What the Fire on the Mountain Might Mean for Hardrock
Plus reflections on Western States and a Golden Hour finisher
I woke Monday with a groggy sense that something had changed. All was quiet in our house, and the silence blanketed me as a pause more eerie than peaceful. Then I remembered the sounds and sights from the prior afternoon, and my eyes opened suddenly.
In a split second, I recalled the wind shaking our house all day into the night, making the beams groan and windows rattle. Wind bent the trees sideways. Wind ripped the petals off the flowers I had planted just last Friday and flattened their stems. Wind desiccated the ground, which on Thursday collected puddles from a precious, too-brief storm. Wind pushed smoke from the west over the ridge and turned the sun temporarily orange.
I love a cool breeze but hate this warm wind.
I grabbed my phone—violating my practice to start the morning reading a book, not scrolling—and checked for updates on the Ouray fire, plus the big fires near the Utah border that killed three federal firefighters, plus the blaze near Leadville and the new, horrific Pueblo County conflagration (see this CNN clip on it).
This is the reality of life in Colorado now.
But outside my window, I viewed another reality of clear blue sky framing mountains, and I wanted to pretend that everything was fine. We are fortunate here, for now. The air quality is normal, the sky is blue (too cloudless), and all the fires are happening over the mountain ridges. Only a streak of white to the west hints at smoke over there. In past seasons’ fires, the smoke has been thick enough in our area to obscure the mountains. (As of this morning, Wednesday, the sky looks and smells smokier.)
I engaged in obsessive checking of the Watch Duty App and the county sheriff Instagram accounts for fire status, and then I checked the weather apps, upset but resigned to the fact that the bumps of blue indicating precipitation next week have shrunk, turning the forecast of seasonal monsoons into a tease and threatening dry lighting that could spark more fires.
The Ouray fire, named the Gold Mountain Fire, broke out Saturday afternoon about a mile north of Ouray proper, which is an hour by car from where I live in Telluride and over the mountain range to the northeast. The blaze started above a road I know well. It’s Dexter Creek Road, aka County Road 14/14A, on the hillside above the highway next to the Welcome to Ouray sign.
It’s the road I add to my longer runs in winter (when trails are inaccessible due to snow), when I run the relatively flat county road that connects the towns of Ridgway and Ouray and add on County Road 14/14A for a big hill climb. The road leads to lovely log homes around a small lake and trails where the rough old mining road ends.
This is the road where firefighters are holding a line to keep the fire from spreading west toward the neighborhood directly across the highway and south toward town. My friend Christina and her husband Justin live in that neighborhood, called Whispering Pines, directly across from the fire. Their home and their neighbors, in Level 1 pre-evacuation status, are OK so far. When the wind turns violent, I worry about flying embers reaching them. I also worry about fire spreading to ranch homes with horses and livestock northeast of Ouray.
I know that periodic fires rejuvenate forests, so letting the wilderness areas burn and focusing efforts on protecting structures, and people and livestock, makes sense. But the wildfire spread is so damn scary in this era of climate change and drought. (I urge you to read this latest post by environmental reporter Jonathan P. Thompson on the fires’ causes and outlook.)
What does the fire mean for the Hardrock Hundred?
The Hardrock Hundred is supposed to start in Silverton on Friday, July 10. Many of the runners, their crew, and fans are in the region already. I took my name off the waitlist (as explained in last week’s post), but I plan to spend this coming Wednesday through Sunday in Silverton to be part of the scene and to work the remote Engineer Aid Station overnight.
I and others are wondering if Hardrock will happen or be canceled. Runners like my friend Monica Ochs, who has waited a decade to earn a spot in Hardrock, arrived here more than a week ago to acclimate to the trails and altitude. She and others would be devastated to have the run canceled.
To be clear, no decision has been made, and I have not talked to the run director Dale Garland, so I don’t have any inside info about the status. Dale and his run committee are super busy, so I don’t want to bug them, and the situation is changing daily. Hardrock posted a vague Instagram post Tuesday saying, “Hardrock is aware of and monitoring the wildfire situation in southwest Colorado and the San Juan Mountains. Hardrock puts the safety of participants, volunteers, and surrounding communities first.”
