Hand Crack and Singletrack: Hardrock 40 and Sneffels

View from Stony Pass

A couple years ago I ran the Telluride Mountain Run, which was awesome. The San Juan's are amazing. I made it a goal this year to get back there and see some of the spectacular Hardrock course. Steve was nice enough to drive down and join me for an outing on the first 40 miles of the course, running counterclockwise. We ended up running it the same day as the actual race, which made navigation a ton easier. Seeing markings and runners all day eased the trouble of consulting our GPS all day long. The race this year was clockwise, and since we started Saturday morning, it was perfect as we got to see all the runners from start to finish as they started Friday morning. There isn't much to report about, other than the fantastic scenery. Steve unfortunately had to bail about 17 miles in due to feeling the altitude, but then joined me on top of Handies right before a horrific thunderstorm came in, which made the shuttling back to Silverton a lot easier. We were planning on riding our bikes back to town after finishing in Grouse Gulch, but having the truck there was better. Thanks for feeling crappy Steve! Overall I finished feeling ok, but it reinstated my feelings that I'll likely never do the entire Hardrock event, if not for the lottery odds alone but for the fact that 50 miles in a day is plenty. No reason to run through the night and miss seeing half of the fantastic scenery. I finished the first 40 miles of the course in about 12 hours with 14k' of elevation gain.

Little Giant Pass

Runners heading down to Cunningham

Steve acting like Steve

Handies

Locals

Running down Handies in the rain

Pano from atop Handies

Great ST in the Cataract section

I was also able to get out on a solo adventure up Mt Sneffels via Blue Lakes, another 14er, in mid August. Most people come up via the Camp Bird rd from Ouray, but Blue Lakes is far more scenic. Beautiful terrain up there. Up and down in about 5 hours with 5k' of elevation gain.