Gold Hill to Miners Creek to Wheeler to 7-11

Or at least that was the goal.

Over a month ago we received an invite to stay the weekend at our friends house up in Breckenridge. Spending a weekend in the mountains with some close friends made the decision of accepting the invite easy.

Going into the weekend I had the goal of running easy as I thought my pacing at Leadville was next weekend, not in 2 weekends. On Thursday I realized my error and scrambled to put together one more last long run before my mini taper.

After much research, I decided to start at the Gold Hill trail head, run up Miners Creek Trail along the 10 Mile range and before dropping into Copper Mountain merge onto Wheeler past Peak 9 and down the Breck Ski area. From there I would run along the Blue River to the 7-11 just north of downtown where my friends house was located just 1/3 of mile up the street.

I had Michele drop me off at the trail head just before 7am and off I went. Temps were cool, 38, and while the sun was lighting up the 10 mile ridge, it felt like it would be hours before it finally crest over the divide to the east. 2 miles into the run I was cruising over Gold Hill and already stripping off my sleeves and gloves. 3 miles in I came across my first intersection, the Peaks trail and was shortly ascending the steeps of Miners Creek which would take me to the ridge along the 10 Mile range.

Mentally and physically I simply wasn't into it. I honestly would have rather slept in and spent the morning hiking with Michele. I had also logged in a lot of miles over the past 3 weeks and was feeling it. But I unfortunately needed this run and gave it all I had. While last weekend I was running everything thrown at me, this weekend I spent a lot of time power hiking sections.

Thankfully the beautiful day made being out there much easier. Especially as I got above treeline along the ridge where I decided to snap off a few pics and take in some carbs.

(Looking south towards Peaks 7, 8 and 9)

(Copper Mt where I was just 7 days earlier)

The trail all above treeline was pretty tame and while slow I was able to run a majority of it. Yet I was constantly getting distracted by the surrounding views. As the trail was descending, I thought it was only a matter of time before I met up with the Wheeler trail. But there were no signs of the trail. Then the trail took a sharp right and headed downhill towards Copper Mtn.


It was at this point that I freaked out and decided to head off trail, cross back over to the eastern flanks of the 10 Mile range and look for Wheeler. A stupid move for many reasons. 1) The next 1.5 miles took me an hour to cover as the terrain was steep, technical and straight tough. 2) The merger as it turned out was maybe 2 minutes further down the hill from where I hopped off the trail.


By the time I finally made it to the ski resort below the Imperial Lift, I was cashed. My cross country adventure just drained me. It didn't help that Peak 9 while only a mile away involved a huge drop and climb over vegetation with no trails.

(Type of terrain I traversed during my lost way)

At this pointed I opted to run up to Imperial and back down the 4 O'clock ski run, into town and over to 7-11. The run down was fun and I was able to keep up a decent clip considering the increasing temps and sometimes steep descent. Once in town, the paved route along the Blue was slow as my Crosslites do not enjoy this type of landing.

(View of the mornings journey from the finish line)

Hard to be mad with another day spent in the high country with such fantastic weather and views but I am disappointed on missing out on an additional 5 to 6 miles of running. Final stats for the day were just over 17 miles, 4,500 feet of climbing in 3 hours 45 minutes.