority when you’re trying to determine whether or not you’ll need to fight off a bear but I wish I could’ve gotten at least one picture. I’ve had one cougar, four bear, and two angry moose encounters in the mountains over the years and all I have to show for it is some low-quality video footage of a blurry cougar. With a nice shot of adrenalin from the sudden Bear-scare, I hit the Apishapa trail-head pretty fast and then turned around and started the 1,000 ft climb back up to the Wahatoya junction. I slowed down and talked loudly as I went through the Bear encounter area but Fozzie seemed to be long gone (I was hoping for a picture this time and had the camera at the ready).  

Arriving back at the junction, I made the left turn on Apishapa and started around the South-west side of the Mountain enjoying the views as much as I had earlier in the day. The rapid descent had helped the headache a little but as I made my way along the Apishapa trail in the sun, the headache returned. I was also starting to feel dehydrated as the water supply was about gone. By the time I hit the Apishapa/West Peak trail junction, I felt full-blown AMS and was having some serious nausea. My pace had gotten really slow again and I knew the clock was ticking. My Plan B “make-up” mileage plan had me going back up WSP but when I got through the switch-backs I paused at tree line to yack a little bit…that was not going to help with the dehydration.  Mentally I was ok. I could probably do a double summit of WSP but math matters and the risk/benefit just didn’t add up. Summiting again would only make-up two miles and would require going straight up over 1,600 feet again and I already had AMS pretty bad. As Ed Viesturs says “…the summit is optional, getting down is mandatory”. I had already bagged WSP today, what was I trying to prove? It was time to go down.

The second trip down the WSP switchbacks was pretty quick. Even feeling crappy, gravity helped and I was able to get into a decent flow back down the WSP trail. Out of water for the last three miles, I was very happy to see the X-Terra and getting back down to 11,000 feet seemed to help the AMS a little. I spoke for a moment with the first humans I’d seen all day. They had just come back from hiking, saw my truck stickers (and my devastated physical state) and were curious about what I was doing. I gave a quick pitch about MURCA and the Warriors Keep and told them how the day was going. They were locals and said the Wahatoya trail isn’t maintained anymore on the south side of the WSP/ESP saddle (now they tell me!). I re-filled the water, forced down a little food, made a t-shirt change, and took a moment to study the map for a plan of attack to get the remaining miles for a 50k.

The map revealed that Cordova Pass was in between two high-points. A side trail off of the WSP trail went .8 mile north and 170 feet up to UN 11,412 and some cross-country travel to the south would lead me up 350 feet to UN 11,594. These looked like interesting unofficial summits that would probably have great views. As I stepped off to the South the temperature dropped and it started to sprinkle. UN 11,594 was a wide summit with decent views to the west. The sudden pop-up rain had obscured the view a little so I didn’t spend much time on top. I bombed back down to Cordova pass and kept going north to UN 11,412. While it’s only 170 feet above the pass, this summit view was impressive. A small sign called it “Vista Point” and as the rain had cleared out as fast as it had moved in, it was obvious why. The view to WSP was awesome. It was a great perspective of the steep ridge that had kicked my ass that morning. After pausing for a few minutes to have a “sound of music” moment, I descended back to Cordova pass.

Mighty West Spanish Peak from the top of Vista Point

“Twenty-nine miles”?! Either my Coros GPS had High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE) and didn’t know where it was; or, I was three miles short and would need to keep going a little. Speaking of HACE, I really needed to get off this mountain so the best option was to simply run 1.5 miles out & 1.5 miles back on mountain road 46 to the Schaffer Trail head. I moved at a pretty aggressive pace on the way out, probably too aggressive because despite descending several hundred feet, the nausea returned at the Schaffer turn-around. It was then a really long mile and a half back up to Cordova pass. Hiking most of the way, I reflected on the day. I had started out hoping for an ambitious double summit and an FKT (or at least an OKT) on a link-up route that only an ultra-runner would consider doing. On some levels, the day felt like a failure. I didn’t do exactly what I had set out to do and that always leaves me second guessing my decisions and ability. Sometimes, this is what we need. Starting in 2017 I’d had a streak of wicked success running in the mountains and maybe had grown a bit cocky. I was due for a day like this.

