This morning, in a surprise turn of events, the vote was unanimous in favor of running up bear canyon to green for the weekly Thursday morning green mtn. jaunt. OK, I’ll admit, it was easy to get everyone to vote the same since I was the only one that showed up. I’ll also admit I’m kind of glad I was, because I’m pretty sure I would have succumbed to the ever-persuasiveSchlarb and run up the ampitheater route had he not been sick this morning. While I enjoy the company, I really enjoy the bear canyon ascent. It is definitely my favorite route to the top of Green mountain. Probably because I can actually run the whole way whereas on the steeper routes I’m more efficient hiking in some spots. So George, hopefully you will post this FKT to a new page with fastest known times for that version of the ascent so I can then hopefully convince Jason to add that one to the rotation. Maybe he’ll see the light once he tries it out. Then again Jason, I get why you and other mountain goats like the steeper routes…because you are actually capable of running them. Maybe my tune would change if I were more fit. Also, this FKT is only a FKT to me, as I’m certain many people have clocked way faster times on this route that I don’t know about. Anyway…The route I clocked today was from the sign posts at the start of the bear canyon single track at the junction of the mesa trail and the bear canyon trail. I stopped the clock at the summit marker. I started at chataqua and warmed up for the first 3 miles across mesa over to bear canyon. I felt a lot better starting the climb after a 30+ minute warm up. Here were my splits: - 22:17 to Bear west ridge trail junction
- 12:15 from there to the 4 way
- 3:42 from 4 way to top, plus 7 seconds to the summit marker.
- Total: 38:21
- Stats for the ascent route: 3.01 miles – 1842′ vertical – 950′ vertical for the first 2 miles – 890′ for the last mile.
Totals for the morning: 10 miles – 1:58 – 2700′ vertical. I ran a really slow warmup, and ran down from the summit to chataqua really slow. Running up, I ran pretty steady for the first 2 miles, then the heart rate jumped way up from there to the 4-way and I pushed it pretty good. But the last section from the 4-way up I went as hard as I could. And I was holding onto the summit marker gasping for air at the top. It seemed like it took a good 4-5 minutes for my heart rate to settle back down. Maybe not that long….but that last fifth of a mile from the 4-way definitely got my heart pumping hard. Based on our comparative times, I’m guessing that Schlarb could run that 3 mile route in under 30 minutes. Although, I feel like my effort today was somewhat stronger than the 45:06 I did on the greenman route last week. But this route is shorter and has less vertical than the middle route up greenman. It’s .2 miles shorter and about 450′ less of vertical. I am interested to see what others would post on this route. It was exceptionally gorgeous out there this morning. Being on the peak in the stillness of the morning sun, alone, gazing at the snowcapped Indian peaks wilderness after I could see straight again, was really, really nice. And as a trail report, the only ice left on the trail anywhere I could see is just the short section of switchbacks on the north face going down greenman. And that is almost gone too.
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