Sunday, November 8 - Tour de Bear Canyon Parks

Run: Mt. Falcon - Lair O' the Bear Loop

Time: 3:04

Distance: 19.31 miles

Effort: Easy

Body: Good

Weather: Cool and clear

Started thinking early Sunday morning about where to run today. I had some ideas about what I was looking for...I wanted to run long...wanted to run as much as possible on snow-free trails...wanted to hit something new. After a bit of back-and-forth, I decided on a loop I'd been thinking about doing for a couple of years, but had never gotten around to - a loop run through a series of Jefferson County Open Space parks and Denver Mountain Parks, beginning and ending in Morrison -- the Tour de Bear Canyon Parks.

Before heading out to run some errands with JP and the kids, I jumped on Map my Run to see if I could get a fair guesstimate about mileage (Map My Run doesn't show trails). After a bit of tinkering, I came up with a guess of 16-20 miles. Perfect.

I parked my car in downtown Morrison around 2:45 p.m. and headed out uphill on Highway 8 south and made quick work of the 1.5 miles or so to the Mt. Falcon Open Space parking lot. I jumped on the Castle Trail and climbed about four miles and 2,000 feet to the upper parking lot. From here is was downhill on a series of paved and dirt roads to the small community of Indian Hills. I ran through town on Parmalee Gulch/Meyers Gulch Road, past Pence Park, a 320-acre Denver Mountain Park acquired by the city in 1914.

Directly across from Pence Park, I hopped on the Bear Creek Trail (BCT), a five-mile or so undulating singletrack trail though a gorgeous collection of ponderosa pine forests and meadows. The BCT runs through O'Fallon and Corwina Parks (two more Denver Mountain Parks, acquired in 1938 and 1916 respectively) before dropping down to Bear Creek Canyon and JeffCo's Lair o' the Bear Open Space. (Trail map of the area here.) Here, the trail runs along Bear Creek for three miles or so, including a stretch across from the surprising Dunafon Castle, a residential property used for weddings and such.

By the time I hit the main Lair o' the Bear parking lot, it was pretty much dark. I continued along the BCT until it dumped out into yet another Denver Mountain Park. This time, it was the 400-acre Little Park, acquired in 1914, and located near the Bear Creek Canyon community of Idledale. From here, it was pavement time.

As it was now dark, I once again had to question my thinking...wearing all black while running in the dark down a winding, two-lane canyon road, just like last weekend. I gotta start planning better.

Feeling a bit anxious about the darkness, I picked up the pace (last three miles were 7:28, 7:08 and 7:03) and made relatively quick work of the four miles from Little Park back down to Morrison. There was a decent shoulder most of the way, but enough of a squeeze to keep me constantly looking over my shoulder for cars racing down the canyon. Incidentally, the stretch of Bear Creek Canyon Road (Highway 74) from Little Park to Morrison is actually yet another Denver Mountain Park, acquired in 1928. It's called Bear Creek Canyon Park and is comprised of a 400-foot strip of land (130 acres) that follows the road.

So, for the day that was seven parks, 19.38 miles, 3,411 feet of elevation gain, three gels, two bottles of water and one great work out.

Weekly Round-up – August 16 – 22

An easy post PPA week, with a total of about 26 miles in five runs. I was surprised at how my motivation to run had dropped off following the PPA. I was jazzed to run the Sunday after the race, but just didn’t have the mojo for most the rest of the week.

Here’s a breakdown of the week:

Sunday: 8 miles, Elk Meadow Open Space

Monday: Off

Tuesday: Off

Wednesday: 4 miles, Elk Meadow Open Space

Thursday: 6 miles, O’Fallon Park with Denver Trail Runners group

Friday: 3.5 miles, Elk Meadow Open Space

Saturday: 5 miles, Elk Meadow Open Space

By far the hardest of the runs was the Thursday run with the Denver Trail Runners group. This was the fourth time I’ve run with this group, second time this year. The DTR meets Thursdays for group runs at open space parks along the Denver foothills. From what I’ve seen, DTR attracts a healthy number of runners, with 20-30 people seemingly being the norm during the summer. The group sets off on runs en masse at a modest warm-up pace, then quickly and naturally breaks into different pace groups. The two times I’ve run with this group, I joined the lead group of runners, running at what for me is a steady tempo pace.

For the Thursday run at O’Fallon Park, a City of Denver Mountan Park located about 3-4 miles east down Bear Creek Canyon from downtown Evergreen, we started out of the parking lot to a trail that led up a heavily-wooded draw, emerging at the top into a sunny meadow, still green in August after one of the wettest summers I can remember. From here, the race was on as our lead group of runners took off to get in some miles before returning to the parking lot to reunite with the rest of the group an hour later.

O’Fallon Park is connected to a Jefferson County Open Space park called Lair O’ The Bear via the Bear Creek Trail (BCT), a rolling and fast trail through the north-facing hills far above Bear Creek. We ran two miles or so out on the BCT, including a steep trail detour to a panoramic overlook with fantastic views of Mt. Evans to the west and the foothills and distant peaks to the northwest. After turning around and retracing our steps on the BCT (and pausing numerous times for a courteous string of mountain bike riders), we hung a left on an unsigned trail and chugged up a steep double-track that climbed up and over an exposed hillside offering another unobstructed view west toward Mt. Evans.

Here we paused to re-form the group, which got strung out during the hard climb, before flying down the other side of the hill to reunite with the BCT. Back on the rolling BCT, the pace increased again and we made our way to another unmarked double-track, this one leading north along a ridge top that soon would have us directly above the parking lot where we parked our cars. After a screaming, edge-of-control decent down a rocky, eroded trail, we were back at our cars.

O’Fallon Park has a nice set of trails. The other times I’ve run here, I’ve never seen more than one or two people on any of the trails, other than the Bear Creek Trail. The park, with its series of small meadows and wooded hills, is a beautiful place to escape the summer’s heat.

All the other runs were at Elk Meadow Open Space in Jefferson County and done on variations of the Meadow View trail.