Colorado
September 2025

Dates: September 26-29, 2025

People: Mark

Itinerary

• 9-26 (Travel Day)

• 9-27 (West Line Winder 50K)

• 9-28 (Sawatch Ascent 50K)

• 9-29 (Travel Day)

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 26

Things started with a 600a airport arrival, 90 minutes ahead of flight.  I was glad we weren't any later, the security lines were long and it took me a solid 45 minutes to get through, about as long as I've had it at DTW. I had about 20 minutes to walk around a bit before we started boarding.  I was very hopefully everything went smoothly from here as I only had a 45 minute layover in Denver.  Thankfully we left on time and had a smooth flight. I even sat towards the front in an aisle seat just to be ready to get off.  I was watching the new 2025 Superman movie in flight.  We got into Denver 15 minutes early thankfully.

I walked around at Denver more to continue to get some steps in for the day.  The layover at Denver went fast and we were boarding for COS on time.  It wasn't a full flight.  We got into COS a few minutes early too and I then had that wait for my bag.  They were pretty quick to get them out there an thankfully my bag came.  By 10:13am I was at my vehicle with Alamo. I got a free upgrade to a mid-size SUV (from compact) and I'm glad I did, I used that space in the back quite a lot as I lived out of this thing for 3 days.  It was a Jeep Compass and turned out to be a pretty nice vehicle for my purpose.

I drove out of the Springs and then made plans for where to grab groceries for my weekend.  I settled on the Walmart in Woodland Park.  I had a list made ahead of time to plan out meals, recovery food, and snacks.  I even brought a collapsible cooler along to put ice into.  I was able to get everything I wanted at Walmart except for the isopropyl stove fuel.  Thankfully there was a gear shop in Woodland Park, Gearlab, which I stopped by.  It was a nice little shop in downtown and it had the stove fuel and they also had a nice selection of Gu energy gels and I grabbed a few Campfire Smores ones for my races.

The drive went nicely.  I decided to stop at Wilkerson Pass to get out and see the fall colors and the views.  It was gorgeous up there with the aspens really coming into full color. I made it into the Buena Vista area around 1:30pm and decided to head to the Sawatch Ascent race start area which is where I would be camping.  It was basically in a big field near Mt. Princeton Hot Springs.  I found the basically unmarked entrance road and drove into the field where there were some basic signs and some faint paths to follow.  I found the area designated for tent camping and found one other guy there.  While we did pay for the nights camping (like $15/night) we didn't see a single person from the race there on Friday or Saturday, it wasn't until race morning.  They did have the start area setup and a white tent, as well as the port-o-potties, but that was pretty much all the infrastructure there.

After getting my camp setup I decided I wanted to get a short hike in with some high altitude time.  Cottonwood Pass made the most sense.  I left 2:45p to drive up there and it was just over a 30 minutes drive.  The colors were great up there as well.  It was 73 degrees in town and 58 up at the pass.  There had been a dusting of snow the last few days but it was seemingly melted off up here. I took a nice hike north out of the pass for just under a mile. It was beautiful with bushes and ground scrub turning colors of yellow and red.

CDT Cottonwood Pass North Out and Back

I headed back into Buena Vista and it was time to do the packet pickup for the races.  I decided to also check out the parking situation around town.  I wasn't sure how crazy it would be on race morning (in short: it wasn't).  They had Main St. between Colorado and Court blocked for 14er Fest and I was able to walk through it.  Lots of vendor tents and activities going on.  I ended up parking along Railroad St. and had a few blocks walk to Court and Main. I figured that might work for race morn.  The Community Center, where packet pickup was, was another 3-4 blocks past that so I ended up getting a pretty good walk in.  They had tables setup outside the CC and I grabbed my race bib and t-shirt. They were also taking dropbags here, but I had forgotten mine at the car.  I really wanted to have it done today so I walked back to the car and then drove around back to the CC to do the drop.  

I headed back to camp for the evening.  By nightfall there were about a dozen campers in the little area where I was.  I did a freeze dried Mountain House Breakfast Skilled for supper and that hit the stop.  We had a pleasant evening with good skies and beautiful views of the Arkansas River Valley.

I got to talk to Sarah awhile on the phone to catch up on the events of the day.  Then I settled into the tent for the night.  I had my warm Sierra Designs 20 degree bag and it served wonderfully overnight as always.  I think the overnight temps were around 40 degrees.

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 27

OI was up around 5am today to get ready for the race.  I was fortunate the night before I had double-checked the timing of everything and realized the race start was at 7am and not 8am. I would have been arriving there just as the race started and undoubtedly had been late.  As it was I was able to eat a bit at my campsite and get warm clothes on and then drove over to the race start in downtown Buena Vista.  I parked in a dirt lot about a block from the start/finish.  I checked things out for a bit and then hung out in my car getting ready and staying warm til 6:40am and then headed for the start line.

West Line Winder 50K

I finished the race around 2pm.  I had the rest of the day free to recover so I was in no hurry.  I relaxed by my vehicle near the finish trying to eat and drink for an hour or so.  It was fun to just soak up the finish line atmosphere and cheer people coming in.  After 3p I hit the Community Center for a shower.  The race organization had clued us in to this ahead of time and that if we brought quarters there is a public shower available.  It was something like 4 quarters for 2 minutes.  I brought enough for a good 4 minute shower to get freshened up. 

