Leadville!!

Evan and I headed to Leadville last weekend which is about a 2-2.5 hour drive.  Evan is going to compete in the Silver Rush in Leadville which consists of a 50 mile mountain bike ride on one day and the next day a 50 mile trail run from the town which is at 10,200 feet and will go up to 12,000 feet.  So we decided a weekend of training in Leadville would be fun and a good idea for him.


We are planning on doing more weekend trips in all of the great mountain towns we are a few hours away from and to keep our expenses lower we decided to buy a large tent so we do not have to stay in hotels.  We got an awesome deal at Target and ended up buying a 8 person tent for $60 which can fit 3 queen sized air mattresses.  In Leadville we stayed at Sugar Loafin campground which had showers!! We had a very comfortable night on our air mattress and I enjoyed having a hot shower after all of the activities we did during the weekend.  It was much more comfortable than our small backpacking 2 person tent! 

We headed to Leadville early Saturday morning set up our tent, ate packed sandwiches, and then set out for some fun in the mountains.  Evan mountain biked the first day.  I dropped him off at the starting point for the race and he headed up the mountain. 

(You can see Evan starting to climb up the hill)

After we dropped off Evan, Ozzy and I headed into town.  I was able to get a great cup of coffee and an amazing cup cake at one of the bakeries.  We ended up going back to the campground because it started raining in town.  I read and enjoyed my coffee in our super comfy tent.  After that Ozzy and I went for a run along a dirt road near our campground.  

(great view on our run!)

(My favorite running buddy!)

When we all got back from our activities we headed downtown again for dinner and then decided to try taking my Pontiac Vibe on one of the jeep roads to see some of the course Evan will be running/biking on. 

I was pretty proud of my Vibe!! If they still made Vibes I would be tempted to send these pictures to Pontiac! 

The next day Evan and I wanted to run part of the Silver Rush course.  We drove along the jeep road again to get higher up on the trail and headed out on our run.  Evan brought his Garmin with the Silver Rush trail on it but for some reason it was deleted.  Thankfully, there were 2 mountain bikers going along the Silver Rush trail that were able to show us the route.  There are so many jeep roads it makes it difficult to figure out the route we wanted to do.  I was amazed that I was able to stay close to the mountain bikers climbing.  It just shows how steep and tough the route is.  Evan would turn around for me about every 20 minutes just to check in but with the mountain bikers I felt very comfortable on my own with Ozzy. The views along this run were unbelievable! I think this was one of my favorite trail runs yet and I did close to 11 miles above 11,000 feet.  I felt great and could not believe how fast the time went.  I think it was because I had wonderful distractions in every direction!

(Tourquise Lake was such a pretty blue)

(The mountain bikers with us who were so nice to help us out!)

(Evan had a bit of acrophobia at this point and I felt like I was in the Sound of Music :)) 

 (Old mine shaft just a foot away from the trail. It was a little scary keeping Ozzy away from that!)

(End of the run and feeling good!)

After the run we headed back down and went to see Turquoise Lake.  Ozzy jumped right into the water!  

We had a great weekend in Leadville.  The last time we were here we were heading to Aspen for our Honeymoon.  I did not think the town was too great passing by but when you get into the mountains it is such a beautiful and interesting place!  We will probably make a few trips back here :)

Mount Zirkel!

For Evan's 30th birthday celebration he wanted to go on a backpacking trip.  June 1st we headed towards Steamboat Springs.  We stayed the night in a small town, Kremmling, Friday night.  We woke up early Saturday morning and drove to Steamboat Springs for breakfast. After a large breakfast we headed to the trailhead to climb Mt. Zirkel.  I always like to eat a large meal before a backpacking trip because on the mountain the food seems limited and is not the most appetizing. 

We started at the Slavonia Trailhead and headed west on the Gold Creek Trail.  The first 2 miles felt pretty good although it is always tough climbing with a heavy pack.   The first tough part of the hike was getting across a rapid river along a log.  I think the river had to be at least 20ft wide.  Evan attempted first and walked across the log without difficulty.  I tend to think I have much better balance than he does but I had vertigo as soon as I took one step forward.  I had to crawl across the log to make it.  Ozzy swam across the river without difficulty the first time we crossed the log and on the way back he decided to walk right behind me (see below). 

We saw 2 hikers after this and they warned us we were going to have to walk across the river in about a half mile.  I stayed positive and thought it can't be that bad.  As we approached the river you could hear the roar of the rivers and it was actually 3 rivers coming together.  It was amazing to see how much water was flowing down this mountain.  And to think this year we had a dry winter!  We had to cross the rivers and both of our boots were instantly soaked.  We had to now hike another 3 miles in wet/cold boots.  

After crossing the river we approached a lake with fantastic views.  Ozzy jumped right into the lake.  That was the first time Evan and I have ever seen him swim in a lake.  He loved it!

After leaving the lake we had a couple more miles until we would reach the mine ruins.  We planned on setting camp there and then heading up to the summit.  As we were getting higher up we came across snow along the trail.  We met the hikers that were ahead of us who created a nice path to follow.  They informed us that there was too  much snow after the mine ruins to reach the summit without snowshoes.  They also told us that we had a lot of fallen tress to climb over along the trail.  They were right. The hike became more challenging between climbing over trees with a heavy pack and maneuvering in the snow. 

Evan and I were both happy to make it to the mine ruins.  It took us a while to find dry land to set camp.

After we set camp and started our 'jetboil' for our food we noticed the sky was looking ominous.  We quickly put all of our things in or under the tent and brought our dinner inside our tent.  We thought it was probably a good thing we could not make it through the snow to the summit.  The sky changed quickly and there was a pretty bad hail storm and thunderstorm.  Staying in a "bowl" surrounded by mountains at 10,500 feet creates an intense noise from a thunderstorm.  Both of us were pretty nervous during the storm and just hoped it was short and we would be safe.  The storm only lasted about 45 minutes.  We ate our dinner and relaxed (as much as I could in such an isolated area) and read that evening. All of us actually slept great that night.  

We woke up the next morning around 5:30am, made some coffee, took our tent down, ate breakfast bars, and headed back down the trail.  We made breakfast quick because both of our boots were still wet from the day before.  We wanted to start moving as quickly as possible.  We made it down without difficulty. I think Ozzy was sad to go.  He was a great backpacking dog! 

We made it back to our car safely and all and all had a safe and fun trip!