Hessie TH near Ned was a crowded cluster and I realized left my water bottles on the counter at home :\ so I swung back through town for water and headed up to the Rainbow Lakes area instead. That trailhead is not open yet, and because the winter gate was still closed it would be less crowded. I passed six people in five hours.
I parked at the Sourdough lot and ran down the road and past the closed winter gate to Rainbow Lakes. It was 5 miles of forest road to the camping area and trailheads, and it was raining lightly.
I wore an eVent cap and jacket and shorts in the light rain, and it worked well.
This was my first long run on a forest road in the mountains this year, a familiar routine for anyone who runs Colorado peaks, and the opening of my mountain running season, so to speak.
I ran with bear spray in one hand, water bottle in the other.
There were still orange signs from the 2011 construction closure (new terraced grill areas, reshaped parking, new restrooms), and I began to wonder if the whole area was still closed. This was reinforced by the fact that there were fallen trees and woodcutting activity evident on the lower parts of Arapaho Glacier trail. But this is 2012, and the signs seemed to be about vehicle traffic. Nonetheless, it was somewhat ambiguous.
Afterwards I emailed the Boulder Ranger district office, and they confirmed that the closure expired at the end of 2011 and the trails are indeed officially open to foot traffic.
This being May, I found the trails around 10,000 feet were draped with deep drifts of snow, which you can either bypass, or sink into up to your shins. My shoes were soon full of slush, my legs chilled. It was lots and lots of this:
Verdict: not ready for running yet.
If you can find a trail with more exposure it would probably be clear.
The silence was total up high. As I wandered through and around the drifts, through gnarled pines and seemingly landscaped dwarf tree groves, featherweight graupel began to fall, making faint "pok" sounds as it hit my jacket.
After a while however, the slogging over and around drifts became tiresome, and I still had a ways to go to treeline (which would have been the next arbitrary goal to reach), so I turned around and headed back down.
This is back down on the road, near the I was exploring right before seeing the moose.
After I got back to the car, I shed the pack and headed out on Sourdough for a few, pausing for a snack and to wait out the latest wave of rain and sleet.
At this point the only other vehicle was a van from Oregon with bikes and hula hoops on the back (were people sleeping inside?).
The Sourdough trail is pleasant, winding back up a ridge through lodgepole forest. It passes a mine, with a small area of broken pots and rusted cans. No telling what year they were from. Pretty lonely out there around dusk, so I turned around as it was getting dark.
I headed out a 3rd time for a short run with my camera for shots of the glowing sky. I was still psyched from seeing the moose, happy to be out, and the sky perfectly reflected that mood.
Distance was 17.25 miles, time 5:23 (moving 3:45), elevation gain/loss 1,986 feet, avg. pace 18:46 (moving 13:04), and best pace 7:17. Elevation between 9,193 and 10,412 feet.
That's ridiculously slow, but I just plain spent a lot of time messing around and having fun, stopping to enjoy everything.
The winter gate opens some time in June. But I liked having the place to myself, at the small price of some sweat and effort that I was going to expend anyway.
