Tag Archives: Mount Audubon

Indian Peaks Wilderness

23 Sunday Aug 2015

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Wow!  What a difference dropping my mileage down to normal makes.  After dropping from 100 to 50 miles, I’m running fast again.  It doesn’t hurt though that the temperature has also dropped – down to what I consider football weather.  Call me foolish but I even ran without my hat and sunscreen.  And the kids returned to school this week.  It just keeps getting better.  I ended the week by hiking in the Indian Peaks Wilderness with Ellie today.  A bit blustery up there.

Brainard LakeIn fact, the intense wind kept us from climbing to the top of Mount Audubon.  Couldn’t complain though because the wind also swept out the smoke from the Washington State forest fires.  You can see the smoke in several of the photos if you click to enlarge them.  The high altitude smoke was thickest north of us over Rocky Mountain National Park.  Ellie has some asthma related issues so I checked the Colorado air quality index before committing to the hike.  We saw a bull moose here next to Brainard Lake during our first few minutes starting out.
Ellie and I found ourselves constantly adding and removing gear.  The temperature was fairly cool starting out, although the trees shielded us from the wind.  The climb quickly warmed us up so we stowed away our coats and hats in our backpacks, only to put them back on along with gloves once we rose above tree line.  Same routine in reverse on our descent.  The flat topped peak above and to the right of Ellie’s head in this photo is Longs  Peak.  I’ll be hiking up there next weekend with some buddies.

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This is Mount Audubon directly over Ellie’s head in the photo to the right.  We climbed nearly up to the snow field before turning back.  On the way down we turned north onto the Beaver Creek trail for a short ways and bushwhacked over to a rock cropping to catch the views.  The entire hike was about seven miles because we started from a parking lot one mile before the Mitchell Lake Trailhead.  Looks like a brand new parking lot with restrooms on the east end of Brainard Lake.  They’ve done a great job improving the parking in the Brainard Lake Recreational Area.  I didn’t see any cars parked on the road like in days past.
This is Beaver Lake behind Ellie in this photo.  Karen and I have snowshoed near there on the Sourdough Trail before.  Ellie and I also hiked around Brainard Lake a bit on the return.  Ellie couldn’t get over how blue the water was.  Mountain lakes are absolutely gorgeous.  I can’t wait to get back up here next weekend to hike Longs Peak.

Imaginary Trail Race

22 Wednesday Aug 2012

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The day after climbing Mount Audubon, I ran my usual 8 miles on the East Boulder Trail.  I start with the half mile hill climb to the water tower and turn around just past Valmont Road.  I cross the road and run to the first gate which is where I figure the 4 mile point is.  A few feet beyond the Teller Farm – North parking lot.  I then turn around for another mile of flat running before climbing back up the rolling hills that lead back to the water tower.

On Sunday’s return I passed up a young woman runner who was waiting for traffic at the Valmont Road cross walk.  I didn’t wait.  I darted across forcing the traffic to friggin stop.  It’s a cross walk.  It appeared this girl had just started her run from the parking lot.  A mile later I hit the first hill.  It’s brutally long.  It starts steep for about 200 yards and then stretches out with a continuous ascent for another quarter mile.  It turns 90° right (east) at the summit and holds essentially flat for nearly a quarter mile, before turning north again through yet more hills.

About three quarters through this flat section the girl (I can say girl because she’s at least half my age) passes by me.  It’s not unusual for other runners to pass me regardless of sex although they are typically younger.  This was odd in that I had passed her a mile and a half earlier as she was apparently warming up.  That might have been what woke me up from my recovery pace.  Whatever, the point is what I did next.  I determined I wasn’t as tired as my speed indicated.  I picked up my pace and passed her back within the next 200 yards.

I didn’t pass her so fast that she couldn’t have fended me off.  But I did begin to unwind and put some distance between us.  Turning to look over my shoulder at a bend a half mile later I noted that I had the same 50 yards on her that she had on me initially.  This means she let me gain a little ground but then picked up her pace to match mine.  With a mile and a half to go, and a monster hill, the question was would she try to retake me.  We had ourselves a little trail race.  How fun is that?

