Watching the 100-mile runners and the Class IV rafters

We're way behind in getting travel posts published because we were having way too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

August 19, 2023

This was the first weekend that we didn't have a festival or county fair to attend, so what would a couple wanderers do on a beautiful-weather Saturday? How about watching rafters go down some of the most legendary class IV rapids in the United States, and then being spectators to one of the most grueling 100-mile races in the world? But how could we do that?

We started with the rafting. You might remember that for our anniversary we rafted the Arkansas River through Brown's Canyon. That's the most popular white water river section in the United States. It's scenic and still challenging with Class II to IV rapids that make it exciting. Mark would have liked to raft the tougher part of the Arkansas River known as "The Numbers." But he has been married to a rafting wienie for 42 years and she was scared. We knew the river would be busy with rafters on a Saturday morning, so we found a place along their rafting route and got comfortable.

We brought a picnic breakfast to eat while we waited on the boulders along the Arkansas River. We knew that most rafting companies start this run at 9:30, but we didn't know what time they would arrive at our spot on the river. At 9:46 we saw our first raft tumbling down the river. If you look carefully, you can see that the back of the raft is hung up on a big boulder.

We were parked at a state park camping area, that was overlooking Rapid #5. We had heard that this section of the river was named "The Numbers." Today we realized that was because the rapids are numbered, and go from #1 to #7. We watched as the first raft made it safely through Rapid #5.

We had a long wait before the next group, so Denisa spent her time trying to take a picture of the hummingbird (that kept buzzing by her pink blouse), and a wooly worm. The bird was too fast, so our only wildlife picture of the day was the worm.

We were so bored that we even took pictures of each other waiting for the rafts this morning.

It was 10:45 before we started seeing the parade of rafts.

Mark was perched on a boulder that was very near to the rapids, so he got some good action pictures.

Denisa was at the river's edge, with a view of the rafts as they entered this rocky section.

The riders were a little busy with rowing through the rapids, but we had a few people wave as they went by.

We would find out later that another group of six guys was on a bachelor party weekend.

All of those rafts would hold up to eight people, and each person had an oar. But the next raft was more the size used by fishing trips where one person uses two oars to guide the raft. No fisherman on this raft, so perhaps it was a practice run? or perhaps a rescue raft in case someone fell out of their raft?

We decided to try another vantage point, so we jumped in the pickup and headed down-river. We watched the same group in a red boat from our vantage point high above. The rocks were big and the current was fast, so it was tough to find a clear way through the boulder sections.

We parked the pickup at the railroad bridge parking lot. We walked down to the river just in time to see the very first raft-load approaching.

Even though the railroad no longer runs on these tracks, the bridge was left standing. This was the only rafting group that we saw continue past the bridge. They were on a full-day trip.

While Denisa was on the edge of the river, Mark was up on the old railroad bridge.

That gave him a bird's eye view as a kayak went below him.

We watched several more kayaks head down the next section of the Arkansas River just south of the railroad bridge.

Denisa made the climb up to the railroad bridge for some great views over the river.

All the other rafts that we saw earlier on the river were stopping here at the railroad bridge park. This would end their half-day trip through the Numbers section of the Arkansas River. It was work to carry those heavy rafts up the incline of the boat ramp.

We were hanging out in this area, when a rafter recognized us as the couple taking pictures on the rocks as they went by. They asked if we got any good pictures, and that's when we started exchanging phone numbers. We sent dozens of pictures to different groups that we saw earlier on the river. We offered them even to people that didn't ask because we would have loved to have pictures of our white water adventure. Of course we could have bought the ones from the professional photographer, but at $37 per picture they priced themselves out of our budget. A few free pictures (like the ones we put on the blog) from a couple of wanderers sitting on the rocks would have been great.

Most of the raft trips were over by 11:30, and so were we. That was a fun morning watching Class IV rafters! Then we headed towards the town of Twin Lakes to watch another group. We had heard about the "Leadville 100" ultra marathon when we first arrived in this area. We took a picture of the course that was hanging on the wall of the Leadville visitor center. Racers run 50 miles up and down mountain trails, and then turn around and run the 50 miles back on the same path to Leadville.

Based on that map, we thought the best place to see the runners pass by would be at the tiny town of Twin Lakes. But we wondered where we would park, knowing that the runners would have a few supporters that would also need parking. We had no idea what we were about to drive into. We started seeing cars parked on the side of the road about three miles before town! 

Thousands of people had driven here to see this tiny window of the Leadville 100. They were pulling wagons of supplies, riding bicycles, and big groups were walking. It was perilous driving along this stretch of highway east of Twin Lakes!

Then we came to a complete stop as we neared town. So Denisa left the pickup to see what was ahead. She found that police had all cars stopped because this was the point where the racers crossed the road. A steady flow of runners were making their way down the dirt Main Street.

