The Incline

I have been avoiding any posts about the incline because officially it does not exist as a trail. Since this "trail" crosses multiple properties, it has been the subject of great debate in the community. I am never sure why such debate takes forever to complete. It is not like there are many alternative uses for the trail. Although I am not party to the debate, I would imagine that there are about 5-10 issues that are at stake here, but it has taken years to debate them and I am not sure why.

Recent news is that all this is close to resolution. All the parties seem to be in general agreement and maybe it will be official shortly. Now this is what worries me. As soon as it becomes official, I can see the "officials" declaring that we need to put together a plan for the trail...in the meantime, we must shut it down to protect the trail and the people. In the nanny state mentality that exists in most govenment agencies, I do not think that this is out of the realm of possibility. I look back to Cheyenne Mtn State Park and how it was closed to the public while it was updated and planned.

I have posted before how amazed I am at the number of people who come out to climb the incline. I expect the hard core runners and hikes but in addition are people of all types challenging themselves against the climb. More power to them. I would be a shame if the "nannies" try to restrict or curtail this. I know this can be dangerous but it is ones choice and that is how it should be.

All that being said, Tuesday was a beautiful day to be on the incline. Weather was near perfect and views were as usual, stunning. There was some icy footing especially at the top 1/3 of the trail where it is shaded. Ice was prevalent on most of the ties and not any places where the ice could be avoided. Today with the snow falling, I am tempted to head over and do it again, the views when there is a fresh snowfall are just awesome. I have posted some pictures on the website taken at various times of the year.

I have started documenting the Incline for my website. Took pictures, captured the GPS data, and starting to writeup the description for the webpage. Hopefully I will soon have this up on the site.

If you chose to challenge the inclie be aware that it can be dangerous. Loose railroad ties, steep terrain, icy conditions and rapid weather changes can exist. But if it was easy, would we be there?

What's a "Hole in the Wall" you might ask. I became acquainted with this trail last year when Jerry and I stopped by after a run in the Garden and do a quick look over. I wanted to come back to explore more of the area but I never found the time. So this last month, I decided to spend some time here and have been back 3 times now. The more time I spend, the more I discover.

The area is a combination of secluded property between the old Queens Quarry and the Flying W Ranch property. From my studies, it looks like 22 acres of it is part of a small ranch that was bought a number of years back and used to build a private school on the front side. This is now a church. The far west area is part of the Pike National Forest.

Since it is close to where I live and does not get a lot of traffic, I find it a great place to get away with the dog and admire the scenery. The web page at http://farruner.com/courses/CSTRholeinwall.html has detailed information about the trails so check it out.

A lot of the area is accessible on a dirt roadway that forms a large "C" shape. During my first trip around the area, I discovered some small single tracks that cross between the the roadways and offer the option of making the "C" into a loop course. There is a small rock passageway and an impressive rock wall on the single track trails that are not obvious until you wander into them.

The north end of the area ends at the Flying W Ranch where there is fencing that I believe is still used for range land and cattle. I have not explored that area because of the fencing and respect for the implied private property issues.

There is an old roadway that climbs up from where the cattle guard and fencing starts. I did not follow it too far yet but from my looking at google earth, it looks like this could lead up to the top of the peaks in that area. From there, there could be some interesting access to the areas behind the front range. When I have a long day available, I plan to explore this more fully.

Because of the private land involve here, I caution everyone to be respectful of the property. If you follow the dirt road along the higher part of the "C", I think you would be into the National Forest land but the lower trails might be part of Flying W or the church property.

Good MTB area and Hiking area, lot of uphill outbound for runners similar to parts of the Barr trail.

A week ago, some of us explored the area around Mt Herman. The area is not well documented anywhere I could find but it appears most of the trail that we used is known as the Monument Trail but the last part after rounding Rasperry Mountain back to the trail head is not shown anywhere. There is also some references to the area fronting Mt Herman as the Monument Preserve and it appears like there is ongoing efforts to define the usage in this area. Lots of references to too many social trails and the need to control trail usage.