I was feeling and running strong.  I couldn’t stop her from catching me but I wasn’t going to let her pass.  I was confident I could hold her off.  That is until we reached the big final hill.  All bets were off then.  I couldn’t race that hill.  Most days I’m lucky to make it up without walking.  So I resigned myself to let her pass me on the hill if she was set on making her move then.  I know my limits.

Turns out she turned back around before the bottom of the hill.  She was evidently running 6 miles and avoiding the monster hill.  Just as well.  I was still racing her in my mind as I climbed it because I didn’t turn around to look for her until I reached the top.  She might not have ever been trying to catch me period but I was having a blast imagining she was.  Racing is a kick.

Trail Dancer

18 Saturday Aug 2012

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Family friends Cass and Amil drove up from Texas to visit and I figured they’d enjoy a little hike.  So we headed out early this morning to the Brainard Lake Recreation Area to hike Mount Audubon.  This picture is of them at the saddle with about a quarter mile remaining to scale the peak.  You can’t see it very well but Longs Peak is behind their heads to the north.

We left the house at 7am and drove through Lyons to the Peak-to-Peak Hwy.  Counting time to stop for gas, it took us 70 minutes to reach the Mitchell Creek Trailhead which is a stone’s throw past Lake Brainard.  Our timing was good as we were able to snag a parking spot in the lot.  This is a popular hiking spot so close to Denver.  It’s a very well groomed area with paved roads and vault toilets.  The Mitchell Creek trail leads out of the south end of the lot but we took the Beaver Creek trail on the north end.  This leads to the Audubon trail around treeline two miles up.

The trail starts out fairly pedestrian with soft dirt in the trees, but it’s non-stop up-slope.  Both Cass and Amil were wearing Merrell Barefoot trail shoes.  Cass wore the ladies version.  These are awesome shoes but just happen to be what I was wearing when I stressed something in my left foot this past spring.  Despite the slope and having begun at 10,000 feet, Amil was bounding upward with enthusiasm.  And although the trail increased in steepness each mile on its way to 13.2K feet, he never really slowed down.  He danced from rock to rock like a Gazelle.  Youth!  Despite being twice his age however, I kept up.

It’s four miles from trailhead to peak and I think treeline splits it fairly evenly at two miles.  The top half takes longer of course because it’s steeper.  Above treeline offers great views and at about three miles it provided these Texans with some snow in August.  The weather couldn’t have been better.  The temperature was high 50s starting out at 8:10am but Amil was comfortable the entire trek up in a t-shirt and shorts.  I wore a long sleeve t-shirt of high-tek fabric with shorts.  Cass unzipped the legs from her pants at some point to create shorts.

It was warm enough on the peak that Amil showed a little flesh.  Really he was just letting his shirt dry out.  It was a bit cool up there but unusually void of strong winds.  The scramble to the peak is maybe just an eighth of a mile from the saddle, but by the time you zig and zag over the rocks it will feel like a quarter mile.  The trail largely disappears in the rocks and you have to follow the cairns.  It’s a large flat area with plenty of sheltered seating.  Fortunately it wasn’t crowded as there were just a few other couples enjoying snacks and the view.  We munched on our trail food for probably 20 minutes before heading back down.

The descent brought us into contact with quite a few more hikers.  I didn’t consider our start early but apparently the average day hiker is a late riser.  This picture captures our return to treeline where the trail rocks finally turned back to softer soil and pine needles.  As we returned to the parking lot and drove around Brainard Lake on our exit, we discovered hundreds of cars parked along the road.  Not sure where all these people went hiking.  This area has tons of options.  I’ve been up here before snowshoeing and I think I’ll be back.  We lunched down the road at the Millsite Inn listening to a little blues band named Doctor, Doctor.  Nice day.