Tag: Lake City

Exhausted runners in last weekend’s 7th annual High 5 100-mile mountain ultra run were contemplative after a continual multiple day and night slog through the mountains surrounding Lake City.For first place Swiss runner Benjamin “Benji” Wiederkehr, who crossed the town park finish line near dusk on Saturday 37 hours and 51 minutes after start of the run, most memorable and “magical” were shadows cast by a near full moon on the summits of 14,001’ Sunshine and 14,034’ Redcloud Peaks.Utah ultra runner Jared Campbell — second to cross the finish line at 11:07 p.m. Saturday and third overall with a start to finish running time of 41 hours, 7 minutes — stated he enjoyed “experimenting” with his race trajectory. He acknowledged some of the experimental routes, such as ascending 14,015’ Wetterhorn Peak and Matterhorn Peak, at a mere 13,590’, were successful in terms of time efficiency, while other self-determined routes such as bypassing vertically challenging Sunshine Falls near the base of Sunshine Peak in the dark were perhaps less successful and in fact “downright questionable.”A repeat favorite in this year’s High 5 was Gunnison middle school educator Dustin Simoens whose blunt post-race assessment after crossing the town park finish line at 12:06 a.m. Sunday was “I’ll absolutely never do that again’ due in part to the fact the 2025 High 5 was “by far the hardest” because of added checkpoints.Later on Sunday morning, at a celebratory post-race runners’ breakfast, he reconsidered, saying “yeah, I’ll probably do it again.”Due to the fact the Gunnison ultra runner had competed in three prior High 5 runs, he began the race at 9 a.m. Friday, August 8, three hours after the 6 a.m. start for first-time runners. Simoens completed the mountain race route second overall after running 39 hours, 6 minutes.The three top 2025 High 5 runners — Wiederkehr, Simoens, and Campbell — were among 24 ultra runners, including two women and three locals, who took part in this year’s race, six of whom — 25 percent — actually finished the run. All 24 starters were termed winners by race organizer Caitlin Rhodes at Sunday morning’s breakfast, Rhodes determining “it was a success for everyone.”Caitlin’s husband, race co-organizer Logan Rhodes Durango, Colorado, ultra runner Josh Golden, middle photo with pacer Mark Smith, breezed into Camp Trail Trailhead on the final leg of Saturday’s High 5 Run (photo Duane Keprta); left, at an early point in the race, local runner Logan Rhodes with Alexander Beckman and Dustin Simoens on proverbial heels, arrives at Capitol City (photo Jodi Linsey); right, after nearly 40 hours non-stop jogging, Benji Wiederkehr and Jared Campbell are contemplative at the town park finish line. has previously completed the run on two occasions, hence was assigned an 8 a.m. start from the park two hours after a majority of the racers. Rhodes was characteristically upbeat in his remarks at the 6 a.m. start, telling first-timers in the grueling mountain run “you are about to attempt one of the hardest things physically you’ve ever done.”He urged racers to savor the moment, telling them “one day in the distant future we’ll be old, broken down, and unable to do this… we don’t know how much time we have in this life.”In addition to the three top finishers, also successfully completing the run were Ted Schultz, Colorado Springs oil and gas pipeline manager, fourth with total running time 43 hours, 48 minutes; 52-year-old Durango, Colorado ultra runner Josh Golden, 45 hours, 8 minutes; and Brandon Worthington, from Longmont, Colorado, giving his registration address as “Longmonster,” who finished the High 5 at 4:10 a.m. Sunday after continuous 45-hour, 10-minute slog.Worthington drew smiles at his race start, 8 a.m. August 8, in recounting a “nightmarish” dream from which “I woke up screaming” prior to the race start.In the dream, Worthington said he encountered challenging changes to the race route which, on the Continental Divide, included an array of computers which he was mandated to hack before continuing the race.In the dream, Worthington said he thought to himself, “well, I’m not going to finish the race.” He drew laughter on Friday at the race start, telling cheering bystanders, “hopefully I’ve repressed that dream.”Apart from the top six out of the initial 24 who started the race, an additional three runners persevered and finished the 100-miler in Lake City between 8 and 9 a.m. on Sunday and well past the mandatory 6 a.m. cutoff: Lukas Zavorka, from Los Alamos, New Mexico, and fellow runner Joel Kuenning, Silverton, had a slow start, leaving the Camp Trail Trailhead in darkness at 9:55 p.m. Saturday and navigating both Williams Creek ascent and Alpine Gulch descent while omitting mandatory summit of Peak 13811; a third High 5 runner who completed the race in Lake City post cutoff was 35-year-old Alex Beckman, an architect from Salt Lake City.

