Back to the hills

Last Friday evening we cut out of work a little early and headed back out to the trail for some backpacking and camping. We decided to go late Friday, so we'd have all day Saturday to explore the area. It was cloudy and drizzling when we hit the trail around 7pm.

 Up and down, the main trail to camp.

It took us about an hour to get to Camp Horsebrush, which is almost exactly 2 miles from the trail head. My pack weighed in at 44lbs this time, and the trail is not too steep, but it's a lot of up and down.
Fortunately the rain let up enough for us to set up camp, before it rained most of the rest of that night.

 Can you see the camp's namesake?

The next morning half our party wimped out because they stayed up all night. Lucas and I, however, were determined to get to the top of the trail that turned us back last month when an afternoon storm threatened to catch us unprotected in the high country.
From where we turned back last time, it was a good mile to the top and pretty steep trekking. Fortunately we had swapped out for lighter day packs for the scouting trip.

The road less traveled.

At times the trail almost disappeared as we climbed up and up.

We finally made it to the top, which was about 2 miles from Horsebrush and 4 miles from the trail head. But what a great spot lay at the top! We looked around and found a water source not too far down the mountain and decided we'd need to get a strong group together and power through the 4 miles to the top with full gear next time.

Enough space to start a village.

We hung around for a bit, but then the clouds started to roll in again, so we made our way back down. By the time we got there we were scrambling to get a fire started before the rain came.

Full color photo.

We had to eat in the rain and spent most the night in our ponchos.

Floating pup tent in the background is a hammock and tarp.

But we made the best of it, and the rain stopped a little while after dark. We stared at the fire and talked about the days hike and when to plan the next excursion to the top with full packs.

Definitely not a time lapse photo.

The next morning we broke camp early and packed the 2 miles back to the car. Total hiking distance was 8.3 miles.

Remember kids, don't eat the magic mushrooms!

Gear Review: Injinji Outdoor Toe Socks

I picked up a pair of Injinji Outdoor SeriesToesock to try out on my last backpacking trip. The marketing behind them states: "Individual anatomical toe sleeves form a thin anti-blister membrane between toes to eliminate skin-against-skin friction". Sounds good to me. While I don't often get blisters, it's been known to happen. Plus with my heavy boots I usually wear an "under sock" under my thicker wool socks, and I was in need of getting some modern material to replace the cotton socks I usually wear. I figured these under my wool socks would be a great combo.

I should point out, I've never worn toe socks before. In fact I don't even wear flip-flops or really have experience with anything between my toes. These were a little strange to get on and at first felt like "one size fits none", but I did my best with my crooked feet and toes.

The material (70% wool/25% nylon/5% spandex) is fantastic and feels great on my feet. Our first leg of the hike was 2 miles in mild to moderate terrain, with steady ups and downs. Not more than a half mile in I start to notice some irritation between certain toes. Not every toe, and not the same ones on each feet, but seemingly random spots on both sides. After about a mile I start fixating on it and it becomes bothersome. Soon it seems to concentrate between my big and 2nd toe mostly and on my pinky and it's brother.

By the time we get to the main camp, I'm anxious to get these things off my feet. As I get my boots and over socks off, the Injinis have settled perfectly into place on my feet and don't seem to have twisted or moved to cause the discomfort. The problem seems to reside with just having material between my toes. With them off and a fresh pair of cotton socks on, me feet feel better, but I can still feel the irritated spots walking around camp. By morning the discomfort was gone and I didn't opt to wear them for the 2nd 4 mile leg of harder hiking. If I had to go farther than the 2 miles to base camp, I think I would have had to bring the party to a halt to switch them out.

Crooked toes and bunions need not apply.

In short, these socks are not for me. Maybe for people who rock things like Vibram Fivefingers shoes or the like, they might be great. I'm currently trying to find an alternate use for mine, but no ideas have come to me yet. Maybe I'll try to wear them around the house without boots to see if the problem persists just for fun. I will say, again, I love the material and feel of them (besides the obvious stated above) and they are well made socks to be sure.

Nemesis (Parkour for old guys)

Say hello to Nemesis.

Nemesis is a concrete wall at the local elementary school. From left to right, Nemesis varies from 8'2" to 9'2" as the ground slopes downward.

We scouted this wall out about a month ago, after a Team Live Badass training session. At the time we had just run 2.5 miles, did a ton of burpees, jumps, leaps and wall climbs. By the time we found Nemesis we were in no shape to attempt such a feat... but we did anyways. The wall won and we hung our heads in defeat, vowing to return.

And return we did. Last Saturday Bill came over and we took a stroll down to the school yard to size up our enemy. After a quick warm-up of some push-ups and a couple quick lunges, Bill went for the low side (8'+) in full urban walk about gear.

Making short work of the obstacle, we were feeling good and confident. Billy makes several attempts at the high side. It took us each several leaps just to get our finger tips on to the top of the wall. White men can't jump and even at my 6' 2" height, the 9'+ leap is tough. But we kept at it. Billy gets sooo close, but the wall would remain his Nemesis.

I decided to forego the short side and put all my effort into one summit attempt on the high side.

This wall is nice, because you not only have the slope to change difficulty, but the other side is on a nice grassy hill for a soft landing.

I was able to beat Nemesis that day, having the benefit of lightweight clothes and grippy skate shoes. I think Billy could do it in his runners, but his heavy worn boots weren't helping. But Nemesis doesn't let you win without paying a price.

Now that I know it can be done, I need to work on my technique. I've been reading and browsing around the Parkour and Free Running sites for tips and tutorials. The trick, it seems, is speed. Hanging on that wall makes your arm strength fade fast. Explosive movements are great, but it's hard to do. I'd like to find some lower walls to practice technique on. If you know somewhere, let me know. I've also got a pull up bar coming in the mail to hopefully help too.

