Reminder

    This morning was a great reminder of why I trail run.  I met my friend Leah for a quick loop on Animas Mountain, one of my favorite trails near town.  As usual we talked much of the time about races, training methods, injuries, and all the normal ultra-geek stuff we usually talk about.
     As we were descending to the west I see a cute, furry brown thing ambling up the trail towards us.  We stopped, got quiet, I pulled out my camera, and we walked slowly towards it.  It caught wind of us pretty quick, so I didn't get the great photo, framed with the LaPlata Mountains in the background, that I had hoped for. We did, however, get to enjoy watching the little furball moving away from us. Good bear, humans are scary.  I know that here in Durango one is more  likely to see a bear rummaging through your trash can than anywhere else, but I still enjoy seeing them any time I get the chance.  There is something about animals that are as big or bigger than humans, with the capability to inflict harm, that puts the awe and respect of nature in me.  I knew the bear was just going to walk away. After all, it has better things to do, like eat and eat and eat some more before hibernating.  I just like knowing it could mess me up if I got out of line. As it was, we went our separate ways, trying to get what we needed from the landscape.  I hope the bear got what it needed. I did.
    After that I came home and took the dogs out for another run near the house.  We've been up that trail countless times, but the dogs never seem to tire of it. Neither do I.  It just feels like surveying our territory.  The dogs check out the smells, and I look at the footprints.  We check out the squirrels and birds rustling the leaves.  There is something comforting to me about watching the same piece of land go through subtle changes day after day, year after year. 
    I dropped the dogs off at the house, and went to the end of our road and back for another forty-five minutes of running. I was mainly trying to get some turnover going on tired legs, which is good training for my race in two weeks, but I was also trying to make the most of a beautiful day before I had to go to the dentist and get a tooth pulled.  I knew I'd spend the evening sitting around reading and surfing the net while I cursed my sore jaw.  Which is exactly what I'm doing right now as write this.  I'm hungry as hell, and I can't eat much of anything until tomorrow.  But if I start to feel too sorry for myself, I just think of that bear, and how hungry it must be trying to find anything good to eat after such a long, dry summer.  Imagine trying to go to bed hungry... for a few months.  Hopefully next season will be full of ripe berries.
Sleep well, little one.   

Chasing Rays

   I have a love/hate relationship with fall. I love the colors, the temperatures, the crisp chill in the morning air. What I struggle with is the shortening of the daylight hours, and the knowledge that winter will be here very soon. I really like long days, and although I own many headlamps to deal with the deficiency of light, I find myself trying to squeeze every bit of daylight out of the dwindling hours. Views are prettier when one can actually see them.
    So while many experience "Spring Fever" I get "Fall Fever". Not the way hardcore skiers do, by itching for snow, but rather chasing every last bit of summer fun in the high country. I do enjoy the cycles of the seasons, and I would get bored with nothing but summer. So I try to fully embrace the conditions at hand. Working in the outdoor industry I am always surprised how many people are constantly looking for a change of conditions to do a different activity. "I can't wait for snow, those first turns are gonna be SICK!" "I can't wait for spring so I can ride some sweet singletrack!" So many of us live for the future. It will be great when...you name it...happens. I'm as guilty as anyone.
    However, as I get older, I find another problem. The pain of watching the present roll by faster than I can grasp.' Be present' is an oft stated goal of yogis and meditators. A noble pursuit, but one I am finding can have a darker side. The anxiety of trying to do so much before it slips away. As I write this the sun has come out from what started as very gray, rainy morning.   I was grateful for a rainy morning to be lazy and lounge around the house. Now, as I watch the muted colors of the dying oak leaves start to illuminate, I try to remind myself it is just part of the cycle. Oh good, here comes the next wave of the storm.