After all that I finally headed back over to the camp at the Sawatch Ascent start/finish.  Here I continued my recovery process.  I was able to relax in my camp chair and just snack.  I cooked up a Mountain House Beef Lasagna for supper and I chatted with a few of the other nearby campers about the races.

Sometime close to bed I noticed the e-mail come in from the race director.  They were making the call to change the course for tomorrow.  We all knew the weather was potentially sketchy for Sunday and I was prepared for cold and rain above treeline.  The race director gave a nice long rationale in the e-mail for the changes and it mostly had to do with the volunteers being above treeline for many hours and the threat of lightning was too much.  They were also concerned about too many runners dropping up high and having runners in two different basins (Browns and Little Browns) if the weather really got bad.   They noted how long a round trip it was driving the Antero road there and back again to the Skyline Aid Station.

The news certainly bummed a lot of people out.  Me too.  I wanted to do the original course.  The race was gracious enough to offer full deferrals to next year for any who wanted.  I gave it thought but in the end I was here and I didn't want to commit next September and more car and airfare to come back.  

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 28

I was up just before 6am today.  Like the day before I hit a point early in the morning where I just couldn't sleep anymore.  The combination of the time zone change and the elevation just does it.  I had given thought in the days prior to whether I wanted to strike camp before the race or just wait til after.  It became to me a fairly easy choice to do it now.  With tired legs post-race and the slight chance of rain that was risky to do it later.  I did a light packing of the camp gear figuring I would use it again tonight.  With camp at the race start that was really nice because I didn't have to worry about travel.  I could leisurely eat my breakfast and just let the body get going for race time.  I headed over to the start line around 710am to get ready to go.

Sawatch Ascent 50K

Post-race I was in pretty rough shape at first. I had pushed hard the last several miles of the race and that left me truly spent.  My body was in a state of shock and I headed for the food tent where they had some chairs.  I sat in a daze and just tried to let my body get back to some sense of equilibrium.  It took awhile.  I enjoyed sitting there listening to others chat and the aid station volunteers cooking burgers and food for people. I started eating a few watermelon slices and the sugar and water helped to begin to revive me.  I think I was in that chair for almost 40 minutes until i felt like I could get up without either passing out or getting nauseous.  My legs had really tightened up and I was using my trekking poles like an old man to hobble around.  I slowly hobbled back to my vehicle to ditch my gear in it and then I decided to drive it back up to the start area to shorten my walk a bit.  Even getting in my car was creating movements that caused several parts of my body to threaten to cramp up badly.  

Back at the start I was finally getting my appetite and I grabbed my first burger with a small cup of soda as well.  Since the race was cupless and plate-less I used my backpacking food bowl to hold the burger, the aid station volunteers liked the idea.  The first burger went so well I circled back for another to keep replenishing those calories.

As my body was calming down and beginning to put itself back together I was on the phone with Sarah talking about how the race went.  I was also plotting my next move.  It was during the race that the thought began, maybe I should consider a hotel tonight.  That thought only continued to increase.  The thought of setting up tent in the dark and getting all my gear packed up for the airport in the morning from a  campsite was less than enticing.  So I finally caved and pulled the trigger on a hotel reservation near the airport for tonight.  This also pretty much wrapped up my time at the race start and so I hit the road for the Springs.

I stopped at Wilkerson Pass again and took a few minutes there to pack my tent and camp gear since I wouldn't be using it anymore.  I then continued the drive to my hotel at the Quality Inn Colorado Springs Airport.  It was literally like 5 minutes from the terminal.  I got checked in there and then headed to a nearby Taco Bell for supper and calorie load and also filled the rental with gas.  After supper and a good shower I dragged all my gear into the hotel room, taking several trips on tired legs, that I could get everything resituated into my bags for the flight in the morning.

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 29

I was up at 6am this final morning.  I had hopes to sleep til closer to 7 but I think I'm still living on eastern time.  Its also possible my achy slightly broken body just wasn't resting well yet.  I had lots of time til I needed to head to the airport and so I finished my packing and then got breakfast down at the hotel breakfast.  I still had time to get a little work done on my computer and then around 7:30am finally decided I would head to the airport and get the day really going.

The hotel (Quality Inn Colorado Springs Airport) was only a 7 minute drive from COS and the airport itself is so small it doesn't take long to get around.  The car rental is right next to the terminal and a simple walk. The return at COS was interesting, you pretty much drive into the rental lot, no gates, no security spikes, park your car, and then walk up to their booth with the cars.  Much more laid back than most every other rental return at an airport I've ever seen.  So I got the car returned and made it through security just fine.  I had about an hour and 40 and so I walked a bit to get the legs moving and get some steps for the day.

The flight from COS left on time and I had smooth sailing all the way to Midway.  I watched Jurassic World: Rebirth in flight.  It was descent enough it made the flight go quickly. At Midway I had a 3 1/2 hour layover so I had time to get an Italian sausage and beef combo at the Billy Goat Tavern.  It really wasn't that good today. Maybe need more juice, more flavor.  I walked around about an hour to get my final steps in for the day and then settled to do some more work on the computer.  I think I've walked almost every square inch of the terminals at Midway now.

We left for Detroit on time and this was also a fairly quick flight.  I just watched several episodes of How I Met Your Mother.  Sarah and Seth came along to pick me up on their way home from Seth's soccer game at Westland.  The timing worked out pretty well and they had a Subway sandwich all ready for me for supper.