Summit junkie!

Weights at the gym for an hour with Kristina working my upper body/core.

View Benchmark with CraigL in a blizzard:

I received the following text at 5:00 AM this morning "You sure you want to do this. It is coming down pretty hard here". Hey, as long as I'm up might as well give it a go. The drive to the trailhead on Vintage View was downright scary. Going over the point of the mountain was terrifying. It was snowing hard and really blowing and I knew we would be in for some adventure.

There was already 3-4 inches of snow on the trail, so we were breaking it all the way up to the top. Once we got onto the VB trail the wind really picked up and in the exposed parts of the trail it was pretty strong and cold. Up on the summit ridge the wind was coming from the north at well over 40 mph. It was a nice test for my new windstopper hat and my ears actually got cold. I think the hat is really good, but the wind was just a beast. We tagged the summit and went straight back down and got off of the ridge as quickly as we could.

The run down was fun flying down in the snow. We were much slower than usual out there, but the effort was definitely harder than normal plowing through the snow and in several spots our tracks from the way up were gone. Other than the really high wind near the top I was warm and felt great out there. I'm glad we didn't bail out on this one.

7 miles on the track at the gym:

12 degrees and a slight breeze after dark and I had no desire to run in that so I hit the gym to do some laps on the track. I ran a steady 7:40-7:45 pace the entire time and felt great.

Ave Twin peaks with MattW:

From I street in the Aves. It was a balmy 12 degrees when we started, but the sun was out and after about 10 minutes we were both heating up with the sun reflecting off the snow. After a mile and a half we were cooking and sweating like a couple of banshees, but as soon as we hit the upper ridge the wind was blowing and we were both instantly cold. The sun tucked behind a small cloud and with all of our sweat it really got chilly. We hit the top and took a quick break and then Matt led all the way back down. He pushed a pretty strong pace and we had fun crusing down in the snow, but as soon as we dropped down out of the wind it was another sweat fest.

Ave Twin Peaks with MattVH, MattW, ZacM and Je10:

We had a really fun group run from the Capitol building up to the Ave Twins. It was bitter cold when we started and stayed cold the entire run (5 degrees when we finished), but I only felt cold for the first minute or two and then I warmed up and felt great the rest of the morning. It was quite chilly on the summits, but we didn't linger up there at all.

Group date at the Starbucks after.

Weights at the gym for an hour working my upper body/core.

Ave Twins with MattW from i Street.

I really like starting at this trailhead. It is a bit shorter than starting from City Creek, but we didn't have much time, so this is a really good option. There was a nice packed trail from the start all the way to the summit of the first twin and we had some good conversation all the way up. From the first to the second twin we had to blaze through some deep snow, but it wasn't too bad. We hit the second peak, took a break and then cruised back to the first peak. Just before we hit the summit the KSL news chopper buzzed us and spent about 30 seconds flying around us. I'm not sure if they were filming us or what, but it was pretty cool.

We had a really fun cruise down. Just like our last run I led all the way up and Matt all the way back down. It was a really great day to get out above the inversion to play in the hills.

Matt 'working' on the second summit:

Ave Twins with Tara, MattVH and ZacM:

Oh my gosh it was cold when we started at the Capitol building at 5:30 am. We had a really fun group and I was happy it warmed up as we ascended higher on the trail. The trail is in phenomenal shape right now with nice packed snow all the way to the top of the peaks. We had some great conversation and enjoyed the views from the top. We had a very nice cruise down, but the last mile was cold again as we re-entered the gunky dirty inversion and it took me a few hours to warm back up after we finished. That was the perfect way to start my day with great friends.

Little Black Mountain attempt/Ave Twins with Je10:

In the afternoon I got back out with Je10. It took us a while to get moving because I had a work call, but once we got on the trail we had a fun run up out of the crappy air with lots of sunshine and smiles (but no unicorns). Our goal was to knock off Little Black Mountain aka Ted but due to our late start it wasn't looking great, but we were going to try. The temps above the cruddy air were super sweet as we took the turnoff over to Ted. I found some cougar tracks on the ridgeand spent the next several minutes looking for a really good one. We finally did find a couple. As we started to ascend the steep slope up Ted the trail tracks thinned out and it was going to be a total slog to get up there, so we decided to go back and tag the twins because of time.

We had a total blast cruising down some hills in the snow. I was running low on energy, so I took a gel and we finally hit the Twins and enjoyed the sweet views on top (my third summit in 24 hours). Je10 wanted to go back down the bobsled and told me it was one of her favorite downhill runs, so I agreed. I actually loved running down there and Je10 was getting in some extra miles playing on the steeper side slopes. Going down the sled did require an uphill run on pavement for almost a mile to get back tot he cars and I gave Je10 a hard time the whole way. It was actually quite fun though and I really enjoyed the run.

