Goretex Trans Rockies Run
Lions and Bears
Fredrik Ölmqvist / 17.09.2007
The first stage of this 5-day mountain running event over 180 kilometres starts in Beaver Creek with the finish in Vail, another high-end ski resort. The race starts easy, only 24 km and some 1300 metres to climb this first day. A walk in the park in other words. However, the park walk was interrupted by some 8-9 miles on tarmac. Exciting to get a feel for the urban side of trail running in Colorado, which is the case when private landowners fail to see the value of a trail running gathering in the name of a breathable membrane!
Carrying the mandatory gear: the usual list of waterproofs, warm clothes, first aid kit, survival blanket etc, isn’t all that tiresome knowing we had the lightest possible gear, but some runners only seemed to pack half a litre of air in their pocket size packs. How can it be possible? I guess it’s an example of Murphy’s Law of adventure running: there will always be someone else with a lighter and smaller pack.
The last 10 K’s is uphill on singletrack. We move slowly, trying to catch some breath in the thin air. I have teamed up with Elinor Fish from Trail Runner Magazine. She lives at 2000 meters altitude here in Colorado and seems to cope well in the mountains.
Myself, I spent a few days in Boulder. Co (1600 m) before the race to get used to the bear and mountain lion spice of trail running in the Rockies. (My fellow Coloradans have told me that I shouldn’t worry much about the bears, however yesterday evening a bear cub came running through the shopping mall in Beaver Creek!) According to Elinor, mountain lions generally don’t like that you see them before their attack, so every now and then I try to look at the surroundings with a suspicious gaze. By the way it’s true that the trees in the Rockies in autumn are beautiful, or “yellow� to be more objective. The red pines are also beautiful but this actually means they have been infected by the Japanese pine beetle, a BIG problem in Colorado.
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