Gold Hill Trail Run

A week ago I ran in Summit County on the Gold Hill trail, which is between Frisco and Breckenridge, CO on Hwy 9. Portions of this run are also part of the Colorado Trail. I've run on several segments of the Trail, in Summit County and near Durango, and it's all been great.


The mountains in the Google Earth image are those of the Tenmile Range. Breckenridge is off-image to the left, Frisco is on the right. The trail head lies at 9,500 ft and the high point for me was around 12,000 ft. Total run length was just under 12 miles.

This being June, there is still snow at high altitudes, and I ended my run due to time and these piles of snow in the trees covering the trail:


Note to self: shop for Gore-Tex trail shoes.

If you continue on this trail it goes over the Tenmile Range to the Copper Mountain ski resort, a run that I have done before. When I did that longer run, I had planned to run back over the mountain ridge, but while standing on the other side staring back up at the ridge several thousand feet above me (at 4 PM), I opted to run around the mountains on the bike trail instead. Some day I'd like to complete that run as originally envisioned.

Here is a photo taken from the halfway point. If you compare this with the Google Earth image you can see this mountain above and slightly to the right of the yellow line. It's the poetically-named "Peak 2".


I think my aprés-run recovery nutrition was a chicken sandwich and chili at the Wendy's in Frisco. Mmmm. Good chili.