A Really Big Pile of Sand
Here's some more pictures from my 2007 Colorado/Wyoming trip. These were taken at Great Sand Dunes National Park in the San Luis Valley of
south central Colorado. The valley is dry, with prevailing westerly winds most of the year, and is hemmed in on three sides by some
impressive mountain ranges - on the east, by the Sangre de Cristo Range. Over thousands of years, the winds have picked up, carried, and
deposited sand into a pocket on the northeastern edge of the valley. They've formed a giant playground six or seven miles in diameter, tucked
in the shadow of peaks rising seven thousand feet above.
The dunes are tall. One of the most popular hikes is up to what's known as High Dune, 600 feet above the valley floor. This is
a picture looking south with High Dune off the right edge. The little black specks are people climbing up. And in the background, a nice anvil cloud
brewing over New Mexico.
A sense of scale...
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Wyoming - It's Not Just Cows
When you think of Wyoming, I'd bet one the the first things that comes to mind are the vast western plains, filled with vast herds of
cattle. Or maybe, the attendant old-style cowboys spending all day in the saddle with nothing but a chaw of tobacco, a flask of spirits, and
a pound of hardtack. Or maybe a lonely field of oil rigs surrounded by sagebrush to the horizon. Of course, there's always Yellowstone, and the
Tetons too... but back in 2007, I found that Wyoming has a lot of lesser-known scenic areas. One in particular is the
Snowy Range, a small, steep range about
30 miles west of Laramie in the southeastern corner of the state.
Here's a few photos from the top of the range, between 10,000 and 12,000 feet in altitude. I shot them with a old pocket digital camera, and only did
some touchup work on one of them - but it doesn't matter much, since the scenery is so photogenic! Click through to see them all.
Lake Marie in the Snowy Range, Wyoming
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Washington (State) in the Winter
Last weekend I flew out to Seattle to visit Annie for a couple days. We had a tight itinerary due to both our work schedules - we spent 2 days
out on the Olympic Peninsula and one in town, then I spent most of the day Tuesday getting home.
Highlights include running a COC winter meet at Shoreline Park on Saturday, staying at a llama farm on Sunday, getting smacked in the ass by
the Pacific Ocean, and exploring downtown Seattle on Monday.
More details below the fold.
The Seattle skyline at night
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Report from Possum Trot XII
This year's Possum Trot was on the south side of the Bluffwoods CA (PT IX was on the north half of the map.)
We had nine people going down in two cars - Mike, Julia, Ian, me, Molly, Justin, Tom, Jerritt, and Jim. We represented well
at all three of the weekend events - Justin and I placed 1-2 in the Saturday sprint course on the campus of Johnson
Community College, and Ian took his age group. The next day we placed 2nd-4th in the 13 km Possum Trot, and Tom
took 6th. On the women's side, Julia took 3rd behind Anna S-S and Sharon (that's her running to the finish.)
The Christmas party was a lot of fun this year as well - back at the pizza joint from a couple years ago. There wasn't as
much stealing during the white elephant gift game, though, somewhat of a disappointment. I ended up with the box of chocolate
goodies that Ian had brought, so we had something to share between the vans on the long drive home.
The true geekery commences below the fold.
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Finished a Big-A** Race
Posted Sun, November 23, 2008 - 12:22 PM
running, travel
Living History Farms XC run in Des Moines. About 30 degrees and windy at the start. A bit slow for the first half mile as the 7,500 starters spread out. Then mostly gravel and open grass for the first four miles as I steadily passed on the outside (or inside). Excellent pace, 4-mile split was 27:30, but after that we hit all the creek crossings. Mile 5 was quite a bit slower as the trail narrowed and went down and up through creek valleys and some fairly steep slopes, some with ropes. I was early enough and the ground was semifrozen, so it wasn't too muddy. Mile 6 was more of the same, then a long uphill that I nearly had to walk (but not quite.) After that, though, it was a good hard trail run downhill to the finish.
Everyone in the van did pretty well - best times were Chad around 45 minutes and Dylan near 48-49, I had 51-52, Reed at 58, and mo+biz at 61.
(Mike looks great with the afro pigtails!)
13th Place at USARA Nationals!
The title says it all!
We didn't find out the results until the banquet at the equestrian center. Our perserverance earned us 13th place out of 81 teams,
61 official finishers.
Also congrats to Wedali for finishing 4th-5th, Midwest for 23rd place, and 24Seven who got one more CP than we did but unfortunately lost
a lot of points for being late.
Race report and maps below the fold.
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Wild 24 Hour - In the Books
Full course here: gmaps-pedometer.
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