Run For Your Lives top 5 finish!

We ran the Run for Your Lives! 5k zombie run yesterday at Thunder Valley Motocros track in Lakewood, CO. The course was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. Being on the motorcross track meant tons of long steep hills, many of which had to be crawled up, because doing it just on your feet caused some serious sliding back down. There was a ton of zombies. I heard 750 entered for the event and I'm guessing there were around 150-200 zombies on the course at any one time.

We ran the first heat (0900), in the first stage called "appetizer" and placed ourselves right up front to be nearly first out of the shoot.

Right away it was steep hills and razor wire. Much like the Spartan, the first mile was the hardest part. Getting over that initial first hump always kills me. Once I got past that, we moved forward at a good consistant pace.
If you're not familiar with RFYL, it's an obstacle race combined with flag football. Each runner has to wear 3 flags and the zombies, spread throughout the course, try to grab your flags to "kill" you. There are slow zombies and scary quick ones mixed in. Probably about 1 in 10 are fast zombies.
I took one for the team early on, losing a flag, but allowing a lot of runners to get by while I distracted the zombies.
At the top of the highest point was a long water slide into a breath robbing cold pool of water. It took me a good minute to get my wind back after that dunk.
Much sprinting and dodging zombies. Really tough cardio (first rule of Zombieland). Often times there'd be a zombie horde milling around and you really had to push through with a group to confuse the gouls.

We found working in teams was helpful. Hard cuts and spins were also the order of the day to dodge the nasty undead. My running mate, Dave, lost his last flag while I still retained the coveted Subaru flag, which entitles you to some Subie swag if you finish with it. He ran interference and helped me get past a particularly nasty fast zombie, nick named "The Douche" by our friend, Nadia.
Here's us putting the moves on The Douche.

With Dave's help I was able to finish with my last flag and get the title of "Survivor".

There were a few low crawl and electrified obstacles, but due to the area, it was mainly hills and zombies. I've seen pics from other locations that have monkey bars and the like, but this course had no upper body obstacles, aside from a couple low walls and one rope on a hill that was more help than hinderance.
One of the more interesting items was the slime pit towards the end. Here I am splashing into the pink goo and climbing out covered in what we figure must be some sort of lube, like KY jelly. Nasty stuff!

We finished strong and with Dave's help, I was able to pull out 5th place overall for survivors, and 4th for men's, winning my age group (30-39). Interesting thing about this race is you have to survive to be eligible for awards. I missed the award spot by one place, just 14 seconds behind the 3rd place finisher.

Overall, out of over 3,000 entries, survivors and victims, I placed 52nd. Not bad for a noob. :) Dave finished a strong 36th. Here we are at the end, covered in goo.

Awesome pics courtesey of http://www.photo-paragon.com/

Pentathlon

As suggested by my buddy, Jared, a number of us have entered into a little casual contest. The outline is as follows:

The idea is to perform the events and re-test after a period of time, and the person with the greatest improvement percentage wins!
Yes obviously you could sandbag the initial test but we are not without honor, correct?

These are the 5 events:

* pushups in 2 minutes
* situps in 2 minutes
* broad jump
* sit-and-reach
* 1 mile run

My numbers:
M
38
6'2"
182

Pushups 49
Sit ups 40
Broad jump 6' 9"
1 mile 8:30
Reach + 5/8"
Elapsed time: 22:00

That's the order I did them in because I wanted to do everything but the reach with my shoes on.

I made the mistake of doing the run on I route I mapped in my neighborhood, instead of the track at the middle school nearby. We live on a hill, so I had to run uphill for most of it.
Will retest again on Sept. 10th to see progress who makes the most progress.

Hiking and climbing in the CO wilderness

We took our exercise to the hills this weekend. We hit part of the CO Trail and backpacked in to find a spot to camp overnight. We hiked for several hours, with our packs all weighing around 40-50lbs. Mine weighed 42lbs, before I added food and Powerade, so I'm guessing around 45lbs. Dave's weighed in at 50lbs and I'm guessing Lucas' and Billy's were in the same neigborhood.

We left the truck around 9:30am and began our hike into the unknown. The trail started out mild, but after a couple hours it got pretty steep.

Shortly after these pics, some dark clouds began rolling in and we could hear thunder. We were getting pretty high on the mountains, becoming more exposed and the terrain was far too steep to make camp anywhere. We debated pushing over the top to see what was on the other side, but decided to retreat to a lower flat area we had passed an hour or so before.

We struck camp around 1:00pm. Fortunately the storm missed us, but I think descending was the right call. After lunch we hiked down to a stream to get some water for later and Dave and I scouted the ridge on the other side of the creek. There was a high rock outcropping a mile or so away where the ridge met the mountain and we decided we'd set out to try and get to the top of it the following morning.

The next morning we crossed the creek and climbed up the ridge and started for the base of the mountain. Here, seen through a break in the trees, we saw a view of our goal in the distance.

As we began our ascent of the mountain, the climb became quite steep and we worried for the safety of Parker The Insane Wonder Dog. There were some deadly drop offs and we feared Parker would get into trouble trying to follow us.

With the peak in our sights, Dave and Lucas graciously volunteered to hold down the assault outpost with Parker, while Bill and I made our summit bid.

The climb became increasing difficult, with a couple sketchy spots, but not too bad. About an hour later we had our victory and a nice view of the surronding wilderness. Elevation change from base camp to the top was about 1040'.

It was a great trip with great friends and when we had hiked the hour and a half or so trip back to the truck, we all vowed to return with a vengence to attack the trail with lighter packs, after setting up camp with the big packs, and perhaps assault a higher peak we saw not too far off.
Good times.