Mt Audubon....Electrified

Having Friday off, I decided to head up to the Indian Peaks Wilderness to run up Mt Audubon. I figured since it wasn't a weekend day, the normal crowds would be rather sparse, plus I've been really anxious to get back up there since last Saturday's summit (my first of Audubon). Admittedly, I made my way out the door a bit late (8am), so I had to get a move on.

Rolling into Gold Hill I noticed some early signs of rain clouds lingering over the Continental Divide, which is pretty unusual so early in the morning on the Front Range unless there's a storm coming in. Nevertheless, I plowed on, figuring I could make a roundtrip effort on the mountain before any serious weather accumulated.

Upon entering the Mitchell Lake trailhead parking lot, I noticed there was already quite a crowd since there wasn't a single spot available, forcing me to park further down the road - that's what I get for heading out so late. Running back up the hill, I hit the trailhead in 4 minutes and immediately got right to work. 

My rhythm was on point all the way up the mountain and I had plenty of power in the legs the whole way. This was a much better ascend than last week, though I started last week's ascent 4 miles further down the road from the trailhead. As I continued up the mountain, I noticed some drops falling from the sky. I kept motoring and they eventually stopped. The sky was much darker than even an hour prior, with the whole area engulfed in clouds. The sun still found a little hole to peek through, but it would be the last I saw of it for the rest of the day. 

As I scrambled my way up the large boulder field to the summit, hail began to dump. Yikes. I hurried up to the summit and immediately descended, fully aware of what usually follows hail - lightning. Sure enough, after making it down from the boulder field, I heard a loud crack in the sky and it began to dump hail. Lightning has never really bothered me before, mostly because I've never felt vulnerable during a lightning storm usually due to the fact I'm typically indoors under such circumstances. However, at this particular moment, I realized I was in considerable danger - 13,000' atop the Continental Divide and roughly 2 miles of technical rocky singletrack to run before hitting treeline again.

I have never descended a mountain with such technical terrain so fast in my life. I was literally running for my life. A few more bangs came, this time within a half mile from me. I had previously known that it just wasn't safe to be above treeline during a lightning storm, but I always sort of dismissed it because I figured I would never be so stupid as to put myself in that type of situation to begin with. Here I am, soaked, pushing 6-minute miles, on the verge of breaking an ankle on one of several sharp rocks on the trail, hearing the spontaneous and utterly frightening sounds of atmospheric electrical discharge just above me. At one point I was convinced that I was probably running too fast and generating enough static electricity to make me even more of a target. Nevertheless, I kept going as fast as possible and just avoided looking up. It felt like treeline would never come.

Eventually, I reached treeline and reveled in the partial security it provided, but still kept a pretty aggressive (shit-scared) pace. Finally, I reached the trailhead in a round-trip time of 1:48 - 1:08 going up and 40 minutes coming down. I will never, ever start a high elevation run with even the slightest sign of moisture in the sky again.

That's Audubon and that's the storm.