Je10 rockin' the short sleeves above the valley crud:

View Benchmark attempt with CraigL:

I met Craig at 5:20 am at the VB trailhead on Vintage View. We figured that someone had to be dumb enough to track out the trail since the last snow 4 days ago, but we were wrong. The snow was deep and not tracked at all from the start, so it was a major slog to say the least. 17 minutes for the first mile and I think the second was a touch longer than that with deep snow to deal with. Because of time VB was likely out, so we stayed on Ann's trail and ran back to Potato Hill and then down to the Red Rock trailhead.

The trail was actually tracked some from the tunnel back to Red Rock, so the running was a lot easier. Once we hit the trailhead we picked up the road and ran back to Vintage View. It definitely felt a lot tougher than 6.5 miles.

Ave Twins from I street with MattW:

This was my 4th summit of the Twins this week. The trail is so good right now and I would rather go where I know it is good than waste my time slogging somewhere else. I met Matt at I Street and it was pretty cold when we started. The inversion is just sick right now and I was really looking forward to getting up above it and maybe finding the sun. It took a few miles to break out of the muck and unfortunately there was a layer of clouds above the inversion that hid the sun, so it wasn't much warmer up there, but the air was a lot cleaner to breathe.

We weren't super fast, just plugged away and bagged both peaks and hung out for a few minutes checking out the dirty air down below. SICK! On the way down we could feel/smell/taste the difference as soon as we hit the thick soupy air. Yuck! Another peak bagged.

Lake Mountain with CraigL:

I love early morning Sunday runs. Craig and I had a really sweet run up Lake Mountain. This is one of my favorite training runs in the winter because it gets tracked out by a snowcat and the conditions are usually very good. It was cold, but not terrible and the air was clean and fresh getting out of the inversion. We saw so many deer and on the way to the saddle we saw 3 big bucks that we watched for a few minutes. Up toward the saddle we could hear some loud crashing and as we got near the top we could see two huge bucks jousting and banging their racks together. There was a bush just off the road that allowed us some cover as we slowly made our way closer. We got within about 30-40 feet from them and they didn't even notice us. One of the bucks had a huge rack and the other one was really big. Big ol bucks like these rarely let you get this close to them and it was kind of a stroke of luck that they were more worried about showing their dominance with each other and that allowed us to sneak up on them. We watched for several minutes as they crashed into each other. Eventually the big guy sensed something was up and started looking our direction. We held very still for a few minutes, but he knew something wasn't right. We started getting cold and we had been there for several minutes watching, so we stepped back onto the road and watched them bound up the mountain slope. Awesome. A few minutes later we could see them going at it again as we climbed to the peak.

We hit the summit and took a few minutes to enjoy the view. The run down was fast. After we got back down to the road it seemed like we pushed a sub 7 pace most of the way back. Craig said we were running 6:20-6:50. It was a total blast. We didn't see another soul up there and had a really fun time.

Something big in the works for Friday night, so I better taper.

Weights at the gym for an hour working my upper body and core.

3 easy peasy to stay loose.

View Benchmark and Mt. Olympus adventure with CraigL:

Craig and I were supposed to run the Pony Express 100 course, but the snow storm we had along the Wasatch Front made that an iffy proposition. We knew there was at least 6 inches on the road out there with more in the forecast, so we decided to just stick close to home and try and adventure run. We wanted to run VB, Olympus and Grandeur without using a car, so it would be about 40ish miles and some really good vert. The forecast was for more snow, so we knew it would be challenging, but it would also be a lot of fun and we would just make the best of whatever we had to deal with.

I met Craig at 4:00 AM and we were on the trail (Ann's-Vintage View) by 4:15. It was windy, cold and snowing and the trail was not tracked out at all. We had to slog through several inches all the way up and it really slowed us down, but we had a great time laughing and chatting. I think that was our slowest ascent of VB ever. The ridge was cold and the snow was deep. It was still dark when we hit the top and we didn't stay long. We ran down to the trailhead and picked up the road where we ran on pavement to the top of Clark's trail. It was still snowing pretty hard up there.

