Lake Pueblo South Shore Trails

Headed the opposite direction on I-25 today into Pueblo for a visit to Lake Pueblo State Park. Once again, this is an area we have never visited since living in Colorado. Neither one of us grew up on water sports, so the parks with the big reservoirs have not been a draw for us. However, over the last few years, Southern Colorado Trail Builders have been putting together an impressive trail network, primarily on the south shore area of the park. We have heard rumors that the trails were equivalent in quality and experience to Fruita - a tall order indeed - so we decided to take a trip down and investigate. About an hour's trip door to trail put us on desert singletrack, with blue sky overhead and 78 degrees for today's high temp.

We headed out on the Cuatro Sinko trail and were immediately greeted with narrow, winding singletrack rolling through pinyon, cactus, prairie grasses and tumbleweeds.
After entering the second major wash, we hooked up with Pedro's Point trail, crossing a small stream that is most likely waist deep during spring runoff.
Don't know which species of cactus this is, but there were 'forests' of them all along the southern end of the park and many had these bright yellow flowers on them. They are cool to look at while running, but when we come back to explore here by mountain bike in the near future the mantra will be "spare tubes"!!!
We exited Pedro's onto the Waterfall trail, which is a canyon with a series of linked step-downs that would indeed form an awesome waterfall during runoff or flash floods. It was a fast, twisty descent with lots of steps and a high fun-factor.
Here Steve is in mid-flight coming off one of a series of steps on Waterfall. You can see the piles of tumbleweeds that have collected along the sides of the trail - wouldn't want to get caught in a wind storm out here!

We made our way along the South Shore trail over to the marina, with great views of the eastern end of the reservoir from the canyon rim above. Barely visible in the center of the photo is the greyish tip of Pikes Peak some 45 miles to the north.
Kathleen cruises along the South Shore trail.
Steve winds his way up one of the canyon trails on South Shore. We were amazed at the quality and narrow width of the trails as this area gets major amounts of trail traffic.
Kathleen ascending out of one of the South Shore inlets with some fall color springing up from the desert floor.
High up on the Conduit trail, we were treated to a birds-eye view of the dam. With 3600 surface acres of water behind it, this wall has a very important role.

We were certainly treated to some awesome trails today, linking together about 10.5 miles of good running. And the weather this weekend has just been phenomenal - we don't want our "Indian Summer" to end and intend to soak up every bluebird day we get. We figure there are probably another few days of exploring on foot at Lake Pueblo before needing to repeat any routes - that is fantastic! We will also be back here for sure with the mountain bikes. As for a rival to Fruita, we'll reserve judgement for a few more visits as we have become quite fond of our Western Slope riding/running destination. But at 4 hours less drive time, we have some high hopes for a new addition to our favorite visit list. Happy Trails!

Chatfield State Park

With gas being down another forty cents and a full year's Colorado State Parks pass hanging out on the windshield, it was change of venue time this weekend - heading for some new trails! All the years we have lived on the Front Range, we have never been to Chatfield State Park on the southwest portion of suburban Denver. Until today.
We started our run at the southern tip of Chatfield Reservoir and headed south toward Waterton Canyon. It was an awesome day with sunny skies and 75 degree temps making for trail running bliss.
Heading south, we first passed the Gravel Ponds. We ran past more water today than we do in months of regular trail running, so it was a nice change of scenery. Also, the trails here were mostly flat - don't get to say that too often in Colorado but it was good for the legs to have some different cadence. The only thing that was odd - and a pet peeve when a park charges for trail use - NO trail markers. But we survived with only a couple small detours.
A lot of the trails we ran were surrounding the Chatfield Wetlands - a series of ponds and marsh areas near the Platte River.

Here Steve runs along the Platte River on unnamed trail #3 with splendid fall color for a backdrop. We ran a combination of trail surfaces ranging from open grassland type areas with gravel and deep sand to densely wooded, leaf-covered singletrack that was twisty, narrow, and contained many roots and rocks camouflaged by the fallen leaves. It was very quiet and peaceful in the woods and these trails are probably sheltered nicely from the wind on cool late fall/early spring runs - we'll make a mental note of that.
Kathleen briefly comes out of the forest cover for a quick glimpse of the Platte River. We saw quite a few cyclists in the park but no other runners - odd for such an outstanding day.
Steve crunching through the leaves on one of the forested trails. Today was a great discovery day for us, adding new trails to our list and enjoying a totally different type of trail conditions than we normally run close to home. We had a spectacular run and Good Times as always!

Thanks to the Colorado Masters Running/Racewalking Association for the tip on the route - we ran the 10 mile course (plus some extra) from their November 'Chatfield Five & Dime' trail race. Since we enjoyed ourselves, that race might just show up on our November 15 post!!!

Mid-week Trot

I never can get a shot of the entry to Palmer Park after my runs lately because it is dark, so I "cheated" and snapped this one while I was at lunch. This is at one of the main entrances near the baseball fields, playground, dog park, and volleyball courts. At over 700 acres and more than 25 miles of marked trails, this is a nice oasis wedged into the middle of our city.
Got a later start than I have been and had virtually no sunlight as I began my run out onto the Grandview Mesa. It was quite chilly with a stout breeze, but I needed a run and did not mind the environmental conditions. I ran into a handful of mountain bikers who, like me, were desparately attempting to squeeze the maximum dosage of daylight from the park - comraderie of the trail junkies in fall!! It is important to be cautious when running at dusk, especially on more technical trails such as these, because the shadows are sometimes odd and depth perception is off. Another tricky part are the dang rabbits - darting back and forth across the trail, seemingly timed to perfection to arrive right below your next foot-fall. I was able to squeeze out a nice run, free from any bunny squashings, and felt like I maximized my available daylight. Pikes Peak stands watch over the 'skyline' of Colorado Springs and in the darkness of the foreground, the trails are closing down for the night.
Not really having a great deal of anticipation to riding the trainer on these mid-week workouts, so I will get a few more dimly lit runs in before waving the white flag. If we decided to do some night running, it would most certainly be played out on much more tame trails than these. The jury is still out on that as the cold night air is not always kind to our lungs. Get out and enjoy the trails!