We had a busy day yesterday.  I got up at first light and headed up to the ski resort.  It was chilly and there had been a dusting of snow from the night before.  My goal was to hike up the section from the lodge to the summit of the mountain and then run down the cross country ski road back to the car.

The trail heads up the Aspen double diamond ski run.  The first picture is my perspective hiking up, the second picture is of the same run from later in the afternoon further off in the distance.

It took me about 30 minutes to climb the 1,000 feet.  Once on the ridge, the course turns right to the summit.  There is another 200 foot climb straight up a hill.

The trail circled around to the high point which overlooks the Valles Caldera.  “One million years ago a volcanic eruption in New Mexico’s Jemez Mountains created the Valles Caldera, one of seven super volcanoes found in the world.”

The race heads down into it for 10 miles or so.  The trail headed down hill to the back of the mountain, retracing the route we hiked the day before.  I turned off on the cross country trail and ran back to my car.  Later in the afternoon, Tracy and I went back to ski resort and hiked the other direction to the entry point of the Caldera.

The trail follows a ridge away from the resort.  It gives a great view of the edge of the plateau and of the runs on the resort.  It then heads through a small canyon and open ups to a meadow. (that’s Tracy in the distance on the trail)

This is the edge (more like a cliff) of the Caldera.  It’s really steep and this year, I have to climb it which should be easier than going down it last year.

After showering, we spent a few hours at the Science museum.  It covers the creation of the town of Los Alamos to what the lab does today.  It has some amazing pieces of history in it.

Lastly, we walked to a late dinner and saw a beautiful sunset over the far mountains.

The race is tomorrow.  It starts at 5am and my goal is 15 hours.  I did 16 last year, but the weather is going to be perfect next year so I have no excuse of hitting my goal.

We are in New Mexico this week.  I’m running the Jemez 50 on Saturday so we came in early to get use to the altitude and hike in the mountains.

The town is very walk-able and we’ve enjoyed several great meals

We got up early and started hiking up the backside of the ski resort.  The weather was perfect but a chilly 35 degrees when we started.

We ended up climbing 2,500 feet and hiked for close to 10 miles.  I’d call this amazing, considering Tracy had a hip replacement less than two months ago.

Once we got to the top of the mountain, we had to veer off the race course.  Going down a double black diamond didn’t seem like a good idea on a recovering hip.