Mt. Evans Hill Climb

Left: Looking down on the world from 14,286 feet. To the right of Summit Lake, you can see the road at the start of the final switchbacks, about 3 miles down.


Score:
Justin: 1, Mountain: 1
Saturday was the Mount Evans Hill Climb, arguably one of the hardest hill climbs in the country, and possibly the world. Starting elevation is about 7000 feet, and the finish is above 14000. Race distance is 28 miles.
Coming into this race, I was unsure how I would do, as I seem to have a problem with racing at high altitudes, and this race usually goes hard right from the start. The last time I did this race was in 2003, and I finished in a time of 2 hours 22 min 30 sec. This year my time was 2 hours 3 min 30 sec. Not a bad improvement, though I was shooting for two hours flat.
The race started hard as expected, with a bunch of ignorant riders pushing the pace, thinking they would win the race by attacking at the bottom. Of course, none of these guys were with us by the half way point. What this did do was blow the field apart, and put some serious hurt on me. By Echo Lake (approx half way) we only had about 15 guys left at the front. I held on for several more miles, but the group kept surging and slowing down, and finally the rubber band broke and I was dropped. I kept the group close for a couple of miles, but they slowly distanced me. One guy dropped off the back a while after me, and after chasing him for several miles, I caught and passed him. On the switchbacks to the finish, I got a small scare when I saw that he was catching back up, but I gritted it out and held him off. I finished 12th, and came back to within a minute of catching the back end of the lead group. Coming back down the mountain, I could not sit on my seat because my butt muscles were cramping. It was not too much fun having to stand up for 16 miles. Luckily, my dad was half way down to give me a ride the rest of the way. Later in the day, he and I drove back up to the top, did a little hiking, and took in the views.