Sneak Peek of the Week

Cavers think they’ve uncovered a mythological cavern near Leadville. Or it could be “a hole full of mud.”

Cavers are an interesting lot. In Colorado, they opt for the darkest recesses over bluebird mountain vistas.

There’s something about going to places no one else has been. And there’s a vibrant curiosity among cavers to find those places.

On a recent sunny fall day in the pine-wooded forest near Leadville, a team of ardent spelunkers spent the day heaving on a rope, hauling buckets of mud and rocks up from a hole. Down below, a lone digger filled that bucket.

“It’s easy digging but it’s scary as hell down there,” says Wes Devenyns, covered helmet-to-boot in mud after his shift in the hole.

What’s so scary? his pals atop the dark entrance of the historic mine shaft ask.

“The timbers,” he says. “Don’t touch the timbers.”

“Don’t even look at ’em. I mean, they were installed in the 1800s,” says Mike Frazier, who appears unbothered by the mud speckling his eyeglasses. “They are just kind of floating above you. But hey, this is what I like about caves. Finding places that so few people will ever see.”

Several years of research has led the cavers to this private parcel. Down below, they are hoping, is a long-lost cave that some consider a myth made up by a newspaper reporter who occasionally veered into fiction.

Orth Stein was a pioneer journalist at the just-launched Leadville Evening Chronicle in the late 1800s. He was prone to tall tales. One of his stories described a fully intact wooden ship with two giant masts embedded deep in a granite cave beneath Battle Mountain near Red Cliff. Another Stein report in the weekly Leadville Carbonate Chronicle in 1884 described “a hideous visitor” and “sea serpent” frightening residents around Twin Lakes.

So, not surprisingly, his reports of a vast series of caverns near Leadville — he called it the Cyclopean Cave — written mere weeks after his ship-in-a-cave dispatch from Battle Mountain — were easily dismissed as fiction.

In his 1973 book “Caves of Colorado,” a sort of bible for the state’s cave explorers, author and caving pioneer Lloyd Parris included the Cyclopean Cave in a chapter titled “Hoax, Humbug and Orth Stein.” Parris cited previous caver reports calling the Cyclopean Cave an invention by “a bored newspaper reporter in Leadville in the 1880s.” In the early 1900s, a memoir published by Stein’s boss, Leadville newspaper editor C.C. Davis, described the Cyclopean Cave as “fiction from headlines to tailpiece.”

Stein wrote about joining several Leadville residents — all real people — in the cavern in October 1880 and “their wonder and delight was very great.”

He described a spring, stream, lake and a petrified waterfall he called “hushed Niagara.” Stein included a map of the cave in a Oct. 30, 1880, article in the Carbonate Weekly Chronicle titled “Marvelous. The Mammoth Cave of Colorado” that described “the first exploration of its bewildering labyrinths.” Stein described one chamber — he dubbed it “Stein Gallery” — as something akin to the galleries of the Vatican “bathed in moonlight.”

Several cavers have spent the past decade scouring historic newspaper articles, and they suspect that Stein was not telling tall tales when he wrote about the Cyclopean Cave. The people he mentioned visiting the cave were real folks. Down below the mine shaft outside Leadville is a collapsed cabin with what appears to be a horizontal tunnel accessing the shaft. Above the mine entrance is a pile of Belden shale, indicating the original diggers did break through a deep layer. Mike Frazier has found and explored a host of undiscovered caves around the world, including Cave Creek Cavern near Fairplay, the largest known cave room in the state.

“The potential here is pretty fantastic,” Frazier says. “All the signs are right. But honestly, we could be in the wrong spot. You just don’t know. In Colorado now it’s to the point where there’s still stuff out there to be found, but there’s more stuff to be found by digging at the back of caves that are already known. I’m not saying this is not going to happen. I’m saying it’s not going to be easy.”

>> Click over to The Sun on Sunday Oct. 19 to read this story

In Their Words

Blending Taco Bell’s menu with a 31-mile running race = an ultramarathon that eats competitors

Those lean athletes who can climb, run, swim or pedal for several hours at a time always talk about the importance of fueling for their ultra-grueling contests. It’s all about eating the right balance of bananas, goos and gels and sprinkling powders in their water bottles.

But what if, say, they could only eat Taco Bell while racing?

“This is not a race,” Jason Romero told the nearly 170 runners gathered at a downtown Denver Taco Bell a little after dawn on a recent warm Saturday. “This is about surviving.”

Romero, a veteran ultrarunner, and his pals several years ago dreamed up a contest that traces 31 urban miles and requires runners to visit 10 Taco Bells and eat at nine of them. Not just nibbling: Racers must eat the half-pound gut busters, the menu items with the “supreme” in their name, which means lots of sour cream. Additional challenges include guzzling two liters of the allegedly lime-flavored Baja Blast, a teal-colored drink created by Mountain Dew for Taco Bell, or smothering every bite in Taco Bell’s Diablo sauce.

