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I got an email from Katy after my run on Saturday asking if I wanted to join her and Wayne, her friend from New Jersey, who was flying in for the weekend, on a trail run Sunday, and she asked if I had any suggestions for places to run. I mentioned Coyote Ridge, but suggested we start early when the ground was still frozen, because how could you forget, the other day we had the BIG BLIZZARD of 2009...all 6 inches.
Man, you'd think people in Colorado never saw snow before. They all panicked, called off school, sent people home from work, crashed their cars. It was 6 inches. Are you all transplants from Florida? Reminds me of when it rains in Arizona, nobody knows how to drive in it.
The REAL problem with a late snowfall is that it turns all the trails to mud once it melts. And with the temperatures hitting the 50s yesterday and today, it is doing just that. I met Katy, Wayne, and his friend Marissa, also from New Jersey, at the Coyote Ridge trailhead at 8:00. We started at an easy pace and topped out on the ridge in about 30minutes. I thought it would be icy on the steps going down the other side but it looked like a torrent of dried, frozen mud after yesterday's thaw.
There was a lot of snow past the west side of Coyote Ridge. On the way out we were postholing through drifts of snow, alternating with patches of frozen mud. On the way back, it was a challenge to stay on snow and avoid the shoe-sucking mud. We started to head north on the Blue Sky trail but after about 10 minutes Wayne suggested we go south since it looked clearer.
We got to the road and decided to climb the Indian Summer trail loop. Marissa is new to ultras and this was her longest run so far. She was winded but did awesome at nearly 6000 feet, having flown in from New Jersey last night! She's training for her first 50 miler in Laramie in June. 
Wayne and Marissa descending the sloppy, slippery slope of mud coming down Coyote Ridge on the way back. What a nice change from the concrete wastelands of New Jersey!
It was a pleasant 3 hour run with good conversation and blowing off steam. We all felt refreshed at the end.
From deep dust last week on my run, to this week:
Deep mud. More mud = More fun.
