Tour De Flatirons

Saturday, August 12th

I needed to do something with a lot of elevation gain today, but I didn't want to drive too far, so I headed up to the flatirons. I started at the South Mesa Trailhead, and the plan was to do the following: Towhee Trail to South Boulder Peak, over to Bear Peak, down the West Ridge to Green Mountain, down Bear Canyon to the Mesa Trail, then up Fern Canyon, returning to Bear Peak, and down Shadow Canyon. All told, this would be 15+ miles and ~6500 feet of elevation gain.

I knew it was going to be a long day so I started out early. I didn't run any of the Towhee trail, and I arrived at the mouth of Shadow Canyon in 32:30. This was right on the pace I was hoping for, although it was 4 minutes slower than last time I did just South Boulder Peak and Bear Peak. I also wanted to go a little slower up Shadow Canyon. Last time I did the ascent in 36 minutes, this time I wanted to be right at 40 minutes. This would still be ~2400 ft/hr of elevation gain. I paced myself just about perfectly and did the ascent in 39:45. I was feeling great at this point - I had been taking in ~100 calories of food every 30 minutes, and I felt like I had been drinking enough. Last time up Shadow Canyon I had really started to feel weak at the top. Also, I didn't have any tightness in my upper back, which had been a problem on previous steep hikes.

I reached the summit of South Boulder Peak, spent about 2 minutes on top, headed over to Bear Peak, and reached the cutoff for the West Ridge at 1:40 total. This cutoff is about 50 vertical feet below the summit, and as I figured I'd be back here again in a couple of hours, I didn't bother to go to the summit. I headed down the West Ridge, trying to go as fast as I could, although the first 1/2 mile is pretty steep. After that it levels out, and I probably ran 3/4 of the ridge down to the Bear-Green trail. This took 30 minutes - a little longer than I had hoped, but I was still feeling good.

I started the ascent up to Green Mountain, and immediately began having problems. This section is relatively benign - 1 mile and 900 feet of elevation gain (17%), but I just didn't have any power. My pace slowed drastically, and I was feeling really weak. It was all I could just to keep moving and not to stop. I arrived at the junction .2 miles below the summit in about 22 minutes (27.5 min/mile pace), and I stopped to talk with a guy there. I tried to convince myself I really stopped to be friendly, but the reality was I really needed to stop. I started the final ascent a couple of minutes later, and had to stop 3 or 4 times. I finally reached the summit in 2:40, and I was just wiped. At this point, I knew going back over Bear Peak was out of the question. I stayed on the summit for close to 15 minutes, and then started down Bear Canyon. I usually run this section in about 10-12 minutes. This time it took me more than 21 minutes. I jogged a little bit lower down when the trail was smooth, but I didn't have the energy to deal with all of the rocks. Luckily, this might have been a blessing in disguise.

I was about 1/4 mile from the mesa trail when I saw a black bear on the trail about 50 feet in front of me. It really scared the s!$% out of me. Luckily, he just scampered off the trail when he saw me. I still stayed still for about 5 minutes, not really wanting to get any closer. I had seen several people hiking up this trail, and none of them mentioned anything about a bear, so I figured it would be OK to go on. I feel like if I had been running this section like I have in the past, I might have come even closer. That would have been really scary.

I met a couple down the trail a couple hundred yards who had seen two black bears. The guy said he's been hiking in the flatirons for 20 years and never seen one, so I guess this was a pretty rare thing. In retrospect it was pretty cool.

The rest of the hike/run was pretty uneventful. I ran some of the downhills, but for the most part I was pretty wiped out. I'm not sure what it was - I had only done maybe 3500 feet of elevation gain when my legs just didn't have anything left. Maybe my long rest period really did have an effect on me.

Total mileage: 13+
Total elevation gain: 4500 ft.
Total Time: 4:55