Aside from this, the trail is narrow and rocky but my main point here is that as we ran it, you could sense that fall was coming quickly. Behind Mt Herman which is Limbaugh canyon, a small furry caterpillar displayed its furryness as to say that this winter will be a colder and snowier one.

Since that day, the temperature has dropped dramatically and yesterday, the rain was mixed with snow. As I look out to the front range, there is a lot of snow in the higher elevations. While an early snow can be a false promise, with the amount of rain we have had, I feel a lot of snow may be in the offing this winter. To look at the bright side, this may mean that I can actually do some cross country skiing and snowshoeing without having to travel up the pass. Cross training without having to travel...sounds good to me.

Typically, we can expect a lot of nice days for the next several months even if we get spells of snow and rain. A perfect opportunity to enjoy our abundance of trails. Happy running...

Random Thoughts

Well it has been awhile since I posted here. Been a busy month with a new job and getting up to speed with its demands. This working stuff puts a crimp on my trails exploration big time. Since I have to be at work at 4:30 am, it has also left me wanting to just sleep when I get off. I have managed to get out and do runs or hikes most days but nothing new to report.

As a proud papa, I can announce my Daughter, Coleen's successful finish at the Leadville 100 last month. Check out her blog for a good write up (cynical dirt doll). She is one tough cookie despite here protestation to the contrary.

With fall approaching, I am looking forward to more runs where the weather is cool and dry. Hopefully there are more trails to lurking around the area to discover.

Just got a call from Jerry...time to go out and do a run...will hopefully not be so long til my next post.

Reminder, with the approach of winter, please add comments to the forum with trail conditions so we can all benefit and avoid going over to trails that are not in good condition due to weather or construction.

Cross training

I was reading a recent article about crosstraining and what it can do for a person. I think because I have been having issues with a sore heel, the article attracted my attention. There are many types of cross training, but I think I am most interested in aerobic training which means bike, swim, fast hike or indoor machines such as a stair climber.

One of the things that struck me in the article was about the fear that seems to be quite prevalent about riding the roads. This has been a concern of mine also but maybe not to as great an extent as others. On my website, I have added a section on bike road courses. My intent is to find good road courses that I would feel that most people could feel comfortable riding. I am looking for minimal traffic and a wide roadway, hopefully with defined bike lanes.

This criteria does not mean that there will be no danger but should minimize the exposure to traffic and allow you to concentrate more on the training. As I pointed out in the previous blog, riding is not as natural as running and you need to pay attention to the mechanics of riding. Gears need to be adjusted, you need to pay attention to object in the road, and you need to work on form to get the most from the ride. It is not much different that mountain running on some of the more technical trails. You cannot just mellow out and get into a rhythm. There is nothing like a nice wide trail to zone out on and just feel the flow but when you are on steep mountain trails, you need to pay attention. The same is true on the bike even when the course if fairly benign. A friend of my recently crashed because he wasn't paying attention and hit a curb...hard to imagine since curbs should be fairly obvious.

One of the thing I read about cross training is that as we age, we lose some of our flexibility and ability to absorb shock. Cross training can help to keep us up aerobically but rest from the shock of every day running. I tend to prefer biking as my alternative since it does work many of the same muscles and some of the opposing ones, it does not require too much in additional gear...ie you can ride from your door step or a close location. It also provides some exhilaration expecially on the downhills around here.

If you are thinking about cross training, consider the bike courses I have mapped out. They are not easy and will challenge your riding if you do not ride regularly and will definitely challenge your aerobic system if you challenge the hills.

Running or Riding

Today was a Bike Ride day. I decided to map out another section of the area that I think would be good for someone who does not feel comfortable with traffic. In choosing these routes, I am looking for wide roads or bike lanes that help to keep cars at a distance.

