Rave Run: Hall Ranch

Thursday night I had a date. A friend date with Amber and Eric. Men take note.... this was pretty close to a perfect date (aside from the obvious lack of smackers).

We had decided earlier in the week that Thursday would be our night. A 1:30 trail run was on the Ironman training schedule and a quick consultation of my training plan (primary goal: enjoy vacation to the max) revealed that our objectives coincided beautifully. And so at 5:00pm MST, A&E picked me up at the World Headquarters of Zeal Optics (where I had just secured an awesome pair of Zeal Zektor sunglasses in wood/green, the latest addition to my collection of sweet eyewear), and we headed North to Lyons, CO and the Hall Ranch Trail head.

Rave run background: Hall ranch is a popular destination trail for Boulderites and the pride of the Lyonsians. It is far enough out of the way (a few miles West up St. Vrain Canyon) to make it relatively uncrowded most of the time. E and I took bets on how many bikers/horseman/other bipedal transporters we would see on this particular evening. He picked eight bikers, I picked two bikers and two horseman. I think he had inside information.

There are a couple of ways to run Hall Ranch. We chose to run up the Nighthawk Trail, a no-bikes-allowed-unless-you-swear-that-you-walked-it-the-whole-way trail that winds somewhat gently uphill for four miles, traversing high desert prairie and the occasional scrub pine stand. It has amazing views of the red mesa cliffs carved by the St. Vrain creek and I had to stop on more than one occasion to "drink in the view" (code for drink in some oxygen while "gasping" at the view).

Up top of the mesa, we wound around Nelson Loop, choosing the westerly route for its views of the old Homestead (I am pretty sure each side of the loop is equally beautiful and equally downhill). We saw our first bikers on the loop... six to be exact. I had already lost my bet with Eric, but I was beginning to wonder what was going on, especially with what I remembered of the trail ahead.

We proceed along the Bitterbrush Trail, the mountain biker access trail to the Nelson Loop. More mountain bikers passed us on their way up. With just a few miles to go, the trail which has been rolling gradually downhill to this point, takes a sharp dip down and looks more like a bouldering adventure than a running or biking trail. And then I see it, an "emergency access and authorized vehicle only" fire road that MTBers can take to completely skip out on the expert section of the trail that would keep riders like me off of Hall Ranch. Ahh-hah! You still have to ride up a steep hill, but you don't have to have full pads and major kajones to ride up or down. There were a couple of brave MTBers trying to ride up the hard stuff as I bombed down the trail on foot. And then as I came around a bend, I almost ran into a couple of horses and riders in full gallup mode. There was never any danger, but jeez-my heart-rate went up a few beats. So, at least I won that part of the bet with E.

Back to the date: We all finished somewhere around 1:30 and piled into the car. Nearer to town, we soaked our legs (and, yes, washed off the sweat and dirt all over) in the St. Vrain Creek. We then descended upon the Oskar Blues Pub/Microbrew for some fine dining and even finer microbrews. Though, I've always been a fan of their beer, I've never been to the pub (that I recall) and I drank in Leroy's Brown, an ale that is only offered in the pub, and munched on Nachos Blue and a perfectly spicy chipotle burger with sweet potato fries and black bean salad. Yum-yum!