I saw Satan on the beach, trying to catch a ray.
He wasn't quite the speed of light
And the squirming coil...it got away

-Phish

  

Ups and downs

    September was...well, up and down. On September fourth I ran into Chicago Basin in the Weminuche Wilderness and summited the four fourteen thousand foot peaks there, and ran out in fourteen hours and twenty three minutes. Well, only three are "official"  fourteeners, but I don't really care about that. I just like the views and seeing as much terrain as possible.
    I'd been wanting to do this for a while, and I finally got off my ass and did it. Chicago Basin is very popular, and is frequently written up in places like Backpacker Magazine. The standard way to do it is take a train that belches coal smoke from Durango through gorgeous wilderness along the Animas River, get dropped off with a HUGE backpack, suffer up the six miles of hiking to Chicago Basin and camp. Then one gets up the next day, hikes a peak (or more if ambitious) , camps again, then hikes back to the antique train to come back to Durango and then comes to visit me at my place of business to ask if we have little pins that commemorate hiking fourteeners. There are fifty four official fourteeners in Colorado, and a little pin for... well, all of them I guess, but I don't really know because no, we don't carry those.
     Now, right about here in the story you may be thinking, "hey jerk, just because you live at altitude and this place is close to you, doesn't give you the right to put others down for thinking it a big trip." Yeah, I might be a jerk, but not for the reasons you think.  You see, I occasionally enjoy a short burst of recreating in places with tourist, because for all the folks who just marvel at what I'm doing, I hope to open someone's eyes to their own capabilities. I just might inspire someone. Yeah, they probably won't tack on an extra nine miles each way to avoid the train ( Yeah, I have a problem with the train, but that is for another time.) They will also still camp instead of doing it in one day. Maybe, just maybe however, they will figure out that they don't need so much crap!  They may figure out it's o.k. to leave the ropes and  helmets at home, because there is no terrain steep enough to warrant them. Shin guards for scree, sure, that would be novel, and perhaps not a bad idea, but a helmet? Rocks do not leap off the ground to then fall upon one's head. A rope? That is just going to dislodge rocks that will then roll into your poor partners unprotected shins!
     Most importantly I hope to inspire any of them to have fun. Most of the people I saw that day looked miserable. They were suffering under heavy loads with insufficient oxygen. Most only gave me an incredulous glare when I greeted them. One mentioned that I should carry her pack. "You're running this?!" she exclaimed, as if I did it for the sole purpose of making her feel inferior. Yeah lady, I train multiple hours every week just to make you look slow. I'll bet I saw in the neighborhood of forty people on the trails that day, and I would say I saw five smiles. Come on! This could be the trip of a lifetime. You don't have to be out here. For me it was just a fantastic day in my local mountains.
      Perhaps that is the difference right there. Expectations. Some of those poor flatlanders saw a stunning picture in a magazine, bought a bunch of stuff at R.E.I., took some vacation time, visited me to buy a map and fuel for the stove, packed all that crap in a backpack, paid $90 for a train ticket and then... then they realized that hiking uphill with a heavy freakin' pack at eleven thousand feet is hard. Harder than they imagined as they looked at the pretty sunset picture in the magazine. The mornings were colder, the granite was sharper,  the trail steeper than anything they had dreamed of.
    Luckily I am a pessimist. I would say realist, but I'll go with consensus on this point. I thought I just might get a few miles in, realize my knee was completely f'ed, and then hobble back to the car in miserable defeat. Turned out the knee did pretty well. I made the planned trip. The weather was perfect. Best of all was the wildlife. I saw a bunch of mountain goats, ptarmigans, and a golden eagle flying with a  snake in its talons. Perhaps my favorite moment was near the end, hiking through an area know as Purgatory Flats. It was dusk, with no one else around. Far ahead on the trail I saw a bear walking towards me. I could tell it had not picked up my scent yet.  I really like bears, and I'm not afraid of them. (We only have black bears here.) I do however, want bears to be afraid of people, because, well, people are dangerous for bears. So I yelled at the bear, and it ran off towards the creek.  Then I thought, " I should have taken a picture first!" Too bad. The scene is burned in my memory though, and that is good enough for me. You won't see that view if you take the train.