I hit the Cordova Pass trail head and the Coros said “11:58:35”. The slowest 50K I’d ever run by far. My previous slowest was a 9:20:00 in the Kachina Peaks near Flagstaff in the summer of 2017 & my PR is 5:19:10 on the flat Shunga/Landon trails in Kansas. I didn’t even care. A bad day in the mountains is still a great day in the mountains and sometimes you learn and grow more from a suffer fest than you do if everything goes right. It didn’t go as planned but it was satisfying to get the distance done in a challenging environment. 32 miles, over 9,000 feet of gain with the majority of the day above 10,000 feet. The lowest elevation was 9,770 at the South Apishapa trailhead and the high point was the WSP summit at 13,628. A long, tough day up high. 

Feeling just completely spent, I made it down to monument lake and found a shower house in the developed side of the campgrounds. I threw down a quick sandwich and my headache and I went to sleep pretty quick.  Driving out of the Cuchara Valley the next morning, I reflected back on the run and also on those first few trips to the Spanish Peaks region. In some ways, this trip was a great lesson. Even after 15 years in the sport, nothing is ever guaranteed and that’s ok. If you succeed with no problems every time you head out the door, you don’t grow. In this way, Iceman and I had a similar outlook. You need to pick goals that scare you and are hard. Suffer fests remind us why we do this, they teach us and they give us something to fall back on later when it gets tough again. Days like this stick with us. Days like this are how ultrarunners are made. Besides, coming up short of the original plan just means I have another excuse to go back to the Cuchara Valley and do it all again!   

Thanks for reading this long run report. Thanks to MURCA for such a great event. I’ve ran all three V50k’s and am already thinking of adventures for a fourth! A huge thanks to everyone who offered words of motivation and support. Thanks to all my fellow MURCAns, I can’t wait to meet more of you in person at various races and events (assuming we ever get to race again...dang COVID). Thanks to Iceman! Even though it was short, I’m grateful for the time we were associated. Thanks to the Warriors Keep for taking on their noble mission. Please consider contributing to this worthy cause at www.thewarriorskeep.org.  

Most of all and as always huge thanks and so much love to Jessica, Alyena, Ayden, & Tristyn; you guys are with me on every mile of every run!

See you on the trails!

The final route. 

Looking North from the WSP Summit Ridge. You can see one of the Dykes straight ahead. 

Looking SW from somewhere on the Wahatoya Trail. Culebra Peak on the horizon.

East Spanish Peak....not in the cards today.

Not a bad end to a grueling day.

Spring Mountain Adventure: 2019 MURCA Virtual 50K

I love Las Vegas, but not for all the reasons most people love Las Vegas. Surrounded by amazing places to climb and run, a 30 to 45 minute drive in any direction can have you hiking Lava Fields, climbing up red rocks, running in a bowl of “fire”, checking out views above Lake Mead, peak bagging desert mountains, or laboring at high altitude. It’s that last option that always seems to call to me. NW of famous Red Rock canyon is an amazing “sky Island” of snow-capped peaks and epic adventures. Charleston Peak, the 8^th most prominent mountain in the U.S., tops out at 11,918 feet and gets all the attention but the Spring mountains have nine summits that break 10,000 feet with class 1 & 2 trails as well as some seriously technical climbing available. Always cooler than the scorching desert below, the area can hold snow well into May. When MURCA announced a 2^nd annual MURCA V50K with a time frame that happened to line up with a planned business trip to Sin City, I knew right away where my V50K would be!   

