Races
High Lonesome 100
A loop at the base of Mount Princeton. Five alpine passes. Thirty-seven hours. The Sawatch does not bluff.
The mountain
Start in a meadow under Princeton. Colorado Trail. A five-thousand-foot climb toward Antero to about thirteen thousand one hundred. Down to St Elmo. Laws Pass out and back. Tin Cup. Hancock. Chalk Creek Pass. Then the ridge that named the race: rolling alpine toward Monarch, wind and night. Fooses. Twenty more miles of Colorado Trail that is not flat. Sixty-six percent single-track. Average elevation about ten thousand four hundred. Fifteen percent above treeline.
The work
Altitude and a long ridge in the dark. Twenty-three thousand three hundred feet of gain. You train big climbs, technical descents, and the humility to not blow the last twenty miles because they look runnable on a map.
Race morning
County Road 321. Thirty-seven hours. Aid captained by hundred-mile people. Ghost towns for company. A buckle and a bottle at the end if that is still the prize.
Watch outs
The Antero climb in the sun. Hancock when wills break. The Monarch ridge in a storm. The last little climb you can hear from the finish. Lightning does not care that you are close.