Wild Basin Run

On Friday I decided to head to the Wild Basin area of Rocky Mountain National Park for my long run. All my running partners were out of town or unavailable, so this was a solo trip. I picked Wild Basin because the trails are long, very moderate in elevation gain, and cooler, sitting between 9,500 and 11,200 feet.

I started running at 7:30 and headed out to Lion Lake #1. The 6.5 mile trail took me about 2 hours with 2500' gain. I only passed two other parties on the way and I had the lake to myself. Then I backtracked a bit and turned off for Ouzel Lake.

On the way, I bumped into some backpackers who told me how just half an hour earlier a black bear stole their open jar of peanut butter. Great. I had to run by their campsite and there was a bear (with peanut butter!) in the area. I started singing. Loudly. I ran into an elderly couple who seemed surprised by my singing. I explained the bear story and they just couldn't believe how stupid the two guys were leaving out their peanut butter. Oh well. I kept singing.

I turned off for Ouzel Lake and started seeing many more people. It was getting later in the morning and there were a lot of tourists out. When I arrived at the lake I was surprised by how many fishermen were there. It was much different from the winter!

Then, I was getting pretty tired. So I backtracked again, passed Ouzel Falls and Calypso Cascades and made it back to the car, sans bear. All in all, my track was just over 17 miles. It took 5 hours.

(Dan did a more moderate "long-run" in town, mostly on trails.)