I’m on the fence about whether Hardrock should go forward or cancel, but it makes sense to me to wait-and-see because we could get rain in the forecast around July 7 – 10 that would improve the whole situation. Here’s my “hot” take on the situation, along with a map to show the geography of the route:
Why Hardrock should go forward unless conditions are dangerous the morning of July 10:
The fire is moving northeast, away from the Hardrock route, and the route is not threatened.
Silverton and the town of Ouray (south of the fire) are fine now with good air quality. Both towns depend on the economic boost from visitors.
Hardrock runners have made travel plans and prepared for months. They deserve to have their shot at the run unless and until a call is made at the last moment about safety. Dale had to make this call last year, when we woke up on the morning of Hardrock’s start to an orange sky. A fire had broken out the day before (see photo above from Handies Peak). But it was in the distance, and the air quality was not too terrible. Runners were given the option to defer their entry to the following year if they didn’t want to risk running in poor air quality. Conditions improved rather than worsened during the 48 hours of the event. I believe the committee made the right call last year to start the event after weighing all the circumstances, and I trust them to make the right, safe call again.
It may rain next week in the days leading up to Hardrock, which would make everything better (except potentially flooding Highway 550 if a monsoon downpour triggered a slide onto the highway from the burned hillside).
The counterargument for why Hardrock should cancel, probably sooner rather than later:
Resources across the region are stretched. People (and lightning) cause fires. More people in the backcountry who are camping and recreating inevitably increase the risk, even with fire restrictions in place that prohibit campfires. If a fire broke out in the Silverton or Telluride areas from human activity, the resources to fight it and evacuate people would be stretched extra thin. It could be catastrophic.
Although rains may come next week, the forecast calls for more heat and wind between now and the Fourth of July weekend. Visitors should be discouraged from camping and hiking around the region during high-fire-danger days.
Highway 550 just north of Ouray is closed, and officials are prohibiting through traffic. That puts the whole Hardrock transportation loop (i.e. driving from Ouray to Telluride/Ophir) out of service, although a long detour to the south is available. [UPDATE as of Wednesday afternoon: Hwy 550 just reopened!]
Considering all those factors, I advocate a yellow-light proceed-with-caution stance and hope they delay a decision on canceling until much closer to July 10. If you visit this region to run/hike and camp, please be extra smart and careful—no open flames anywhere, no smoking, no parking a hot vehicle near dry grass!
If Highway 550 continues to be closed or has one-way traffic control for emergency vehicles just north of Ouray during Hardrock, I would recommend prohibiting runners’ crew from going to the Ophir and Telluride aid stations as a way to limit traffic (and discouraging them from going over the shortcut of Ophir Pass). In this year’s clockwise direction, when Ophir and Telluride aid stations are in the first quarter of the loop, crew is not really necessary there; runners can rely on aid station volunteers and drop bags. Keep spectator and crew traffic between Ouray and Silverton, in my view.
In any case, I feel for runners who face this uncertainty, especially those taking the time and money to travel from afar and who have their hearts set on a special tour of the San Juan Mountains. I also don’t envy Dale and his run committee for having to navigate the dangerous conditions and uncertainty. Race directors for ultras across the West now regularly cope with fire as a major risk. I imagine the Ouray 100, scheduled July 17, will be canceled or severely re-routed because a branch of their route (the Bridge of Heaven segment) has been scorched by the fire.
What’s your take on the situation? Please comment below.
A glorious Western States Endurance Run and a golden finish
On a much happier note, the notoriously hot Western States Endurance Run 100-miler last Saturday in the mountains from Olympic Valley to Auburn, California, enjoyed unusually cool temps and went off problem-free. Like tens of thousands of others, I was glued to the livestream and runners’ trackers.
Rather than recap anything about the race (you can find copious commentary on the Freetrail and Singletrack podcasts and the iRunFar and Trail Runner sites), I recommend learning more about the two champs with these two pieces:
Coach Mario Fraioli, whose weekly Substack I read religiously (and thankfully, he reads mine too!) had a coach’s dream experience of coaching the come-from-behind Western States champ and course record-setter Vincent Bouillard. Mario wrote about how the race unfolded for him as coach and for Vincent, and he links to a piece about Vincent’s training. It highlights the value of a personal coach-athlete relationship and also the time-tested pillars of a solid training approach (e.g. consistency, alternating hard/easy days, making rest part of training)— things that AI and optimization hacks can’t replace. Read his story here.