MURCA, or the Marine Ultra Runners Club of America is an awesome group started by a motivated Marine named Mike Harris. MURCA is populated with bad ass Marines and former Marines who all share a love of the long run. I mean…really bad ass. These gyrenes have laminated bad ass cards. If I start to get cocky about the epic shit I do, all it takes is five minutes reading posts on the MURCA page and I’m back down to earth. More than a Facebook group, MURCAns across the country (and around the world, actually) reach out and support each other, it’s tangible. It’s a positive and motivating environment and I've found that it provides me with the connection to Marines that I'd been missing since leaving active duty nine years ago.  The group also has amazing fundraising efforts for Veteran causes. The 2019MURCA Virtual 50K was held to benefit The Warriors Keep. So, now that you have some background and a little context, here is my V50K run report… 

The original plan was to repeat a route I had soloed in November of 2017.  I would run the North loop trail bagging Fletcher Peak, Mummy Mountain, Charleston Peak, Griffith Peak, and Cathedral Rock while descending on the South loop trail. In 2017 it was snow free and bone dry with only a little bit of ice on each summit and I was able to knock it out in eight hours. It was one of my most epic days in the mountains and I was thrilled at the chance to do it again on March 25^th! However, the closer to departure day it got, the more evident it became that the route wasn’t going to be feasible.  The 2018-19 winter had seen a record amount of snow fall on the spring mountains and snow storms were still occurring as late as the week before I flew in. Most of the trail heads above 8,000 feet were inaccessible. Avalanche danger was extremely high and the south loop trail would require a couple of hours in a notorious avalanche chute. With heavy snow, the north loop approach below Charleston's summit becomes a severely exposed 60-70 degree snow slope that requires crampons and an Ice Axe. Being on a business trip, I wasn’t planning on packing that kind of gear and frankly, I wanted the V50K to be a run…not a 12-hour deep snow & technical climb. About five days out I came up with a back-up plan. Hayford Peak in the Sheep range north of Vegas should be snow free and close to where I’d be staying. Not quite as epic but run-able and, more importantly, it offered less chance of getting “avalanched”.  Still, I held out a little hope that once I got there, I could find a doable route in the Spring Mountains.

Spring Mountains a month before the trip. Looking Epic!

My plane hit Vegas at 9am on March 24^th and from the small round window it was easy to spot the Spring mountains. So much for the little hope; “My god, so much snow…it looks like Nanga Parbat!”. I grabbed a rental car and made my way north, resigned to scout out the approach to Hayford peak across the Desert National Wildlife Refuge (DNWR) from my beloved Spring Mountains. Or so I thought…when I hit DNWR, it became clear that the little rental sedan was not going to get me anywhere near the trail head. I didn’t have a plan C and was feeling a little dejected. Since I was staying at the Mount Charleston resort, I decided I’d go ahead and make my way to the Spring mountains and scout out some trails to run for fun the next day. Assuming that the V50K was off, I would simply enjoy being in the mountains and could just come up with a V50K route back home in May or June.   

At this point things started to really fall in place. I hit the North loop trail head and ran six miles in my Kahtoola’s. Hmmm, it would be slow going in the snow but it looked like Charleston’s little sister, Fletcher Peak, could be do-able. It wouldn’t be anywhere near 50K distance from the NL trail head. However, driving back down Deer Creek Road to the resort, I happened to spot a trail coming out of the woods with no markings or trail head. It was about two miles down from the North loop trail head and looked to head South East away from the mountains. Chatting with the locals at the resort I learned there are MTB trails all over the SE side of the Spring mountains that extend all the way down to below 5,000 ft. In fact, the trail I had spotted was called either “tin can alley” or “cowboy” according to the Resort’s cartoon trail map. Theoretically, I could start down in the desert around 5,000 feet and connect the various MTB trails to deer creek road, run the two miles up the road to the NL trail head, bag Fletcher Peak and retrace my steps! I’d be short of a 50K but could refuel and do a shorter out-n-back to make it up. Now equipped with a plan C and feeling tired from the flight, the time zone change, and the altitude adjustment; I put my gear together, set the alarm for 0500, and crashed.

Deciding to forego my usual alpine start since I’d be navigating a spiderweb of unknown MTB trails, I woke a little before dawn. Some toast, honey, and an apple later I was in the rental car heading back down Kyle Canyon road to a trail head near the Harris Springs road turnoff. A cold morning, it was hovering in the low 30’s as the first sliver of sun hit the desert. Looking SE, I could make out the dark outline of La Madre Mountain. To the West were the snowy Spring Mountains and my destination. Looking up I could see an impressive planetarium of stars beginning to fade. Just a perfect morning. I crossed Kyle Canyon road and hit the first MTB trail.