Town of Lake City’s Mayor Dave Roberts, along with Town Manager Lex Mulhall, Town staff and Town Board of Trustees have been hard at work planning the sesquicentennial anniversary of the founding of the Town of Lake City in 1875.To commemorate the occasion, there will be a celebration in Town Park on August 16 beginning at 10 a.m.The party kicks off with the always highly anticipated and appreciated Ute Mountain Ute Dancers, who have visited and performed in Lake City on several occasions over the years. The performance will begin at 10 a.m. in Town Park, and is classified, according to Town Trustee Henry Woods, as a “land acknowledgment and culturally artistic performance.”At noon, three speakers will be giving lectures about Lake City’s history, present and future. Mayor Roberts will begin with a welcome speech, followed by former Town Manager Michelle Pierce, speaking about the beginnings of Lake City and the origins of the “Lake City Town Company.”Next, historian and owner of the Slumgullion Gift Gallery in the historic Green Garage will be Joe Fox, speaking on the role and importance of the historic district in Lake City. Following him will be Trustee Woods to discuss the future of Lake City.The lectures are slated to take 45 minutes in total, followed by cupcakes from the Lake City Bakery and ice cream. Live music by Evelyn Roper and Opal Moon begins at 12:30 until 5 p.m. Beginning at 1 p.m., beer and margaritas will be served by Downtown Improvement and Renovation Team (DIRT) at the moderate hundred and fifty anniversary cost of just $1.50, along with food from local food trucks – Summit Wing House and Wagon Wheel. There will also be a cornhole tournament overseen by Town Trustee Nathan Wuest and a water slide courtesy of Town of Lake City’s Recreation Department. Next Saturday’s town park gala celebrates 150 years since formation of Town of Lake City as a municipal governmental organization starting with the quasi-public Lake City Town Company which was formally incorporated and recognized by Hinsdale County Commissioners on August 16, 1875. Although the town company was a privately-owned company with 220 $50 shares of stock owned by 22 leading light incorporators, Territorial Law also required a democratic component in which seven of the incorporators — a president, secretary, treasurer, and four trustees — were elected by the town’s registered male voters on an annual basis.Lake City Town Company incorporation documents were signed and filed in successive months July, August, and September, first with the county clerk in Saguache County in July, 1875, followed by incorporation filings with county clerks in Rio Grande and Hinsdale Counties and, finally Territorial Secretary of State in Denver on September 28, 1875. Focus of the town company as specifically cited in the incorporation documents was to take, enter, and hold tracts of land for the purpose of “establishing and erecting a town thereon and to lay off the said tract of land in Blocks, Lots, Streets, and Alleys… the said tract so laid off to be known as Lake City.”Further intent in the incorporation filing was to “improve, sell, or otherwise dispose of said Lots or Blocks and to do and perform all other business pertaining to the said Corporation.”Incorporators of the Lake City Town Company were, nearly without exception, well-connected businessmen, a majority of whom — including well- known toll road financier Otto Mears — were associated with the two principal toll roads servicing Lake City from Saguache and Del Norte in 1875 and 1876, the Saguache & San Juan Wagon Toll Road, and the Del Norte & Antelope Park Toll Road and its extension, the Antelope Park & Lake City Toll Road.Henry Finley and his father-in-law, John Bartholf, were among the Saguache & San Juan toll road building party which in August, 1874, found and interred the bodies of the five men murdered and partially cannibalized by Alferd Packer.The intrepid Finley successfully parlayed a herd of beef cattle brought from Saguache to Lake City which he traded for a stake in the Hotchkiss Lode, and in 1877 built the stone Finley Block, today’s home of Hinsdale County Museum.Also taking part in the grave digging for the Packer victims was another original member of the Lake City Town Company, toll road construction supervisor Enos T. Hotchkiss who, with Finley and others, took time to prospect and lay claim to a fabulously promising tellurium gold and silver claim overlooking the outlet of Lake San Cristobal. The claim was initially known as the Hotchkiss Lode before years later being rechristened by its better known title, the Golden Fleece Mine.Hotchkiss and Finley, with D.P. Church patented the Granite Falls mill site above Lake City, water power from which powered Lake City’s first saw mill.Finley served as President of the Lake City Town Company and, with fellow officers F. Newton Bogue, town company secretary, and Warren T. Ring, treasurer. Finley, Bogue, and Ring, together with trustees Otto Mears, Isaac Gotthelf, H.M. Woods, and Enos Hotchkiss immediately set to work identifying the future townsite on a 260-acre mosquito-infested tract of beaver dams and willows extending north from the juncture of Henson Creek with the Lake Fork of the Gunnison River.Town company officers reported expending $3,548.50 in October, 1875, perfecting title and securing patent to the 260-acre townsite, requisite details including a rudimentary survey by U.S. Deputy Mineral Surveyor W.C. Lewman.Starting at the extreme northeast corner of the 260 townsite plat and working its way southward to the mouth of Henson Creek, Lake City Town Company’s plat consisted of a total of 72 blocks, the majority with 32 25’ x 125’ lots each, divided by alleys, major envisioned thoroughfares — optimistically looking beyond the prevalent mosquitos, beaver ponds, and proliferation of willows — being north-south running Lake Street, Henson Street, Gunnison Avenue, Silver Street, and Bluff Street, with corresponding east-west running cross streets First through Ninth Streets to the west of the Lake Fork River, and Water Hotchkiss and Pine Streets, with cross streets on what