By Brian Eule and Luke DeCock/The Gazette
When somebody tried to put a baby in one of the plastic bags at her sweat check table, Susie Nulty objected. That might have been a little too much for her to handle.
Other than that, however, Nulty was willing to take just about anything to the top of the mountain for the participants of Saturday's Pikes Peak Ascent.
Nulty was in charge of sending six vans full of plastic bags, which the runners had packed, to meet them at the finish line.
In the process, Nulty saw sweats, jackets, hats, gloves, grapes, a watermelon, even a tent, thrown into small plastic bags and tossed into the vans.
"The runners want to have some warm clothes when they get to the top," Nulty said. "Some of them look like they're going to live up there."
At the finish line, the thousands of bags were sorted by volunteers, according to the runners' entry numbers.
"I always like to bring up the rear," Nulty said. "By the time I get up there, they're always done."
ADD VANS: A total of 46 vans and six school buses were rented to bring runners down at the end of the race, with each van taking at least three or four trips. The school buses were used to help transport people from the Pikes Peak tollgate to the parking lots.
HAMMING IT UP: Mallory Jefferis and Luci Stansberry sat at their post from 5a.m. until the early evening manning the Pikes Peak Amateur Radio Emergency Service.
Jefferis and Stansberry, both members of the local ham radio club, are big on community service. Members of their club were stationed throughout the Ascent, in the event of an emergency, and checked in with both Jefferis and Stansberry, via portable radios.
With these two, however, this was serious business. There would be no goofing off over these radios.
Of course, when there aren't too many emergencies, as was the case, Jefferis and Stansberry are left with little to do.
"We just listen to people up and down the Barr Trail," Stansberry said.
INJURY REPORT: No runners were hurt beyond bumps and bruises, race director Dave Zehrer said, but one volunteer at the incline aid station badly hurt her ankle. Linda Johnson of Colorado Springs was taken off the mountain by an El Paso County Search and Rescue team and to Memorial Hospital for X-rays.