The first few miles were pretty uneventful as I tried to get into an easy slow rhythm to wake up the legs. Going out too fast was not a problem as I could already feel the uphill tack. Starting at just over 5,000 ft, I would be going up all morning to a 10,500 foot summit so I made sure to put in some hiking breaks early to save my legs. Did I say uneventful? There’s just no such thing in the Mountains. Every direction I looked provided a fantastic view. Around mile three the eastern edge of the Spring Mountains came into full view and I knew there’d be no speed records today. Forget the snow and altitude gain slowing me down, I was going to have to stop often to take pictures!

Moving from the desert to the Spring mountains. To the left is Kyle Canyon.

A little after three miles I veered north away from Kyle Canyon Road as the terrain changed significantly from high desert to mountain foothills. At Mile 4 or 5 I hit the first snow. Much deeper at 6,000 ft than expected, I walked right over the top of it without snow shoes since it was still early enough to be frozen pretty solid. Navigating the MTB trails became a little tougher since the trail was invisible beneath the snow. At mile 5 the trail moved closer to deer creek road and my map showed that it basically ran parallel with the road for a few miles. Nevertheless, I was pretty relieved when the trail spit me out onto the road at the unmarked point I had seen yesterday. “Damn, I just might pull this route off” I said to the road kill in front of me. It was then two miles up the hardball to the North Loop TH.

At around 8,000 ft., the North Loop trail head became “crampon point” as I strapped on the Kahtoola’s and took in some calories. The temperature had increased so I knew there would be some post holing before the day was over. I set off at a decent pace for Fletcher Peak.  Route finding became very difficult as there really was no trail to see with all of the snow. I tried to follow the map by imagining the terrain snow-free. I also had to slow down since my feet started to punch through for some intermittent post-holing.

Sign near "crampon point". 

Around mile 10 at 9,400 feet or so, I was underneath a big snow slope that was just glittering in the sun. It was awesome but my internal alarm was starting to tingle. I just didn’t like the angle of the slope, the amount of snow up towards what I could see of the top of the slope, and the weirdly angled tree tops sticking out below me from an earlier-in-the-season avalanche that had obviously occurred. I decided to follow my tracks back out of the slope. According to my map, it looked like I had veered off of the North loop trail and was underneath Bristlecone Peak (Officially UN 10,089). Not wanting to risk the slope to get to the Fletcher approach I made the decision to go for Bristlecone’s summit instead.

After backtracking out of the slope I started up the North ridge of Bristlecone. Sooo much snow. It became really deep and soft. Post-holing for about 300 feet, I was moving slowly but sweating my ass off. At the same time, my right toes were really aching from the cold. Back in 2011 I had suffered some serious frostbite on my right big toe during a50 mile winter night race and ever since, my right foot has been a little sensitive. A few weeks before this trip I had gotten mild frostbite again on that toe running through ice water at the Psycho Wyco 50K. I just kept wiggling my toes and tried to keep moving as fast as I could (which was not very fast).  

Finally, there was nothing above me and I was on the summit of Bristlecone Peak! Looking back east was Angel Peak and the desert beyond where I could even see Hayford Peak way out on the horizon. To the south was Fletcher Peak. I could see mummy mountain right across from me to the NW. Just to the west of Fletcher across Kyle Canyon was Harris Mountain and Griffith Peak. I had an outstanding view of the ridge line from Griffith Peak to Charleston Peak and lost myself for a moment in the memory of running that ridge in 2017. What an amazing place! I felt blessed to be standing there and so grateful that I had managed to find a do-able route in the Spring mountains after all.

