White Ranch...In the Snow

Early a.m. slog through new snow, limited visibility and the eerie silence that comes in those conditions.

Time: 2:01
Distance: 10.45
Effort: Easy
Body: Poor
Weather: Snowing

At 7:15 a.m., JP sat up in bed and said, "Jim, it's 7:15 a.m.!" I had just enough time to utter an expletive before my phone rang. Todd G. was calling, politely inquiring as to where the hell I was.

I was supposed to, at that moment, already be running up the Belcher Hill Trail at JeffCo's White Ranch Open Space with Todd. Instead, I was just leaping out of bed uttering vague apologies about setting my alarm, but failing to turn it on.  After a bit of hemming and hawing, we decided to scrap the morning run, knowing that with the poor road conditions, it would take me too long to make my way down I-70. My company didn't promise enough scintillating conversation to warrant waiting.

Still, I knew (and JP helpfully pointed out) that I would stew the rest of the day on my failure to show up if I didn't quickly haul myself out of bed and get to the trailhead.

So, I grabbed an energy bar, threw on the winter running gear and hopped in the truck for sketchy drive down to Golden and White Ranch.

There were two cars in the lot when I arrived, and two sets of footprints leading off up the Belcher Hill Trail.  I followed the prints, made in the two fresh inches of powder, up to the first trail intersection.  I figured one of the sets of prints had to be Todd's.  The prints went right, so I went left and continued climbing Belcher Hill. I figured, if I was lucky, I would run into Todd somewhere along the way.

Entrance to the Belcher Hill Trail at White Ranch Open Space

I slogged up Belcher to its apex at the upper junction with the Mustang Trail (3.7 miles, 1,738 feet of elevation gain).  This is a solid climb...good distance and lots of vertical. From the top, I descended down to the upper park road, crossed over and continued descending down to the Rawhide Trail intersection. I hung a left here. After about a half-mile on this old ranch road, I saw a runner coming toward me with a familiar gait.

After a quick greeting, Todd and I turned around and followed my footprints back up to the top of Belcher Hill.

We descended via the Mustang Trail, which has got to be one of my all-time favorite trails in the JeffCo park system. It winds over hills, through canyons and across meadows in an area of the park that feels very remote, despite being just a hop, skip and a jump from Highway 93.

We soon were back on the Belcher Hill Trail, winding our way back down to our cars. We encountered a few hikers and another runner on the way down.

As I write this, the snow is still coming down heavy, at least up here in Evergreen. It will be a while before the trails at White Ranch will be runnable again. Glad we got out before the snow got deep...

2,416 feet of elevation gain.

White Ranch - Slogfest

Time: 2:35
Distance: 13 miles
Effort: Moderate
Body: Poor
Weather: Partly cloudy & cool


Eager to pick up some more vertical for the week, I opted to hit White Ranch, a JeffCo Open Space park northwest of Golden, this a.m. for a "long" run. The plan was to run an outside loop of the park, stringing together the series of trails that take you to nearly every corner of the park, save for a "closed" section in the northwest corner.


Mistake #1 was sleeping in and not starting the run until around 10 a.m. By the time I started, the snow was softening up and the mud was unfreezing. As I headed up from the lower parking lot, about a mile up from Highway 93, the mud was still mostly frozen, making for decent footing as I ascended Belcher Hill.  

Belcher Hill Trail

At about 2.2 miles into the climb, I hung a left onto the Mustang Trail's singletrack. Mistake #2 of the day was assuming the trails of this close-in open space park would be as packed out as those in and around Boulder. They weren't.  On Mustang, I followed two sets of footprints. Fortunately, the day-old tracks appeared to be  from runners, so I basically was able to go step-by-step in  them. Somewhere along this stretch, the theme for the day was set...falling down. I went down twice in this 1.8 miles, not hard...mostly slow-motion, slip-off-the-trail falls. After far too long, I topped out on Belcher Hill and descended down to the road that leads to the park's upper parking lot.


From here, it was more snow, this time on the Rawhide Trail, which runs along the west and north sides of the park. Fortunately, an ATV had been down the road fairly recently and made a decent track to run on. Still, the running was by no means effortless.

Rawhide Trail

Mistake #3 was deciding to add to the run a mile section of trail near the end of Rawhide. This 1-mile stretch had no tracks and was completely snow covered. About a half-mile in, the trail traversed a hillside in an open meadow. Snow had drifted knee-deep over the trail in many places. Slow going. Fortunately, the scenery was beautiful and the views sublime.

Looking northwest from the far northwest corner of the park on the Rawhide Trail

From here, it was more snow along the Longhorn Trail which traversed the hills and dales on the east side of the park, ultimately leading back to a plateau near the old White Ranch headquarters. The trail was better packed from here, but where there wasn't snow there was mud...slippery, sticky, annoying, I-shouldn't-be-running-here mud. The falling-down theme o' the day continued on this stretch as I went down at least three more times. I did manage to pause between tumbles to take in the views of snow-covered North Table Mountain.

North Table Mountain from the Longhorn Trail

The farther down the trail I went, the worse the mud got. By the time I hit the Belcher Hill Trail for the one-mile return to my car, it was a full-on mud wallowing extravaganza. I'm pretty anal about staying on a trail, rather than running around mud or puddles and creating new tracks (I want to keep my singletrack as single tracks!), so through the mud I went. Right in the worst of the mud, and right as I was passing two runners, I slipped and went down. Fortunately, I was able to execute some fine ballet-esque move, kept my feet under me and didn't end up sprawled in the mud.  No doubt stifling a guffaw, one of the runners commented that he couldn't believe I didn't get more mud on me. 


Fatigued and tired of running after only 13 miles, my only response was, "I can't WAIT for summer!"