Adventures in Onionism

I probably won't get around to doing a full write of my Colorado trip, but here are the photos . Briefly: I drove to Colorado and stopped in Salida for a day or two of running in low, BLM-y type hills. I tried to drive to Lake City, but I got sidetracked by rolling my SUV. So I was stuck in Gunnison for a weekend. I bought a crappy Subaru and finally got to Lake City. I half stayed at the hostel there and half car camped, while doing four 14ers in one day and meeting some very cool CT and CDT hikers. I drove around to Silverton, but stopped at George and Elisa's goat farm in Montrose for a night. In Silverton, I car camped, and again hung out with the CT hikers. I ran part of the Hardrock 100 course, and George got into a porcupine, so we had to go to Durango to sort that out. After Silverton I stopped in Ouray and ran more of the Hardrock course, then went to Telluride to run more of the Hardrock course, hang out with Hawkeye, and watch a Johnny Cash coverband. From Tellurid...

Nano just told me about PTL, or La Petite Trotte à Léon, an "enlarged Tour du Mont Blanc." A new-ish race that's part of the UTMB set of races, PTL is 300 km long, 24,000 meters of vertical, must be done in 2 or 3 person teams (simultaneously, not tag-team), 136 hour cutoff, only 3 aid stations, and goes over 30+ passes/summits. Apparently it's a lot off-trail too. My friend Lint did it the last two years; he DNF'd in 2011, and hallucinated-but-finished in 2012. I'd love to, but as with the rest of UTMB, it's the last week in August, which is a problem with many universities. I guess I just have to get a job at a school on the quarter system. [ race official site ] [ participant pre-race report, with link to google earth of the course ] [ participant after action report ]

Also, Honda made a tiny 250cc bike and some old guy is riding it across the country and writing about it for the NYT. Quite good if you like motorcycles/the road/adventure.Part 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 The Suzuki V-Strom I checked out a while back is still for sale, according to the website .

Some wonderful popular pieces about econ lately. This American Life on maybe just giving poor people cash instead of training/cows/whatever. Jacob Goldstein , reporter for above story, in the NYT.  Blattman , professor interviewed for the above, grad school peer of mine, discussing the same, and the broader idea that not running the experiment is the crazy/immoral thing to do. Stiglitz in the NYT on inequality and the 50th anniversary of the march on Washington. He describes the Chicago school of free-market economics thus: "unemployment (if it existed) was the fault of workers." I distinctly remember the moment in Advanced Macroeconomics as an undergrad where the professor said essentially the same (that there is no such thing as involuntary unemployment). I thought it was stupid at the time, and I still do.

Fun times.

Nano says we beat Scott Jurek's split for the section on which I paced him.

I'm not sure I have any desire to run the Leadville 100 , as it seems like a lot of road, but I had a blast pacing my good buddy Nano from mile 73-86. I emulated Gazelle's pacing at States, by which I mean I actually pushed him. ("It's going to hurt tomorrow regardless, let's move." "Start running again." "You can hike faster than this.") We crushed that section, passing two or three dozen people, and he finished in 24:24, earning the ridiculous pie plate-sized sub-25 hour buckle. Congrats to Nano, and I hope he pushes me the same way at Hardrock next year (fingers crossed for the lottery). Yesterday I started my Nolan's 14 recon by doing a Mt. Massive traverse, then driving past Twin Lakes to the La Plata trailhead and bagging that. The parts took 4.5 and then 3.5 hours, with a total of 9,000 feet of climbing. Fun! (I've already done Elbert, plus it's a veritable sea of humanity, if you're wondering why I skipped it.) ...

Ugh. With your bearded shaggy haired ultra runners. So cliche.

Do you really need this sign every 20 yards on main street?

