Wandering that ghost town by Independence Pass, I couldn't figure out how anybody could live at 10K for long periods of time. I know it's doable but I damn sure wouldn't want to. Where were you at when you were at 10K? You know HAPE or HACE is just a small price to pay for that sort of scenery...
AA just pissed me off. I was still in grade school when I came to the conclusion that God fit nicely in with Santa and the Easter Bunny in the 'lies the grownups told me' category. Being told I had to ask a higher power to make me not want to drink just seemed patronizing and insulting. Half the AA meetings I went to I just came away with new ways of talking myself into drinking again. They started to be much more enjoyable once I started getting baked beforehand. Then I realized getting baked did a lot better job of making me not want to drink and I just stopped going entirely.
Well in most cases towns that high only existed because of the mining activity during the Colorado Boom Days that started around 1860 and extended into the early 1900s, but you probably already know it was because of the mining. I lived in Leadville which is two miles high and was founded during a gold rush. I have been out exploring in the mountains all over this area and it's common to find old cabins way up near treeline along with mining ruins at like ~12000 feet. People would work and live at that elevation long term. Not surprisingly a miner's lifespan was often rather short.
I bought the lie till I was about 20. Wish it hadn't taken that long but I'm grateful it didn't take me longer.
Silicosis, elevation, they had all the fun stuff to deal with. I wonder if they did the 'company town' thing there like they did back in the hills where I'm from? I only drove through Leadville on my way to Aspen but it seemed to have the same decaying, depressing, desperate for the tourist dollar vibe that my hometown has. You ever do the Leadville 100?
I was lucky, nobody in my family gave a rat's ass for religion and we were surrounded by people who overindulged in it. Kinda like hanging out in a bar when you're not drinking, it was a good object lesson in why you don't want to participate.
Unfortunately, Leadville has since turned that old tired look around in a remarkable way. Most working class people can't even afford to live there anymore because the housing and rental markets have exploded. You're lucky to find a piece of shit studio for $1000/month. Half the town is second homeowners and Airbnbs now. There are fucking Teslas driving around town, you certainly didn't see that 10 years ago. Leadville was awesome when I first moved there, but now its appeal is drastically reduced for me because it's turning into just another ski town for the wealthy. I prefer my mountain towns rough and desperate, and Leadville isn't like that anymore.
I've never run the Leadville 100 myself but I've paced other runners overnight several times throughout the years. It's an iconic race for sure but I think it's way overpriced and a bit too full of itself for me to be interested. Only way I'd ever run it would be if they comped me in which is never gonna happen.
What's that?
I was passing through in 2017, it didn't seem like it had quite made it to that point yet but it was damn sure trying. Another Boulder with even less oxygen?
Sounds like the Appalachians are your kind of place. I used to make more working as a server in Louisville than the median household income back where I grew up. Plenty of poverty, meth, and jesus but not much else. It's just down the road from Red River Gorge and they're trying to similar shit to get tourist money but they're not having much luck as of yet.
I run into a European couple at a hostel in Silverthorne that were getting ready to compete in it. Fuck running at that altitude...
I haven't spent much time in the Appalachians but they are certainly pretty. I guess I'm more drawn to higher, younger mountain ranges where I can get way above treeline and the terrain is sharper. Appalachian towns themselves though, those sound pretty nice.