Sixty-plus degrees in January? Couldn't ask for better temps for a slippery dash up and down Boulder's Green Mountain
Time: 1:14
Distance: 5.5 miles
Effort: Moderate
Body: Average
Weather: Amazing
Mid-afternoon run up Green Mountain starting from Baseline, about a quarter mile down from Gregory Canyon. In the spirit of mixing things up a bit, I decided to run up the frontside today. I hadn't been up that route since May of last year.
I left the traction devices in the car figuring I wouldn't need them. Bad call. There still was a lot of slippery, icy sections on the frontside. I recall thinking that after experiencing all the various snow conditions on Green's trails -- grabby powder, ice, frozen snow, slush, icy slush, perfect snowball snow, and so on... -- I have a much deeper appreciation for the urban legend about Inuit peoples having so many words for snow. While it may not be true that the Inuit have over 100 names for snow...there probably are 100 different types of snow conditions on trails this time of year.
Anyway, moderately tough conditions on the ascent. Lots of slick spots in all the wrong places - namely the steep, rocky parts in the dense woods. So, I ended up walking a bunch of sections and carefully hoping from rock island to rock island. Hit the summit in just over 39 minutes...39:12.
Chatted briefly with a couple of summiteers, tagged the marker and was immediately off down the backside. A fair amount of snow and slick conditions from the four-way down to the ranger cottage. Good conditions from there down. I really enjoyed the rocky technical sections today. Feet and brain were hyper-synched. Felt like I was floating through the tough stuff. Good feeling.
So, is 38:47 from 5/4/2010 still your PR for this route? I think we crossed paths that day. You got pretty close to that time even with the slippery conditions today.
ReplyDeleteI went up a few hours after (and a couple minutes slower than) you today. Opted to skip the traction as well. Was nice to not be scraping on all the dry stuff, but was definitely slow in the more slippery spots.
Yep, the 38:47 still stands as my PR. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've run up Green's frontside. I reckon I can lower it a bit.
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to run unencumbered w/ traction devices (on foot or in hand), even w/ the slick spots.
Hope to see you out there soon.