These runners started this race in the dark at 4 a.m. in Leadville, and now they were on mile #38. They have already gone farther than a marathon, and this was at altitudes that exceed 10,000 feet. The elevation map shows that they had already ran up Sugarloaf Pass at 11,600 feet, and now they were at the lowest part of the race at Twin Lakes. From here they would run straight up in elevation to Hope Pass and back down. At the end of the fifty miles outlined on the map below, they will turn around and do it all again to get back to Leadville.  Wow!

Many of the runners were eating and drinking, as they were handed nourishment by supporters that had been waiting for them to arrive in Twin Lakes.

Many of them had supporters running beside them, giving them counsel and encouragement to keep going.

Some runners even had personal photographers running beside them, with video and big lens cameras to commemorate this race.

Denisa snapped some pictures, and then headed back to the pickup where Mark was inching forward in the automobile line. The police monitoring the race course would let a few vehicles through when there was a break in runners. But it was a pretty steady stream of people that had completed the first 38 miles around 12:30, and were now heading out of town and back into the mountains.

We finally got on the west side of Twin Lakes, and found that parking along the highway was easier on this side. Another advantage of being here was that the runners also head west as they leave town. After we parked the pickup, we walked to the trail where the racers were heading towards the mountains.

We talked to some other spectators, and found that the trail wasn't closed to the public. Most of this race was ran on the Colorado Trail, and through-hikers that were hiking that trail would be sharing it with these ultra-runners this day. The trail was very narrow at this point, and we were very careful to get off the trail if a faster racer caught up with us. We didn't want to impede anyone's progress in the race. But our fast hiking speed was a good speed to keep us between groups of runners that had already run 38 miles.

We clapped and gave words of encouragement to these athletes on this grueling course. The turn-around point was at the tiny mining town of Winfield. We've driven there on the way to a trail head a couple weeks ago. These 100-mile runners will turn around at Winfield and come back the very same way. That meant they would be back here to Twin Lakes at mile #62 on the second half of the race. We thought it was amazing that the runners were so close together after 38 miles and 7 hours into the race.

While we share pictures we took on the course, we'll pass on some of the things we've learned about this race. It was first run in 1983, and was started by a local miner that wanted to put Leadville on the map. He called it "A race across the sky" because it starts in the city with the highest elevation in the United States. Leadville is at 10,200 foot elevation, and the race course will go up to Hope Pass at 12,620 foot. That pass was at the top of the mountain that they were facing as they left Twin Lakes. That grueling climb up Hope Pass would happen twice, once when the runner was outbound, and again when he/she was coming back.

The fastest time that this race has ever been completed was 15 hours, 42 minutes, and 59 seconds. That was an amazing time, as most runners will have a hard time completing it in the 30 hours allowed. The race has sweep times. That means that if runners haven't arrived at check-in points at an appropriate time to complete the race in the maximum of thirty hours, they are swept out of the race and can't continue. For example, if they don't get to the 50 mile turn-around spot in 15 hours, they aren't allowed to finish the race. Other racers will have to stop because of exhaustion. From the distance we saw a group shading a runner that had fallen. After 38 miles, it looked like their race was over. More than half of the 700 people that start the race won't be able to finish it.

The Leadville 100 is one of the iconic endurance races on the globe. It attracts extreme athletes from all over the world. We can attest to the fact that we heard many people speaking foreign languages among the runners and the supporters in the crowd. Those supporters set up shade tents for the crew that was helping the runner. 

The support crew will be out on the course at different places providing food and drink, as well as encouragement. At certain parts of the race, crew members can even run alongside the racer. We talked to one crew member who had run to deliver an electrolyte drink to his racer. He would also be running a 14-mile section of the course with the racer. He estimated that he would meet him for that section at 3 a.m tomorrow morning. That means that runners start the race in the dark, and most will run through the next night. So the course was lined with pink reflective flags to help them find their way in the dark.

Sometimes those pink reflective flags had to outline an obstacle, like a fallen tree over the trail.

We walked over a mile on this section of the Colorado Trail that today was part of the Leadville 100 race course. It was a delightful walk for two wanderers that got good sleep last night and needed some exercise. It was an honor to share the trail with these endurance athletes. We have wandered into more of God's wonders today!

While we walked a very flat section of the race, much of it is up and down some steep sections of this mountainous terrain. In these 100 miles they will gain 15,744 feet in elevation. That means they will also go down that much, something that can be equally taxing on knees. We went as far as the river crossing. While most runners just jogged right through the water . . .

one was barefoot and was running the race in sandals.

Another runner took the time to remove his shoes and socks and walk across. But he also decided to sit down in the river and get really cool. He did mention that he might just sit there until the racers came back.

Less than 50% of the 700+ racers that start the race will finish it in the 30 hour limit. These racers had to qualify to be here, and were chosen by lottery because more want to run than the race organizers can handle. We admire their grit for being here and wonder how many of them will make it back to Leadville before tomorrow morning at 10:00.

What a day we had watching these 100-mile runners and the Class IV rafters on the Arkansas River! We've wandered some of God's wonders in some very interesting ways today!