Day 5 in Winter Park

Started the day's run on Chainsaw trail, another prime moose area - but the moose were hiding from us this trip!
We then ran up Flume trail, which follows an old logging flume along the stream - remnants of the flume remain beside the trail.
Kathleen is blazing down the Creekside trail with a nice view of the St Louis Creek flowing behind her. There is a lot of water moving through the valley still with all the snow left on the mountains!

Steve runs through one of the rocky sections on Creekside - fancy footwork came in handy on these trails.
We could not resist another shot from the Byers Peak overlook.
Bringing it home on the final section of Creekside trail. We ran 7.5 miles and once again it was Good Times!!! We picked up Sage from playing with her new friends at Mountain Dawg, stopped off at Rocky Mountain Roastery for some jet fuel (local coffee roaster with some of the best beans Steve has sampled), and headed home!!! We are blessed to have abundant recreational opportunities so close to home and we always make an effort to be thankful and not take them for granted!

Day 4 in Winter Park

We went easy on our legs after the 13 miler, linking a couple of shorter trails near the Elk Creek Road trailhead. Our route started on Elk Creek, turning up the hillside onto what we thought was Sunken Bridges trail. However, we ended up running one of the locals' "contraband" trails - secret stashes of premium singletrack that are "yet to be released" to the public! It was an accidental discovery and was quite enjoyable to run.
We then connected to Zoom trail. As you might expect from the name, hang on for this one. Zoom is one of those trails with the perfect balance of sustainable downhill and wind in your hair that puts a "permagrin" smile on your face. We finished on the bottom end of Chainsaw trail and a short 4.5 mile run. Just enough to move a little blood through the legs and recover from our long run!
It was a perfect day and Byers Peak had a wonderful bluebird backdrop across the meadow. We went for a nice hike with Sage at the Bonfils-Stanton Outdoor Center, which is built with elevated boardwalk-style trails over some wetland areas. There are also parts that are dirt trail, but the neat thing is that the entire main loop is handicap accessible by wheelchair. Winter Park is home to the National Sports Center for the Disabled which provides adaptive recreational outlets for disabled athletes.

Day 3 in Winter Park

We set out for our long run of the trip today, tackling part of one of the classic rides in this area - Tipperary Creek. These trails are the setting for an annual mountain bike race, The King of the Rockies, but we would be running only a portion of the course. The nice thing about the Winter Park trail system is that there are many options to customize your run or ride to whatever length you choose. When we ride this, it is a 30 - 40 mile loop with 4000 - 5000' of elevation gain. But today we put together a 13 mile loop, with about 2000' gain, which was quite sufficient for running!!! We warmed up with the Northwest Passage trail, followed by a jaunt up Church Park Road to the Tipperary trailhead.
Kathleen is in the zone, concentrating on her climb up Tipperary Creek trail. The climb is sustained for 3.25 miles, gaining about 1500' before reaching Morse Pass, followed by a 2 mile fast and furious descent on Spruce Creek trail with lots of loose scree under foot!
The Spruce Creek trail has several very wet, lush areas to pass through on the way to the bottom - these are prime moose sighting areas but we saw none the whole trip! Once off the slopes of Morse Mountain, we picked up the Creekside trail in the opposite direction from the previous day's run. We were ready for a cold soak in the pool and some rest for our feet - it was an epic run for us and good times for the memory bank!!!