(taken from part of Rim Trail)
Since there aren't heaps of snow here yet I've been able to give running a try. The second day I was here I tried running, made it 10 minutes up the road and couldn't breath anymore. I couldn't breathe in and it was almost scary. I stopped running, contemplated just walking but instead turned around and ran back to the apartment I'm living in and called it a day.
I was slightly frustrated at how living at 8,000 feet was affecting me. So, the next day I tried running again and was able to go for a nice 2 hour run with spectacular views. It was far from easy but somehow was still able to log about 15 miles in the 2 hour period.
Dropping by the ranger station in the area I was able to find out about some of the trails around here. Unfortunately most of them are under feet of snow at the moment which wouldn't be so bad if the roads to the trails weren't also under feet as well. My 92 honda accord isn't the greatest car to traverse those kinds of conditions.
Fortunately I as able to find the rim trail which starts about a quarter mike from my apartment. Yesterday I tried it out and it turned out to be a great trail that has a good amount of ascent, decent, and amazing views. Climbing up to the rim initially proved to be tough on the lungs but the amount of elk tracks were enough to take my mind off of my lack of speed and my extra effort.
As I approached the top a view of neighboring mountains welcomed me to the top. Turning left at the top I started on the trail that varied from dropping off steeply on both sides to being thick with trees. It winded along the ridge until it pointed downward steeply and started climbing again. I followed the trail until it made it's final decent to Snowmass Village where I followed the road back to the apartment a total of about 3 hours.
Today myself and my two roommates decided we wanted to get a head start on skiing and since the lifts aren't open, we would have to get ourselves to the top. With skis strapped to my backpack we climbed about 500 ft short of Sam's Knob (10,620) to about 10,080 ft put on our gear and skied back down to the car.
I think I'm going to like it here.
-- Patrick
