Twin Sisters Summit, June 13, 2009

What is now becoming an annual tradition, climbing Twin Sisters this year was pure joy. I traditionally climb this during the Estes Park Wool Market (which my wife Lorraine is very active), so this year I did the climb on Saturday, June 13, 2009 with my running buddy Vince “Master Slacker” Gerber. It took some goading to get Vince to want to do it, but I finally was able to overcome his slacker ways and get him to commit, like last year. This year the weather was superb: sunny, cool, and no wind.





Vince and I met at the trailhead (about a mile up the road from the Lily Lake parking area) around 7:30 AM. I figured around 3 to 3.5 hours for the 7.5 mile out and back journey. The trail starts out rather benignly, but then gets steeper as you go up. The trail itself is pretty nice, some rocks. But the uphill forces us to walk.

There was very little snow to contend with, with only one little patch that we had to walk on to continue on trail.





Vince and I stopped a couple of times to eat and take pictures. We stopped around 11,000 feet elevation to overlook the Estes Park valley below. Up ahead, the trail became more rocky and a little more steep, but we could now see the objective ahead, looming at 11,435’ elevation.





Before long we arrived at the radio tower and shed, about 11,300’ and took a brief break to look around. We then had a short 100+’ climb to the top of one of the Twin Sisters. Got to the top and took in the views of Long’s Peak and Mt Meeker to our immediate west, and the valley floor below. We looked east and it looked socked in down below in the St Vrain Valley into Longmont.







This run always amazes me how easy it is to get up here and the views it affords. And today no wind to buffet us around as well, and made for a very enjoyable pause at the top.

After a bit, we decided to head back down, picking our way along the boulders and rocks, until the trail became more runnable. Now we were able to run the trail. Met a lot of people coming up, and passed quite a few going down. I was wanting that beer at the end, so I tried to keep the pace going.
All in all, a nice little climb and run at elevation, the first for this season. I have upcoming Hardrock pacing duties looming on the horizon, so this was a nice entry to some altitude training. And I didn’t get an altitude headache and felt great the whole time.