It was a good ride, the sky had clouded up so the heat was not as intense as it had been earlier. The course I chose met the criteria I had set so all in all in was a good day.

When I was done, I started thinking about runs and rides. A question formed in my mind...why is it that I enjoy running more than riding? The question startled me for a moment. I had never really thought about running or riding in that way before. The more I thought about it, I came to realize that I preferred running. Having answered myself...I let my mind considered what it was about running that made me enjoy it more than biking.

I came to the conclusion that running was a matter of me and the run whereas riding added the element of the bike between me and the ride. Sounds a bit strange but I realized that when I am running, I am concentrating on the run, on me, on the sensations that arise as I am in motion. I do not feel this same oneness when riding. The bike adds a mechanical element to the equation that seems to prevent me from feeling the oneness I get from running.

I guess this is also why I have never been able to carry a radio or mp3 player while running.

It would be interesting to hear what others have to say about this. If you feel like it, add to the comments.

Sunday Delight

It was a nice Sunday morning so I decided to head up the foothills to the west of Blodgett Open Space area. I have been pushing further up the ridge with each trip and then looking to see where I have been on the map.

Starting from a small trail head on Coldwater Drive, the trail climbs and climbs and then climbs some more. I have been trying to discover the best route to the top of the ridge. Up there is a spot knows as lone pine. From the other side, there is a jeep road that ends at that point. It is also an alternate route to Blodgett Peak.

Today's journey ended when the weather started to get bad. Clouds were building rapidly and I decided it was time to head back down. Later, the lighning and thunder is the area confirmed my decision as being the prudent course of action.

But in the beginning, the weather was great, the wildflowers were in full bloom. Plenty of bluebells and paintbrush with many other varieties. The terrain was steep enough that it was mostly a fast hike on the upward trip especially after the first mile.

There were several things that I learned today.

First, I had loaded the locations of some of the geocaches in the area so I could see if I could find them. This means that I had to learn some of the navagation features of my forerunner 205 which I knew existed but I had never tried to use.

In the watch I could see a little triangle where I was located at the point indicated the direction I was moving. There was a light circle about at a set distance. As I got near a geocache, I could tell about how far and in what direction the cache was located. It is kind of funny to look at the GPS track of trying to figure out how to use this to find the location of the cache. Since it was the first time for me, I was literally all over the map....

Of course once you have located the approximate area of the cache, it does not guarantee you will find the cache. There are generally hidden in some manner and the trick is to figure out how. I will not go into any detail as that I think is part of the fun of geocacheing. If this sounds interesting, go to http://www.geocaching.com and join the fun.

I met a mountain bike rider in the area of the geocache who also is an experienced geocacher so it became a team effort to find the cache. He, for some reason did not have this cache loaded in his unit so by using mine, we found the cache. Thanks "OLDATBPRO"...

From this point on, there was no clear indication of where the trail to the top went so I started just bushwacking. Some people have indicated that there is not a regular trail after this point.
I almost made the top but it was getting pretty steep and rugged with lots of fallen trees and scrub. And with the weather starting to get bad, I decided to head back down.

This is where the second part of my learning took place. As I was bushwacking up, I knew that it was be impossible to find my way back down by the same route so I remembered that the GPS unit has a "breadcrumb" feature. When I was ready to head back down, I just kept my little triangle in the area of the "route" line that was my track coming up and lo and behold, I returned to the cache site with no problem. From there I could just follow the trail back down.

Learning to use the navigation features of the watch has inspired me to follow other lesser know paths having the confidence that I will be able to backtrack and not get lost. I use to go up the Hitezer trail out of Cascade into the resevoir area but could never seem to find the way back and would end up on the Pikes Peak Tollroad and have to hitchhike back to my car. I think this will solve that problem.

On my next trip up, I plan to angle a little north from the area of the , it look like there may be a better route to the top in that direction I was so close today...and would really like to crest the next time I do up.