Trails on the New River Gorge

Though I've driven though West Virginia on a couple of occasions, I'd never really stopped to see what this beautiful state has to offer.  That changed as our area churches put together a rafting trip in the New River Gorge.  We came down for a couple of days to raft and to enjoy other activities.  I used extra free time to piece together a couple of trail runs.  I had begun to do some research on what the trails look like in the area and had some ideas in mind.  In the end, time allowed me to explore the Canyon Rim Trail (there may be another name for it) and the Endless Wall Trail.  The Canyon Rim trail heads northwest out of the parking lot at Adventures on the Gorge resort.  There is no signage and the beginning of the trail is actually there frisbee golf course.  This makes the beginning a bit hard to follow, but a good common sense idea for a trail eventually will follow it out of the frisbee golf area.

Starved Rock State Park - River Trail

Route Name: River Trail
Trailhead Elevation: 624 ft.
Low Point: 453 ft.
Distance: 6.56 mi.
Elevation Gain: 1,549 ft. (GEarth estimate, seems high)
Start Time: 2:16pm
End Time: 6:40pm

Trip Report:

It had been many years since we'd made the trek down to Starved Rock.  The last time I could say I was there was in the fall of 2002 when Sarah and I began dating again.  It was one of our first big dates together.  For this time around, my boys and I happened to be staying with my parents in the Chicago area and were looking for something fun to do on a Saturday.  Being an outdoors family, looking for a good hiking day seemed to be the right choice.

Pinckney Trail Half Marathon Race

This was a race I had been looking forward to for some time.  Every since I happened to "discover" the Poto trail and Pinckney Recreation Area I've been in love with it as my local wilderness playground.  Though my heart is usually out in the mountains of Colorado, it has helped to have a place like this so accessible and close to home.

Late last August I backpacked into Blind Lake and I ran the Half-M race course from my camp.  I quickly realized what a challenge it was going to be.  The elevation changes are constant with few extended flat stretches.  Some of the hills just take it out of you.  On that initial run, I ended up walking several sections.  Of course, having hiked about 8 miles with a pack the day before probably didn't help this effort.

Heading into 2015 I was watching the website ready for sign-ups as I knew this was one of my highlight races for this year.  I also looked into the Serious Series and decided that would be a great way to turn 2015 into a year of the trail races.  I signed up for all three of those races and to top it all off, I also got into the North Country Trail Marathon.  What a line-up for this year!

Mt. Yale Winter Ascent

Hoarfrost on the rocks at the begin of the summit ridge

Route Name: Southwest Slopes from Denny Creek TH
Trailhead Elevation: 9,925 ft.
Summit Elevation: 14,196 ft.
Distance: 8.87 mi.
Elevation Gain: 4,377 ft.
Start Time: 5:35am
Summit Time: 10:22am (20 minutes on top)
End Time: 3:30pm

Trip Report:

Basic Technical Info
As with any winter ascent, we had done a lot of homework on the snow and weather conditions before today arrived. We were pleased to find a number of recent Conditions Reports and Trip Reports that helped to paint a pretty good picture
of what to expect. The general word was that the trail below treeline was snowy but well packed.  Above treeline it was wind blown in parts.  Little to no avalanche danger.  Our weather report called for slight chance of flurries in the morning and temps just below freezing til afternoon.  Definitely all good news!

Snowshoeing Powerhound-Treeline Loop at Tennessee Pass

Route Name: Powderhound Loop & Treeline Trail
Trailhead Elevation: 10,430 ft.
High Elevation: 10,657 ft.
Hiking Total Distance: 2.82 mi.
Elevation Gain: 420 ft.

Trip Report:

What better way to spend our first day out in Colorado than finding a good place to snowshoe.  We wanted a good hike to help us begin to acclimate a bit before we did some skiing and mountain climbing the rest of the week.  We were also concerned about finding a place that still had enough snow.  It was April 6 and the lower elevations were getting all melted out.  We were staying just east of Buena Vista and there was no snow left in those areas.