I'm in Ouray now, and the hubbub in this coffee/chocolate shop is killing me. In terms of views from downtown, I'd have to say Ouray>Silverton>Lake City, but in terms of places I'd actually want to spend any time the order is exactly reversed. Lake City>Silverton>Ouray. In Lake City, hikers roll into town, and it's immediately Locals plus hikers versus Texans. The tourists do their ATV thing, but the kids also play volleyball and frisbee in the park. In Silverton, the park is on the far edge of town, and empty. The locals are cool, but the people most willing to hang out with hiker trash are themselves ski-bums instead of true locals.  The Texans don't even spend the night, they just take the narrow gauge railroad up from Durango, crowd the sidewalks during the day, then leave on the last train. The jeep road out of town has more mines and less free car camping than that out of Lake City. Outside Ouray as far as I could tell it's totally private and ...

After I picked up George from the vet, I went to a brewpub my brother recommended (Carvers) and ran into Kittens and Moonbeam, who had just finished the CT, and were angling for the free brown ale that they give out to CT finishers. George was groggy from anesthesia. I camped up Maggie Gulch outside Silverton, and bagged Handies this morning, which is the 14er that's on the Hardrock course. (I also did into and out of Silverton in both directions over the past few days--the race is a loop that switches direction every year--one of those runs led to the porcupines.) I did a little bit more of the course on jeep roads after Handies, but they were full of jeeps, so it wasn't much fun. I'll probably spend a day near Ouray, and one near Telluride, next.

I wish Colorado would stop trying to kill me and my dog. Awesome 15 mile run on the Hardrock 100 course turned shitty after George got a mouthful of porcupine. Thing is, it was the second one we saw! I was in front for the first and almost stepped on it myself, but kept George away. Then a couple miles later it was getting dark and I lost the trail at the river crossing. While looking for it, George found the second porcupine. Dammit. UPDATE: The car wouldn't start this morning. I drained the battery using headlights to pull quills. Everything was frozen to boot. A jump solved that, and now George is at the vet in Durango waiting for his appointment. They said it didn't look as bad as many cases they've seen. And they're open for regular business, so no emergency fee. All should be well.

I just posted a few dozen photos from the trip so far. Here they are on Picasa .

As the Hard Rock photo demonstrates, I'm in Silverton now. I left Lake City, spent a night at new friends' new goat farm outside Montrose, and drove in yesterday. I submitted our WASH B pilot paper to the Northeast Universities Development Consortium Conference ( NEUDC ), so now I need to go running.

I did four 14ers yesterday. I started at 7AM with Lucky (Lake City hostel owner, who hiked part of the CDT in '07, met a girl (now his wife) in Lake City, and has spent six and half years of zero days here ever since) and a friend of his. We took the winter route up the south side of Sunshine Peak, traversed to Redcloud, then George and I went off on a different ridge to bag two more by ourselves. The ridge was sketchy in parts, with quite crumbly bad rock. George was not too confident on it, even though he's more stable on it than I am when it comes down to it. Weather came in, so I bailed off the ridge a drainage earlier than would be optimal. I thought the day was done then, but during the gnarly bushwhack down Copper Gulch, the weather cleared, so I kept going. I did a long roadwalk up to the Wetterhorn trailhead, left George tied up below the summit, which requires serious class 4 (low 5?) climbing, then we took the trail around to Uncompahgre, and bagged that probably aro...

Enjoying Lake City. A couple people remember me from the CDT, one's the RD for an ultra, so he's seeing if anyone is doing any cool runs this week. In the meantime, yesterday I went east and ran in the La Garita Wilderness. Bushwhacked down a drainage, saw a live moose and a dead elk. This morning I ran west from HWY 149 on the CDT/CT towards the San Juans. It's just a high plateau, but it's got great views of the Matterhorn, which, if not too technical, I will try this week. I'd share pictures, but I think I forgot to pack the appropriately sized USB cord for the camera, or my SD card reader, so it'll have to wait. Also, I totaled my 4Runner. I took a turn on a gravel county road (the Doyleville cutoff) too fast, went into the ditch, and rolled 3/4 of a revolution. George and I weren't obviously hurt. I scratched my wrist, and after the adrenaline wore off, my left ankle hurt. The only person to drive by did so in a monster truck, and he had a flatbed t...