Leadville’s Silver Rush 50 is a run and bike race series that was first held in 2008. The races act as a qualifier for the Leadville 100 and seems to become more and more popular every year.
Several years ago I completed the Silver Rush 50 Run and I’d always wanted to head back and try the MTB version someday. This year wound up being the year, as Parker pitched the idea to me over the winter that we should both sign up.
Parker and I are usually pretty evenly matched on bikes so we were able to stick together for nearly the entire race. With a significant portion of the field on lightweight XC bikes and hard tails, we knew neither of us were going to be breaking any speed records. The main goal was to finish the race, not crash, and enjoy the day. One of the reasons I had interest in this particular race on the bike is that nearly all of it entails fire roads. This makes it much easier to pass people, and perhaps much more pertinently, be passed. Keep Reading….
Ski season is over in Colorado, for most of us at least. It wound up being sort of an odd spring with great coverage and ski conditions throughout May followed by a dramatic warmup in June. We went from something like 120% snowpack in the northern regions to an impressively rapid melt off, and all of a sudden spring ski season was over as quickly as it began. May was the month this year, and though I stayed close to home I managed to get out for ten days in the month on skis, revisiting some old peaks and lines and exploring a few new ones. Keep reading…
It’s no secret that this year’s spring season has been a temperamental one in terms of weather, snowpack, and ski conditions for just about every skier in the state who doesn’t enjoy absolute freedom of schedule. The high country has been continuously raked by winds and dust storms throughout most of April and into May. Our snowpack ended up being nothing to write home about (slightly below average and with some aspects and ski lines never really coming into condition). Keep reading…
The month of April has come and gone and it feels like things are rapidly heading towards summer below 12,000 ft around here. Statistically, despite Denver and the Front Range being above 100% SWE on the season, we’re at 71% of the median for the state as a whole. Though truncated spring seasons can be frustrating, they can also make for a good excuse to return to reliable lines on peaks close to home and just enjoy the skiing for what it is, while it lasts. Read more…
