Lunch - Foothills Trail (short loop) - 32:10
PM - Foothills Trail (medium loop) - 38:25
Total : 1:10:35
With thousands of acres burning in the North Park fire, just a few miles West of town, I wanted to get in some of the views of just how bad Lory State Park was burning. And so I ran the Foothills trail, stopping for a few minutes both times up over Centennial and took some pictures from across the res into Lory State Park. You can see the difference in damage in just a few short hours.
Pictures taken around 12 noon. From Foothills Trail looking Northwest.
Pictures taken at about 5 pm (roughly same location)
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| Hundreds of on-lookers watch the blaze |
Watching not only the trails that we play in everyday get destroyed, but the homes and lives of people we care about get destroyed as well make me feel helpless. I pretty much had a heavy feeling in my gut the last 2 days as this fire has reached out of control status. Wanting to help...wanting to do SOMETHING to help the fire from spreading. Instead I just snapped photos from a safe distance like everyone else. Its hard to just sit there and watch it all burn. 4 co-workers and a few friends have been evacuated. sad.
--- Tuesday - 06/12/12 ---
OFF
Woke up feeling pretty awful today. Partially because of the constant inhalation of smoke in town 24/7, and partially because I think I caught a bug. (muscle aches, fever, cold sweat, sore throat...etc)
Took the day off.
--- Wednesday - -6/13/12 ---
OFF
Same as yesterday. Smoke in town was awful today. There was less than 1 mile visibility during the first few hours in the morning. Woke up, sick as a dog --- thinking someone was have a BBQ in our living room..ugh...(cough, cough)
--- Thursday - 06/14/12 ---
Pineridge - 35 minutes
Still not 100%, but I am able to run at least....feeling slightly stronger (no more muscle aches, fever...etc) than I have been feeling the last few days. Still have a sore throat after downing a bag of cough drops. But decided I was well enough for an easy trot on some easy trail.
I originally was planning on another trip up to the Foothills Trail, but it is closed off due to the fire. And so I ran an easy loop throughout Pineridge.
--- Friday - 06/15/12 ---
Pinewood Reservoir - 52:20
Friday through Sunday we went camping at Pinewood Res (roughly 6.5 miles West of Carter lake on CR18E, in Loveland). This would be Elli's first camping trip, and having it somewhat close to home was on the agenda. Andrea, Eliana, Vicki (Andreas Mom), Tonia (Andres sister), Naomi (Tonia's 13 month old little girl) and Malia (Andrea's 5yr old niece) shared the camper. While myself and Gypsy (our dog) shared a tent, along with my brother in laws (Dave and Nate), and my father in law, Dan ---- each had a tent.
A fun weekend of local camping with family is always a good time --- stressful at times, but overall...fun!
Anyway, after setting up camp, and before the sun went down I wanted to explore the trails around the res. I had hoped to find the trail that leads up Blue Mountain:
But ran on the road leading to the intersection and it was all private land/road. So I decided to hop on the easy rolling Besant Point trail and run to the Shoshone Trailhead, on the North side of the dam. An easy out and back effort.
--- Saturday - 06/16/12 ---
Shoshone trail (x 2) and Besant Point Trail - 53:16
Starting from camp I ran to the Shoshone Trail and ran 2 laps around that 2 mile section of trail, then hopped on the Besant Point Trail and ran counterclockwise around the res...back to camp.
Its always fun to explore new places to run. The Shoshone trail itself was nothing more than rolling hills, a few short sections (20-30 ft) of climbing. A few rock outcroppings and some shade in parts. The Besant Trail was as smooth and flat as there is for trails in the area with zero shade cover. Similar to the East trail that runs along Pineridge. Nevertheless, it felt real good to get in a couple of easy runs after not feeling so good the last couple of days. It felt even better when I took a nice cold soak in the res after the run! ahh!
Air quality was much better down here than in the Fort. Clear skies at night and beautiful views of of rolling hills during the day --- makes me want to live in a place like this year round (despite the blazing fire just to the north)
--- Sunday - 06/17/12 --- (Fathers Day!)
OFF
Packed up, said our goodbyes, and left camp at about 11am. Got home and crashed! Well, gave Elli a well needed bath, hosed off and shampooed Gypsy in the yard, put Eli down for a nap, showered, ate lunch ---- THEN crashed!
Eliana took a 4hour nap! Yikes!...Andrea slept for a couple of hours and then so did I.
Apparently having a 19 month and a 13 month old shacking up together with 4 other people in a small camper --- was not the best of ideas! As the kiddos kept up the girls most of the night...crying. Not sure why, but Elli was having a rough night on night 2. Poor little girl.
Anywho - Both Momma and Daddy and baby needed some quality rest. And so I skipped out on running for the day.
Ate dinner with the Saleeby's at their house after we all woke up.
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-This entire week has been overshadowed by the fire just West of town. Directly or indirectly it affects everyone.
A good site I found for checking on the current location of the wildfire is:
It allows you to zoom in pretty good and has some good options, like thermal scan. Pretty neat stuff
-Didnt feel so good in the middle of the week, which was fine since the air quality was down right terrible anyway.
-Felt good to get away for a few days for some camping and exploring new trails.
-The Fathers Day 5k race on Sunday was cancelled due to poor air quality in town -- I initially was going to drive back into town that morning for the race and then back to the camp.
-Planning a run on Wednesday with Phil K, either to the summit of Longs or a trip up Flattop/Hallett peak. Either way -- should be a great time escaping into the much needed fresher air than what is around town.
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