The Nuwuvi, whose traditional lands included the Spring Mountains consider thesemountains sacred as their place of creation. Standing there, I understood this and thought of words from Anatoli Boukreev:

 “Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambitions to achieve. They are cathedrals, grand and pure, the houses of my religion. I approach them as any human goes to worship. On their altars I strive to perfect myself physically and spiritually. In their presence I attempt to understand my life, to exorcise vanity, greed, and fear. From the vantage of their lofty summits, I view my past, dream of the future, and with unusual acuteness I experience the present moment. That struggle renews my strength and clears my vision. In the mountains I celebrate creation, for on each journey I am reborn" 

Bristlecone tree on the Summit of Bristlecone Peak. The Charleston ridge in the background with Griffith Peak to the left.

OK, it was time to wake up and get moving again as I was only at mile 10 or 11 and had a long day ahead of me. Looking over the SE side of Bristlecone’s long summit, it looked like I had made the right call earlier in the day as the steepness of the slope was even more apparent from up here. I would now simply have to follow my tracks back down, sliding down my earlier post-holes was a little taxing. Once out of post-hole country, I was able to really let it loose and bomb back down the trail making up some time riding my summit “high”.  Other than moving a little too fast, the run back down to the MTB trail head was pretty uneventful…but very scenic.

At mile 20.3 I was back at the car. After changing my t-shirt and refilling water and gels, I set off for another loop, this time planning to stay below 7,300 feet. At mile 22.5, I took a side trail up Telephone canyon moving through some thick brush and trees.  Well into the day, it was getting pretty warm in this canyon and there were unmapped side trails everywhere making navigation a little tough. I basically followed a dry creek bed until it met up with a trail called “showgirl” on my map. At that point I was back in the snow when the trail turned southwest to link up with a trail I’d been on earlier in the day.

During this second loop my eyes kept getting drawn to this small peak that looked really rocky (and snow free). My 2^nd loop was basically a big oval surrounding the peak that according to the map, was UN 7,401. Finding what looked to be an unofficial small trail at around 7,300 feet, I decided to go for it and within a few minutes I was on the top of my second summit of the day at mile 26.5. Feeling really knackered, I only spent a couple of minutes on the summit before moving back down the unmarked trail. I linked back up to the “cowboy” trail and tried to run back to the trail head. Miles 27 – 30 should have been very run-able as it was all downhill, but I was feeling as knackered as I’ve ever been on a 50K. I managed to get a little trot going and made it back to the car at 30.9 miles with a time of 8:29:00. Not exactly the day I’d planned several months before but sometimes that’s for the best. An awesome challenge in creating my route on the fly and given the conditions, I was so happy to have been able to pull off a 50K and a couple of summits in the Spring Mountains. Just a great day. I will always jump at the chance for a trip to Vegas, I just may not spend much time in Vegas!

Huge thank-you to Mike Harris and MURCA for coming up with such a cool concept for an event. The first two V50k events were just a blast and I look forward to many more. I love self-supported ultras in the wilderness. Awesome event and awesome cause. Thank-you to the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, I am honored to be their Health Center Director and grateful that they often send me to mountainous places for business and allow me the time to run and climb while there. And always, special thanks and love to Jessica, Alyena, Ayden, & Tristyn. You guys are with me on every mile of every run!

Thanks so much for reading my “re-activated” blog. Below are some more pictures from this V50K. I’ve got a number of races coming up and a trip to Spokane in June to run and explore the Selkirk Mountains. I’ll either blog about it, or I’ll ignore the blog for four more years…who knows! Either way, see you on the trails!

Time to break some trail. This is where the post-hole began. 

Just started to hit the snow in the foothills. Some really gnarly singletrack!

On my way up! Looking back down towards Deer Creek Road.

Griffith Peak from the Summit. The lower east slope of Fletcher Peak is just to the left. 

Looking back east about a mile or so past the North Loop Trail Head.

Looking down the snow slope from the Summit of Bristlecone. I had been down under this earlier in the morning. Nice drop off to the left of the Bristlecone tree. I wish I would have taken a better picture but I didn't want to approach any closer. 

On the MTB trail called "Cowboy" just before hitting the foothills. 

Looking Back East. Hayford Peak is way out on the Horizon. 

Taken from somewhere on the 2 mile hard ball section. 

Lots of snow in the woods. A little bit of tree-well danger here and there. 

Awesome views everywhere.