The weather again wasn't promising this morning so I decided against doing any hiking and hung around for breakfast at the hotel (in Salida) and went for a trail run, about 16 kilometres on a mountain bike trail. I could drive to a starting point which was in the middle of the trail and run an out and back in two directions. Altitude around 9,000 feet.
The trail was below Methodist Mountain and went through a mixture of scrubby dry gullies and light pine forest. The going wasn't too bad, it was an undulating and winding trail, and every time I thought I couldn't keep running uphill any longer the trail would dip down for a while. So I was able to run pretty much the whole way, stopping a few times for bikes to go past and seeing several runners. I ran ten kilometres in the first direction, then stopped at the car to refill my water bottle and ran six kilometres in the other direction.
There was a view over Salida almost all the way, but the best views were on the first section with mountains on every horizon. And I had made a good call about the weather as the Collegiate peaks were all in cloud. They looked pretty with their streaks of snow but it wasn't a day for hiking.
It got warm very quickly (my car said 29 degrees when I finished) and I was drenched. That was without the sun coming out. I couldn't believe how much I drank on such a short run. It was very still. Although I had seen a deer by the roadside just before I parked, I saw no birds or wildlife on the trail.
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