As I followed the woman’s extraordinary course-record-setting champ Jennifer Lichter, running her 100-mile debut, I kept thinking about a moving podcast interview with her from last August by Dylan Bowman on Freetrail. Jennifer is the first Latina to win Western States. You may have wondered, what’s the deal with her coming from a white family in Wisconsin? The interview reveals how she was an orphan on the streets of Bogota, Colombia, until adoption as a preteen. It’s incredible. Listen here.
On Sunday, a little before 12 noon Mountain Time, I tuned into the “Golden Hour” when the final finishers made it to the track in Auburn before the 30-hour cutoff. It’s always a tear-jerker to see them struggle and squeak under the cutoff.
I didn’t expect to know any of the back-of-the-pack runners. But then, five minutes before the cutoff, I heard Billy Yang announce, “Mark Tanaka!”
Oh my god, it’s Mark! Somehow, I had overlooked that my old runner-friend Mark was running States. Way to go, Mark! But, I also thought, Why are you finishing near the cutoff of the Golden Hour?! followed by, If I ever run States again, will I too finish with only minutes to spare?
Mark, who’s 59, and I shared a lot of miles in ultras back in the early 2010s, back when we both were a lot more speedy. In 2017, I paced and crewed him in Hardrock. He’s an ER doctor who has a superhuman ultra resume, and earlier this year, he was admitted into the exclusive ultrarunning club of 100 x 100—one of 37 runners who’ve run 100 or more 100-milers.
I got in touch with Mark on Monday to congratulate him and ask about his experience. He had run Western States once before in 2015, finishing in 22:42, and at the time he had thought that was relatively slow and he should’ve finished around 21 hours. His 100-mile PR is 16:28:25 from the 2007 Kettle Moraine.
I wanted to know, how did it feel to finish States in 29:55:05, facing potential cutoffs at aid stations along the way? I, too, want to run States again in my lifetime (which is why I’m running Javelina in October as a qualifier). I finished my one and only States in 2016 in 23:44, earning the coveted sub-24 silver buckle. Will I be able to psychologically handle going so much slower and chasing cutoffs if I ever get to run it again?
Mark shared with me that he entered the race sleep-deprived and consequently struggled more than anticipated. But it was worth it:
“The last five minutes was quite a climax, but I guess the whole day, despite some of the physical suffering inherent in these events, was a repeated affirmation that what I was doing was admirable and deserving of everyone’s attention and support. I really felt the love. Never did I feel like anyone was thinking, ‘What’s taking him so long today?’ though some people must have thought that. It was all positive and encouraging and condition-less. And I’m sure it was like that for everyone running the race, this year and all years back. What was different was this time, I felt and appreciated it more. When you find yourself in the back of the pack, and there is a chance you’ll get cut if anything goes bad, every little bit helps. I think I needed more of that support, and for that reason felt it more strongly than in the past when I wasn’t running to survive. I felt more appreciation for being able to be out there, feeling more connected to this wonderful community, and felt that more often and more intensely during this race than any race before. My eyes watered up several times during the race. The joy of circling the track was much greater Sunday than in 2015 before sunrise. I can’t overstate it, it was so intense.”
Well, his statement sure made my eyes water. I’m deeply inspired to hear from him that you can feel more appreciation and support, and greater intensity, by spending longer going slower on the course. It reinforces my desire to cheer for, support, and respect those toward the back of the pack. In some ways, they have it harder than the frontrunners who finish in half the time.
Now I definitely want to follow in Mark’s footsteps and go for it one more time, if given the opportunity. Thank you, Mark, and congrats!
Likely an unpopular opinion and easy for me to say since I’m not running, but I feel like if conditions don’t change or improve much by next week, cancelation is the right call. Running an ultra with a 15,000+ acre (and growing) wildfire right next door with already strained resources and wildfires burning across the state? While it’s a huge race, it is still *just* a race.
Thanks for sharing my piece Sarah. Reading Mark's reflections made me smile. The support people give and receive during these events never ceases to amaze me. And🤞🏻 that for everyone's sake crews are able to get these fires under control. Worrisome and scary stuff. Glad there's some rain on the way.