The Hardrock 100 started at 6 a.m. Friday. We’ve been on the trail and bumping around in a Jeep ever since. We’re following Manitou Springs residents Neal Taylor and Jon Teisher. Both are tired but doing great. The picture below is Neal at about 9 a.m.

Neal blew through Tellurdide, 28 miles into the race at 1:55 p.m. J.T. (as he is known, a.k.a. Brownie) should arrive any minute. The pic below is from high on Oscar Pass at 12.45 p.m. He was looking strong.

The big news though is Kyle Skaggs, (below) a 23-year-old hotshot who right now seems to be destroying the record. Way to go! Live updates on runners here.

Yes, you could sit in a city park and watch one fireworks displays in the region, but why not hike to a highpoint and see them all. The city has plenty of great promontories where you can kick back and see the sparks fly. Remember to bring a headlamp. Here are some favorites:

Red Mountain in Manitou. This is where the city usually launches its fire works, but this year they opted to do it across the canyon so this perfect summit is now open for hikers. Trail description Here.

 Mount Cutler above the Broadmoor. This Cheyenne Canon overlook offers great views of downtown light shows and the Cheyenne Mountain Resorts fireworks. Trail description here.

 Section 16 Overlook. This rocky knob looks out over the city from up high. Trail description here.

Where is the most remote place in Colorado? Well, almost a year ago Andy Wineke and I, along with Gazette photographer Mark Reis, rented two llamas and set off to find out. Yesterday, we found out the pair of stories about the trip won a “Best of the West” award, so I thought I’d dig them up. It’s pretty good reading:

Andy’s take, read it here.

Dave’s take, read it here.

He said he was going to do it and he did! Matt Carpenter broke the record for the Mount Evans Ascent. Carpenter ran the uphill 14.5 mile course in 1:37:01 to shatter the 31-year-old course record (1:41:35) set by John Bramley in 1977.His pace was an amazing 6:42 per mile.

There is a letter in The Gazette this morning complaining about how runners on Barr Trail are inconsiderate and dangerous. The author was hiking Sunday when she saw a female runner speeding downhill push a backpacker out of the way. The letter suggests Forest Service rangers go out on the trails (yeah right) to ticket reckless runners.

No doubt Barr Trail gets crowded. During the summer there is a perfect storm of out-of-state back packers, marathon trainers, local hikers and crowds coming down from the Incline. It gets busy, especially on weekends.

What should we do?

1. Be courteous. Whether you are fast or slow, local or not, we all have the same right to the trail.

2. Treat it like the highway it is. Stay right, pass left. Don’t pass in on-coming traffic. If you are especially slow, pull over from time t time to let others through.

3. This one is critical. No headphones, at least for the first three miles where traffic is heaviest. This lets you hear others approaching from both directions.

4. Keep your dog on a leash. There are lots of little-visited trails where dogs can run free. This isn’t one of them.

In January Out There ran a list of 54 weekly adventures that would carry you through 2008. They range from skiing a fourteener to watching fireflies. Anyway, the year is more than half-way finished, so we figured it would be a great time to prod you to get out there and do some of the cool stuff that makes you want to live in Colorado in the first place. As an added incentive, we’re giving away an outdoor gift card to the person who can document doing the most adventures by the end of the year. Here’s a sampling of the summer outings: Read the rest of this entry »

Turns out Captain Jacks, a Colorado Springs trail developed by motor bikes, is not officially designated for motorized use. So parks is holding a hearing on whether official motorized use should be granted.
What interests me though, is Captain Jack herself. Here is a nice article on the woman who lends her name to this popular trail (above) and the guest house she ran at the top of the high drive (below.)

This is a sad story. Three climbers on Mount Rainier in Washington were caught in a blizzard this week. To survive, they dug a trench for shelter. The man insisted on lying on the bottom to insulate his wife. She made it. He died of hypothermia.

Here are a few things I’ve been seeing on the trail. For a great online flower guide courtesy of CSU, click here. Boulder Raspberry, a gorgeous and widespread bush
Chiming bells (seem to prefer dry areas)
wild clematis (a very cool vine)
Unidentified composit (these guys can be tough to correctly identify.)
Rocky Mountain Pentstemon

Less than 300 steps in the snow now on the front of Pikes Peak. It’s officially open for running.

Colorado Springs has long been a partner in bringing back the nearly extinct black-footed ferret thanks to a breeding program at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Young ferrets are shipped from the zoo every fall to re-introduction sites around the West. One of the must successful is Conata Basin in South Dakota, mostly because the prairie dogs there don’t carry plague (which kills both the rodents and the ferrets.) But now, plague has shown up in the basin. Several federal agencies and organizations have begun the battle against plague. They’ve zeroed in on killing fleas, a known vector of plague, by spraying dust into prairie dog burrows. They are also vaccinating ferrets against plague. But all this is expensive. You can help by “adopting” a black-footed ferret at www.paririewildlife.org. The funds go directly to protecting ferrets in the Conata Basin.