Colorado Sun freelancer Dan England — a runner in his own right — spent several hours tracking the Taco Bell 50k racers. England, who quickly and emphatically declined an editor’s suggestion that he write something from a first-person perspective, spoke with fellow runners who fretted about their food plan. Do they eat the Chalupa Supreme and Burrito Supreme early in the race or wait until the finish is near? Should they pound Taco Bell in the weeks heading up to the race as part of their training?

Regardless of the racer regimens, the Taco Bell 50K consumed many of its participants. Only 120 of the 170 starters finished. And the DNFs were not pretty.

“I just puked,” Lesley Fatica, 27, of Highlands Ranch, said to a gaggle guzzling Baja Blast in the fifth Taco Bell of the day. Fatica finished the Leadville 100 in August. But a bean burrito did her in (throwing up meant automatic disqualification).

“It was just a lot of food every two-and-a-half miles,” she said to England. “I’m not doing this again next year.”

The mandatory noshing of fast-food Mexican while running an ultramarathon is a “great equalizer,” England writes. Veterans of Taco Bell could contend with the speediest of ultrarunners who eschew such grub. The temperature on race day hit 90 as the runners shuffled past 20 miles and through their eighth, ninth and 10th Taco Bell stores of the day.

England visited with a sad, sweating runner late in the race eating a half-pound Burrito Supreme.

“Oh man, this is gonna be the death of me,” the man said, taking a bite.

>> Click over to The Sun to read Dan’s story

The Outsider now has a podcast! Veteran reporter Jason Blevins covers the industry from the inside out, plus indulges in the fun side of being outdoors in our beautiful state.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Breaking Trail

What does a bad planner say? “Skiing is expensive.”

The snowmaking guns are blowing at Arapahoe Basin. Ski season approaches and as resort operators tick their season pass prices up one last time before shutting off sales, it’s time for slacker skiers to make their ski-season plans.

Gone are the days of waiting for a powder day to pick a place to ski. Today’s resort industry is building itself around planning, not powder. And you know what bad planners say? “Skiing is expensive.”

The Colorado Sun has broken down pass prices, discounts and even a handful of freebies for skiers who have not yet bought their passes and tickets. Many of us choose our passes based on where our friends ski. Or where we have pals with extra beds in ski towns. The past few years have seen skiers tinkering with both the Epic and Ikon, trying to find their favorite resorts that offer the least amount of hassle.

The new business model urging skiers to buy early also works for traveling skiers. If you are planning a couple of long weekends up to Little Cottonwood Canyon in Utah, Jackson Hole in Wyoming or Big Sky in Montana, there’s a pass for that. Same for folks looking for ski tours of the Southwest.

And a growing number of independent resorts are banding together with pass deals that are about half the cost of the two heavyweights and offer access to smaller hills across the country.

A lot of resorts are offering passes for just their hill, honing a loyalism that is hard to foster with passes that access dozens of ski areas. And then there are a growing number of special deals. Free Sundays? $9 lift tickets? A $99 midweek pass?

With walk-up lift tickets at major resorts tipping well past $300 a day for 2024-25, the season pass business model that has transformed the ski resort industry has made it possible for these two statements to be true at the same time: Skiing has never been more expensive. And skiing has never been more affordable.

Skiers who make a plan get to choose which one of those statements will define their ski season.

>> Click over to The Sun next week to read this story

Huts for Vets hosts Ninety Pound Rucksack podcast host at Rifle’s Ute Theater on Oct. 11

The Carbondale-based Huts for Vets formed in 2013 to offer war veterans free wilderness trips as therapy for the not-always-visible wounds of war.

Nearly 400 veterans have participated in Huts for Vets programs, where hiking across Colorado’s mountains can buoy spirits. On Friday, Oct. 11, in Rifle, Huts for Vets is hosting an event with Christian Beckwith, renowned alpinist and host of the Ninety-Pound Rucksack podcast.

The “Mountain Warriors” presentation at the Ute Theater in Rifle will feature Beckwith’s research into the Army’s fabled 10th Mountain Division and the role of the division’s World War II soldiers in starting the nation’s outdoor industry. The Ninety-Pound Rucksack podcast details the 10th Mountain Division’s contribution to defeating German forces in Italy as well as the veterans who returned to the U.S. and started more than 60 ski areas in addition to companies that foster outdoor education and preparedness. Soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division continue to train and prepare for winter battle.

The “Mountain Warriors” event will highlight the legacy of 10th Mountain soldiers as well as the Huts for Vets mission to connect soldiers with wilderness.

“More than just an evening of storytelling, this will be an opportunity to highlight the power of the mountains to shape and heal everyone, including those who have served us,” said Erik Villaseñor, the executive director of Huts for Vets.

Click here for tickets and information on the Oct 11 event.

— j

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