Note
O' was on the menu today, and since it wasn't going to be before mid-afternoon, I picked Granite Planite as a safe enough place to be out in the woods. And, as I guessed, there was not a hunter (or a hunter's truck) anywhere in the area so that worked out well.
The weather was looking like it was going to work out a little less well. Forecasted for total sun all day, by the time I left home it was sprinkling and there were dark clouds abounding in various directions. About halfway up to the Summit the sprinkles stopped, but I was guessing that I had merely driven past the advancing edge of the rain. That was better than nothing, and, unless it's going to be raining hard, I usually figure that if I can get started before rains arrive, I can get finished with whatever I had planned.
As it worked out, the rain never made it to Granite Planite, and so what if it remained very cloudy.
I ran a course of about 11.4 kms, and elected to take in a decent number of controls, which turned out to be 60 today. I also ran by two stray cows, but didn't include them in the control count. Maybe I didn't warm up long enough, because for about the first half of the course it felt like I just wasn't moving very well--it felt like I was a running a little clunky and sluggishly. But gradually the running felt like it was going more and more smoothly. Maybe I was energized by the sight of the stray cows.
Between the time I finished surveying Granite Planite and the Rocky Mountain O' Festival, the Forest Service began expanding the gravel parking area right as you turn off the Happy Jack Rd, and by a considerable amount--enough so that I went back in and edited the map to show the new parking area to size and shape. We weren't going to run there, so it didn't really matter, but it was easy enough to do and it would also hopefully prevent people from thinking "wow, he can't even map a parking area properly." Which is probably true, but why make it so unnecessarily obvious?
At any rate, when I drove in, workers were there again, and now they were finishing off the installation of a Texas style iron pipe fence around the whole new parking area. It looked nice. At the same time, I couldn't help wonder why? Nothing wrong with it, but why go to the trouble and expense to make the parking area and enclose it in a super sturdy fence? It's not a trailhead. And there's nothing to prevent someone from driving on through the parking area and just pulling off wherever they like, just as before. Baffling.
A similar parking area is under construction at the Blair-Wallis turnoff, which is on the Plains of Despair map. But nothing similar at any of the turnoffs on the other side of the Happy Jack Rd.