GBF OPERATION 14ERS
This was the first edition of GBF Operation 14ers. I was excited when this event was first posted, because after having done Gray's in 2009, and Gray's and Torrey's in 2016, I was curious what it would be like to try to do this at max effort.
I flew out to Denver on Thursday, so that I could rest a little bit on Friday, before driving out to the trailhead on Friday night.
We weren't sure whether the Subaru would make it up the pitted road, but with patience and lots of time, we did. Fortunately, we went early enough that there wasn't another call riding on our tail the whole time.
I had thought about driving up there by myself, since my family would be spending hours doing nothing in the car, maybe doing a little segment of hiking once the sun rose, at most. They decided to come anyways to support, though. They had thought about dropping me off and coming back for me later, after going back to Denver to watch the sunrise at Red Rocks or something, but the ride up the mountain was so time-consuming and stressful that they didn't want to have to repeat it. They ended up sleeping in the cold car while I set off.
Gregg was hosting a different GBF event in Virginia, so Sean, an ambassador, led it. In the darkness, which is a bit different from what I'm used to from other GBF events, the 4 of us women plus 3 men gathered, for the safety brief. When it was time to go, we set off.
It was a little congested at first, but I made my way to the front, since I wanted to set a dog tag pace and wanted to take advantage of flatter, runnable ground, while I had it. I led for a couple of miles, maybe, but then I had some issues with my waist-mounted light and switched to my headlamp. I was fine having someone else lead for a while, though. It does take mental energy, especially in the dark, to figure out where to go. It's a bit easier to just follow.
The trail started getting steeper, and there were switchbacks. I think I took the lead again some time during the switchbacks. It was cool looking backwards and seeing all the headlamps of other hikers making their way up... not just the GBFers, but many other headlamps, too. We had seen people set off as early as 2am, and our event stepped off at 3:30am. There were many others behind us, though.
At the top, I did stop to take pictures and refill my water bottle from my Platypus. No time to linger too long, though.
From Gray's Peak, we had to take the saddle down and back up to Torrey's. That section has lots of steep and slippery rock. I think two guys passed me during this section. I was not going to bomb down this. I needed to be careful. I refilled my water again at the mid-point of the saddle, as the sun was starting to peek over the horizon. Refilling was time-consuming compared to just using a water bladder with a hose. If I want to save time in the future, maybe I should use the bladder and hose. One pro of using bottles is that it's always very clear how much I've drank and how much I have left.
It was nice to be able to take off all my lighting systems, now that the sun had risen enough to see well.
This route is an out and back... you go up to Torrey's, and then you have to go back on the saddle to return to Gray's before going home... no taking the shortcut back from Torrey's. After losing time on the technical descent from Gray's, I tried to hoof it up Torrey's.
It was windy and a bit cold, but I was fine in shorts and a t-shirt, because I was moving and working the whole time, and I had a ruck on my back. My nose started running. The descent from Torrey's isn't quite as bad as the descent from Gray's, but it's still very steep. I saw two of the women at the mid-point of the saddle, on my way back. Then, you have to go back up to Gray's. So much time got sucked up by the saddle.
Back up on Gray's, it was light out, and there were more people on the summit. I didn't stop to take another picture with a cardboard sign. On the way down, there were a bunch of hikers making their way up. That also broke up the ability to pick up some speed. I'm glad we got an early start, because the trail gets congested. People tended to be nice and give way, though. I wasn't moving fast, but I was trying, I think they could see.
I had thought that maybe my chances of dog tags had slipped away, and I thought about taking it easy the rest of the way and enjoying the views and taking pictures, but with a few miles left, the numbers started looking slightly better, and I might have a chance. I really wanted to drink more, but I didn't feel like I could afford to stop to refill my water bottle again. I really wanted to pee, but even if I found a secluded spot, it would take time that I didn't want to spend. I also wanted to grab my hat out of my pack to shade my face from the sun, but no time for that. I needed every second and every minute.
I tried asking hikers going in the opposite direction, how far the trailhead was. I was surprised by the number of people who didn't have anything like a Garmin to tell me an exact amount. One guy did, though, near the end, so I felt some relief from knowing that it might not be as tight as I was fearing. I was surprised by how many hikers were still making their way out, this late in the morning. Were they only planning on doing part of the route? Or were they going to risk running into t-storms and having to turn back? I was also surprised that this many people managed to find parking spots. I didn't see the whole parking lot, but at least the front section was very full by the time we got there at like 2:30am.
Finally, I saw the familiar beginning of the trail, and I stopped when I got to the racers who had already finished, the four guys, who had finished 20 to 6 minutes before I did, according to my dad. Sean was awesome and brought Coor's for everyone. That's the local brew in Colorado, even if it is macro lager. We hung out until the last finisher came in, chatting and watching dogs play... the usual for GBF. One girl had to turn around early due to altitude sickness, but 4 of us dog tagged, and the other 2 finished.
I finished with a ton of extra water, plus an extra jacket that I never ended up wearing. I wanted to be safe and not sorry with the extra water, though, since there would be no natural sources of water once you got past the first couple of miles, and I figured the air might be drier in Colorado.
REST OF THE TRIP
Doing Op 14ers had been the main focus of the trip, but since my sister lived in Denver, it would be a nice opportunity to hang out and have a little summer vacation. I wanted to do the race early in the trip, so that I didn't have to hold back and taper for the rest of the trip. I'd be able to do anything I wanted for the rest of the trip.
Sunday, Aug 24:
Visited by sister's BF's cat, who I call "Biscuit".
And then we went to Golden Mill for the self-service taps.
Monday, Aug 25:
Glute and pec PT v1 in 27:27, then HDT-KB 12.6.2 (ARMS) with 25#KB in 29:30. My sister's condo's gym is nice and has lots of kettlebells to use, so I got to knock out more of the HDT KB program.
We went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science for their free day afterwards. My parents had been once before. Lots of walking! We stayed there for three hours but didn't even see all of the exhibits.
We started with the geology section.
That night, I went to the cat's house to sleep over.
We went to a German biergarten and had [Belgian sour] beer, a giant pretzel, and exotic sausages. Special!
We were going to go to the free day for Denver Botanical Gardens, but only their farm-based campus still had tickets available, so we skipped it. We just went to Costco, instead.
Thursday, Aug 28:
In the morning, went to the gym with my mom. I did 18A "Dynamic Warmup" in 26:58 nose breathing. Then, I did 5K on the Concept 2 Rower in 23:50, with level 6 resistance, 27spm, 280 cal, 2:23/500m, 120 Watts... also nose breathed. My legs weren't in the mood for running, even in zone 2, so this was good, and a nice opposing movement from the TGUs. I really pushed hard to get sub-24 min... it was a mental fight to finish strong, but I did it.
Saw the cat again, while picking up my sister for a trip out to Maroon Bells. We drove to Gypsum on the first day, to an AirBNB with a nice view.
Friday, Aug 29:
We didn't sign up soon enough to get a reservation for a parking spot at the trailhead, so we had to pay for shuttle tickets *and* pay for shuttle parking.
We made the most of our time, there, though. We decided to take the trail from Maroon Lake to Crater Lake. There are a few other trails there, but that seemed to be the big one.
Maroon Lake is big, and the walk along the side of it at the start of the trail is nice. We even saw a fox scramble up a rock avalanche fall.