We jumped on the trail to Clark's and after about 100 yards I was flat on my back after hitting some solid ice that was covered by a thin layer of powder. That sucked. On our way to Clark's we ran into some runners and I shouted something like "What are you dumbarses doing out here". It happened to be someone we know, Sam Jewkes and a few friends, so we chatted with them for a few minutes. We ran over to the Corner Canyon road and then down that and jumped on the BST. The conditions were horrible and we were really slow, but still having a great time. The next 3 miles were a total slog and I have never been so ready to get on pavement in my life. We finally made it to Willow Park (mile 13) and I felt like I was at mile 25. The next 9 miles were on the road to the Olympus trailhead. It felt good to get out of the deep snow, but it seemed like we were constantly going uphill and after a few miles I got tired of the constant exhaust and noise from the cars and it was a reminder to me why I run on the trails. It continued to snow on us the rest of the day.

We stopped at the 7-11 on 7200 S. to use the bathroom, but didn't buy anything because our friends MattW and JoshG were meeting us at the Oly trailhead with food and drinks. It was almost another 2 miles to the trailhead and I was really looking forward to some food and a quick rest. We finally made it (mile 22) and the boys had some great snacks and drinks. We had both been pretty wet for a few hours, so just stopping for a few minutes would make us pretty cold and even though I had the heater blowing on me I started to shiver. I downed some Mountain Dew, cookies, chips and some candy and I was ready to tackle Olympus. Josh and Matt would be joining us up to the peak.

This might have been my slowest trip up Olympus ever. Maybe when I was a fat hiker back in the day I was slower, but it sure seemed slow. The trail was packed, but there was a thin layer of fine powdery snow on top of icy snow, so we slipped a lot and it was pretty miserable going up, although we were laughing pretty hard most of the way up. It seemed like it took forever to reach the saddle and on the way up we both knew that Grandeur was out because if time. It had taken us a few hours longer than we hoped because of the weather/snow, but our effort was a lot more than the miles would indicate. The chute leading to the summit was snow covered and icy and it took longer than usual, but we finally made it to the top. There was a pretty thick cloud that had enveloped the mountain, so the views weren't great, but we didn't care.

I thought the descent was going to be horrible, but it ended up being ok. I only slipped and went down once and I was preparing to hit the deck more than a few times. Craig and Matt got out ahead of us and Josh and I ran the entire way back to the cars together chatting about our plans for 2014. I was pretty hammered when we finished and it felt like I had gone 50 miles. I think that was the toughest 29 miles I have ever run, but we had a great time despite the weather. I really want to do this again and throw in Grandeur on dry trails. It would make it so much easier.

Weights at the gym for an hour working upper body/core.

Lake Mountain with Kendall and Neasts. Summit #100:

MattVH had an awesome idea to leave presents for his running friends on the tops of mountains and on various trails around the Wasatch and the 3 of us had a pretty good clue that we would find our goods up on top, so we made it happen.

Neasts brought along her son, his friend and another friend, Arianne. It was a really fun group and I had a great time. We found the loot on top (Thanks Matt) and enjoyed the run down. Arianne flew back down to her car and the boys took it a little slower, so the 3 of us FRBers ran all the way back down together. It was a blast.

This was also my 100th peak for 2013. Back in July (prime peak bagging season) when I hurt my knee I thought hitting 100 would be iffy, but I came on strong the last few months and made it happen. That is 3 years in a row above 100. Wahoo.

Alpine trails with Jacob:

I live in Utah County, but do about 80-90% of my running on the trails near SLC. One of my goals for 2014 will be to run more near my home, so when Jacob invited me to go run some trails in Alpine I happily accepted because I want to learn that trail system up there. He wasn't sure what trail we were on, but I think it could have been the BST ??? I know we ended up over by Lambert park and near the Dry Creek trail. I really enjoyed the trail and I will definitely go back again.

Ave Twin Peaks solo:

I had an excellent run to the Ave Twins from I Street. It was pretty warm out and when I got above the inversion it was hot. I could have easily been in shorts and a t-shirt up there. I really enjoyed running in the sun and I wore my ipod for the first time in quite some time on the trails. I just cranked the tunes and enjoyed the run. Peak #101.

PM: Weights at the gym for an hour with Kristina. I had a really good session and worked out with one of my friends to mix in some new material. I was pretty wrecked.

Lake Mountain with Je10 and Jack:

There was a pretty big group running Lake Mountain, but some of us had to work, so Je10 and I showed up and just as we were about to leave a car pulled in and we met Jack who would join us. He was doing a double, so he wasn't interested in going fast, but we hung out together for the first few miles and then Je10 and I dropped him and cruised up to the summit. It was a perfect morning and I really enjoyed hitting the top in the dark. We had a nice cruise on the way down and Je10 pushed a really good pace and we just chatted away until we ran into the 7:00 AM group going up. We stopped to talk with Neasts and Sam for a few and then ran it in. This was the last peak of the year (#102) and the perfect way to end 2013.