I ran Lake Mountain this morning with Seth Wold and Dan Varga. It was an incredibly fun morning. When we got to the trailhead it was 16 degrees and it felt very cold out. I was going to try out my spikes for the first time, so I spent a few minutes getting them on and we were off. We were slow at first, but we had a steady pace for the first mile. Once the grade started to get steep the guys kept running, so I did too. They were both very strong and it was a good push to the top.
The 4X4 track was only in for about 1.5 miles and we had to break the trail the rest of the way. Luckily there was a hard pack under a few inches of new snow, so it wasn't too bad, but it wasn't as good as what we have had so far this year. The higher we went the deeper the snow was. Dan ran almost the whole way to the top, and I was alternating between a fast hike and a run. Seth was never breathing hard at all and he would run and hike with me, although we were able to keep up with dan the whole time.
The last 1/4 of a mile before the saddle it became really deep, so it slowed us down a lot, but we pushed it hard to the saddle where it was much colder and there was a slight breeze. At that point Seth decided to push it really fast to the top and he took off on a run on the steepest part of the route. It was fun to watch him. Dan and I pushed pretty hard too, but we couldn't stay close at all. Dan topped out in 1:18 and I was up about 30 seconds later.
We only stayed on top for a few minutes taking in the views and the sunrise and then we all ran fast back down to the saddle. I loved the spikes. I had a lot more confidence and we pushed a really good pace all the way down, going between 6:30-7:20 most of the way to the car. What a fun day! Total time: 1:48. Based on the conditions this was a really fast time. Without all of the trail breaking we would have been a lot faster. This was as hard as I have ever worked getting up and down Lake Mt. 2800 ft of vert.
A few pics (They aren't great. From my Blackberry) First one: Dan and Seth on the summit.
Dan running down the trail
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