Winter in the Foothills
According to the calendar, winter is official over today! While the high peaks in the Rockies were slammed with record amounts of wonderfully powdery goodness, we didn’t get many massive dumps in Boulder. But what we did get were some freakishly freezing temperatures – some mornings it was even hard to open the front door which was partially frozen in the -25ºC temps! Through it all, though, we ran and ran and ran, even with frozen eyeballs and whiskers, and it was beautiful! Now I’m sure that we haven’t actually seen the last of winter (it is forecasted to snow again on Saturday…) but here’s a quick photo recap of our adventures on our snowy local trails these past few months.
No matter how cold or dark the early mornings might have been, it’s always worth it once you’re out there working hard and enjoying the magical first rays of light of the day!
A bitterly cold but breathtakingly beautiful way to start the day!
Even though the sun didn’t want to shine on the weekends we still got up early and got out there.
Marching through the frozen burned forest:
And navigating a slick and icy sea of white:
8 hours later, still snowing, and still running… and still smiling!
Another weekend morning, another long and snowy running sufferfest:
With the unusual number of gloomy gray days we had in town this winter it was easy to stay indoors and feel sad but with a little bit of leg power, we knew exactly where to go to find our Colorado blue skies…. instant happiness on the summit of Green Mountain!
One of the many delightful cloud inversion runs where the world below us completely vanished and we got to soak in the warming rays of the winter sun.
A sea of clouds and a touch of blue sky from the top of Bear Peak:
Meanwhile, back down below… gray gray gray!
Warmer but still snow covered days called for some higher altitude runs from the city to the mountain villages:
And of course, Kea, the happiest winter dog! The colder, the snowier, the wilder, the better!
Here are a couple of videos of Kea enjoying the fluffy powder:
Sometimes it’s so beautiful it doesn’t even seem real!
And with all that said and done, I spotted these little tiny blossoms on my run yesterday afternoon… the calendar is right! Spring is here!
