This past week, some of my best college buddies came out to visit.  I had scared up a vision for us to casually hike the Elk Range's Four Pass loop, knowing that in a normal year we may have to deal with a little bit of snow near the passes.  Our plan called for some fairly low-key hiking - we had budgeted three days to complete the loop.  Once we got into Aspen, we learned one of the passes was....unpassable.  So we modified the plan to make it the "Three Pass Horseshoe with a Shuttle".  Due to a variety of factors, we didn't even make it over West Maroon Pass.  While we didn't complete our objective, we did have a blast hiking and camping and catching up with old friends.

One theme made itself apparent on this voyage.  Out here in Colorado, we specialize in the extreme...and don't even bat an eye over it.  Don't believe me?  All of the following came up during the course of our hike and each one was met with a "dude...that's not normal" response from one of my sea-level brothers.

1)People run this loop.  The Four Pass loop is a mini-Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim destination run for ultrarunners.  It is one of Colorado's finest, especially during wildflower season or when the aspens are changing color.  While the vast majority of Fourpassers take two to three nights to 'enjoy' the scenery, someone with a solid amount of mountain running fitness can knock it out in eight hours or less.  Lance Armstrong ran it in 5h40min.  Running machines Ricky Gates, Tony Krupicka, and Sage Canady have completed it in 4h35min, 4h46min, and 4h27min respectively.

2)The Pikes Peak Ascent/Marathon Double.  Typically, over 100 Ascent participants come back the next day and run the Marathon.  That's about 5% of the entire Ascent field or 15% of the Marathon field.  Running in these races doesn't really seem that extreme once you've done it or you've surrounded yourself with others who do it.  But to my sea level buddies, their response when I encouraged them to give it a shot was something along the lines of, "uhm....are you crazy?  Oh yeah, you ARE crazy!  YOU actually think it's fun!"  Evidently, most runners from the other 49 states may think that the Ascent is ridiculous, the Marathon moreso, and the Double is just plain crazy.

3)Trail thru-hikes and FKTs.  Last September, Denver ultrarunner Scott Jaime busted out this 486-mile ribbon in 8 days, 7 hours.  60+ miles a day over mountainous terrain for over a week.  99.9% of all people will never in one week travel as much as Scott did in one of these days.  I told them 'normal' people may do it in 15-20 days if they put the hammer down.  I of course was called out on this.  We stopped in Salida for a night and ran into a ton of Continental Divide Trail thru-hikers.  Some moved faster than others (one guy was clipping along at just under 40 miles a day)  but they were all attempting to cover this 3,100 mile trail in one summer.  Normal people don't walk a marathon daily for nearly a month at a time.  Maybe they should...

4)Incline Feats of Stupidity Insanity Masochism Stuff.  Hmmm, where do we start here?  Just doing the Incline once is enough for most of my lowlander friends.  "That's the hardest thing ever!" or "Who would ever do that more than once???" or "Sean, I hate you" are the most common responses I hear upon buddies completing our little staircase of a friend.  Thing is, EVERYONE in El Paso county has done it.  I mean, go there any weekend morning and you'll actually see THE ENTIRE COUNTY there.  Of course, there are people who scoff at doing one lap.  Roger Austin's 719 in 365 days doesn't even look that insane now that Greg Cummings has done 1,000 in 250.  Rumors of sub-20-minute laps abound, and a lucky few people have even seen what that looks like when Matt comes bounding by just past the false summit.  Fred Baxter and Brandon Stepanowich both raised the stupidity insanity stuff bar by completing the "Inclinathon" in 2012 - 13 laps up AND down for a total of 26 miles.  

I guess that's not enough - beginning today at noon, Brandon will attempt the 24 hour Ultrainclinathon.  IF he completes 19 laps before noon tomorrow, he could become the world record holder for most vertical feet climbed in a 24 hour period.  (the current known best is 37,572' by Robert Webb of Mt. Shasta, California)  I am sharing this because up until hiking with my friends last week, I didn't even register how incredibly crazy this is.  We're talking 6 billion people here who have never made this happen, and right in our backyard one of our own will attempt to push what the human body can do to a place that is stupid insane nearly impossible to comprehend.  If you are out on the Incline today, look for Brandon and cheer him on!