Crystal Park/Section 16 Run

After a spring "blizzard" on Thursday, we got the chance to run in some snow for today's long run. Luckily there wasn't as much snow on the southwest side of town as up here in Palmer Lake, but still enough to have some fun. The contrast of the blue sky, green trees, and white snow is always a sight to see.

So today's run was an 18.3 mile loop starting and finishing in Manitou Springs. We ran up Crystal Park rd, which is a paved road that winds up a private neighborhood for about 8 miles. This is a nice grade and they plow it so we got all our uphill running out the way without having to worry about the snow.

We had a nice group again, including Scott Jaime who came down from Denver and the return of Tony K after his winter in Oregon. Photos courtesy of Larry D and Steve B.



Turntable for cars partway up the hill:


This is the actual turntable mentioned in the sign above:


CRUD regrouping at the day's high point of about 9200 feet:


From the high point, we got on the Palmer Trail for a nice fluffy downhill run towards Section 16.

Stylish Rick:


Deep snow on the Palmer Trail:


Here we are re-grouping at the intersection of the Palmer Trail and the Section 16 trail.


We took the counterclockwise direction on Section 16 down to Hi Drive, and then took Hi Drive down to the Section 16 trailhead and then on around to the Intemman trail junction.

Intemman Trail:


The Intemman trail goes over some nice red rock single track back to the bottom part of Crystal Park Rd.

Beautiful Colorado Day:


Name that Dork: