Like the canyon

Indian trail up to the shack and back.  Easy pace, hot.

7 miles in the wheelhouse.

Annual O-town Ben run.  Left later than I wanted so saw everyone coming back down. Kept it pretty easy but it felt like work. Nice easy jog all the way to the peak again.  1:34 to the top.  

Beautiful night out after the rain.  Hard to describe the view from the top of Malan's.  Setting sun, alpenglow, mist blowing in and out.  Pretty cool.  Wasn't trying at all, but I think I PR'ed the up, really need to start carrying a watch.  Left the car at 8:30-31 Ipod time hit the peak at 9:02, give or take some seconds so about 32 minutes, which would make it a PR.

Took the BST out to the Waterfall low trail/pond loop back to 27th. 

6.5-7 miles, 2800 vert or so.

Recovery loop.  5 miles, easy pace. 

Quad sister O pAiN.  That thing is a  D*#n rough son of a B*%#.  Especially with one water bottle and when its already 80 degrees at 7:00 AM, brilliant!  I filled up at the barely trickling spring on Indian, but was out again by the time I hit the top.  Did Hidden (hiking) without water at the end, again ,brilliant! Always good to get a massive dehydration induced bonk once in a while, just to remember the feeling....sheesh!

19ish miles, 7500 vert.  Good end to a good week,

14,500 feet in 4 days, and about 17,000 for the week, might be a new high for a week, I need ot check that...

Miles: ?? 60 or so. 

7 miles of easy cruise'en.  Felt pretty good all in all.  Hot of course.

Nice little cruise up to Lewis Peak that included a rabid squirrel, out of control baby sage grouse, sleeping rattlesnake, and a near mountain lion encounter. Wild one out there tonight. 

Easy paced 1:03 to the top, a little longer on the way down with all the critters around.

Very nice sunset from the peak.

I have no appreciation for these things... 

AM: Walked out of the house for my moring run to see this

Yep, that's Taylor Canyon and from what I could see it looked like  the fire was right on the Malan's Peak trail....which is where I was headed.  Lot's of timber and lots of fuel in there so I imagined the worst....Felt like I was loosing a good friend.

A quick drive up the street and I could see it was 1/2 mile east of the Malan's trail and it looked like it was a single tree burning.

Drove up 27th street and there were several forrest service trucks, they were on it.  I ran up to Taylor canyon and bumped in to a firefighter walking down and ribbon marking the trail for the other crews to follow.  Really good guy, said they had been on the North Ogden fire until 3:00 AM and got called out to this one.  I walked up with him for a bit, even offering to carry some of the gear, those guys are tough, it was hot and they are decked out head to toe and carry alot of gear. He gave me the go ahead to continue up the trail, which I did until I ran into a group of 5 firefighters who asked me to turn around.  I thanked them for their hard work, turned around, ran 100 yards down the trail, crossed the creek and hiked around above them, I know....but there really wasn't any close danger. 

Ran up Malan's took some good pictures of the fire and was relived to see it was contained in low brush and rock.....Very, very lucky.  Any other spot on that whole hillside and the thing woulda burned huge all the way to Snowbasin .

PM: Got out for a nice hike with the boys to this little piece of tropical paradise up Taylor Canyon.  Pure spring water, cold and clean.

Ran into the same firefighter I walked up with this morning.  Poor guys had been sitting on the hillside all day in 100+ degree heat keeping any eye on the fire....Kind of a cool job, but gotta be pure misery on days like today.

Home for dinner then a nice 45 minute easy cruise just after sunset. 

AM: 6:00 AM Easy paced cruise up "the hill" with a BST loop and on.  Saw the old guard coming down and a pack of HUMR's.

PM: Muggy 5 miles on the BST in the dark...Bluh.

AM: South lower/upper BST loop.

PM: Not much..

 Wild day on the peaks this afternoon.  Got a late start so I was hoping for a little cloud cover and some weather.  Got just what I wanted, windy, fogged in, a little mist of rain. Perfect.

Cruised up the BL, said hey to the Camo guys looking for goats in all the wrong places, Ha! I'm not going to tell them where they're at. Beautiful misty ridge running over to Willard.  Solid power hike to the peak.....then I don't know what went wrong but I got turned around in the fog and instead of going south, ended up going north off the end of the peak and ended up right back where I started....walking in circles...what an idiot.  Guess I was a litlle distracted by these guys:

Ghosts in the fog....It seemed I kept stumbling into heards over every rock out cropping. They are pretty tame up here and used to people, but they did have little one's with them and the fact that a dozen or so get picked off every year by Camo types like I saw earlier (they might have a grudge) meant I tried to give them some space.

Back to the car and up Lewis for ways before the lightening and a very intense down pour turned me around....worried about all the slow movers in jeans and t-shirts I passed up on BL that were no doubt caught up high by the deluge.....

Day: 24ish miles, around  6800 vert

Week: 70 miles, just about 17,000 vert, 34,000 for two weeks.

AM: Nice dry shirt hike up Malan's.  Felt great to not run a step of the up. 41 minutes up, 1:04 RT. Easy pace.

PM: Hour or so in the rain, easy.

About 11 miles and 3200 vert.

AM: 5 miles cruiser BST loop. Easy pace

PM: Indian out-n-back a bit beyond the shed with a BST waterfall loop tacked on.  Moderate pace, pushed a bit going up last part of Indian.  Strange animal encounters continue, including: five white tail deer (which is odd in itself) bounding over Indian trail in front of me, more rattlesnakes, a pitch black no light  face to face with a deer less than a 1/4 mile from the car.

13 miles, 3100 vert.

PM: Tired legged Snowbasin 13.1 loop. Lovely miles and miles of single track. Started slow but rallied mid run for a nice solid tempo run. Felt slow but finished in 1:50.05, within seconds of a PR.  Managed a 6:25 last mile down Wheeler which was a bit kamakazi for me. 

13.0 miles, 2100 vert, 

Just Malan's...Took my 12 year old and we power hiked at a good clip.  He did great, kept up and no complaining, even hung on the run down. One of the best alpenglow sunset displays I've ever seen from the peak, even included a double rainbow.  Added a little loop to get 5  miles or so.

5 miles

2300 vert.

Been wanting to get up and do this one again since I first ran it last year. I'm still calling it the best route in our local hills.  Has a bit of it all, sweet mellow single track, brutal climbs, some off trail scrambling, ridge running, lots of peaks and a big 5000 foot drop back to the car. 

I was beat going in, and was prepared to turn around at any point if I wasn't feeling it. The first 10 miles climb almost 5000 feet to the top of Mt Allen, and it was slow and painful on heavy legs.  I did run (with ample shuffling) every step to the peak again, and comparing to last year's Garmin data, I guess I PR'ed by less than a minute, wouldn't have guessed that at all. 

Pretty much that's where all comparison's ended.  The last half was a struggle, I was shot! Death marched and shuffled the last 5 miles, "Running" down Wheeler's slower than I ran up. Ha! looking forward to a few very easy daze!

Pics from last year:

Been wanting to get up and do this one again since I first ran it last year. I'm still calling it the best route in our local hills.  Has a bit of it all, sweet mellow single track, brutal climbs, some off trail scrambling, ridge running, lots of peaks and a big 5000 foot drop back to the car. 

I was beat going in, and was prepared to turn around at any point if I wasn't feeling it. The first 10 miles climb almost 5000 feet to the top of Mt Allen, and it was slow and painful on heavy legs.  I did run (with ample shuffling) every step to the peak again, and comparing to last year's Garmin data, I guess I PR'ed by less than a minute, wouldn't have guessed that at all. 

Pretty much that's where all comparison's ended.  The last half was a struggle, I was shot! Death marched and shuffled the last 5 miles, "Running" down Wheeler's slower than I ran up. Ha! looking forward to a few very easy daze!

Run stats: 22.5 miles, 5900 vert

Week: 17,000 vert, 71 miles

Pics from last year:

Ridge section starts on rocky peak on the right (Mt Allen) and follows the skyline over all the high points to the peak on the far left.

Mt Ogden on left and Allen on right on the way up.

Teton loop!

I've had this one on the to do list for a couple of years now.  Getting up the Mddle Teton and doing a couple of runs on the Idaho side of the range earlier this summer left me wanting to get back to the Tetons and get this one done. 

A tight shedule made this a quick trip.  I left home around 6:30 PM on Monday, pulled into the boat ramp parking lot at Jenny Lake just before midnight, threw my bag in the back of the truck, set the alarm for 4:30 and crashed hard. I woke up a couple hours later to a starless sky and a trickle of rain and really hoped I hadn't driven 5 hours to get rained out.  Alarm went off at 4:30 and it was still slightly drizzly and no stars, it was too early to get a look at the sky and assess the weather.  Decided to sleep a couple more hours, until I could get a look at the sky. 

Waking up at first light, it was cloudy and the peaks were a bit socked in, but the weather looked like it might hold or get better, so got my stuff together to leave, throwing in my rain shell with a hood, some light gloves and a hat, just in case. I left Jenny Lake sometime around 6:30 in the morning headed clockwise. 

The elevation profile (stolen from Matt Hart' trip report) above is for a counter-clockwise loop.  That direction would be better for speed, but clockwise, in my opinion, is a little more asthetic.

Blurry first moring light.  Fun little single track between Jenny Lake boat ramp and Lupine Meadows TH.

Bradley lake I think (Taggart maybe?) A few miles in and nothing but fun, fun rolling trail to this point.  In a few miles I would intersect with a very lonely and seldom used section of the Valley Trail that connects to Phelps Lake and the Death Canyon Trail.  It's about 3.5 miles of very overgrown, densely wooded, seldom traveld by people, very prime bear habitat. Bear scatt in several places on the trail, the time of day, and being alone made for a reasonably tense 3.5 miles.

Beautiful trail up Death Canyon.  First ime on this trail and it was amazing! The trail climbs steady next to the creek up to the skyline and then transitions into gorgeous valley.

Valley in the top of Death Canyon.  Pic was taken from the trail up to Static Peak Pass, which is a huge, unrelenting climb. 

Nearing the top of Static Peak Pass.  Looking back to the East at Phelps lake and the Snake River. The trail skirted the lower left edge of Phelps before climbing to here.

Getting above tree line. Looking up trail from about the same spot ther last pic was taken.

Looking across to the West from the Static Peak Pass at a really cool hidden lake.

Looking North for Static toward Alaska Basin. Trail is just visable cutting through center right. About 18-19 miles in at this point. Biggest climb out of the way.  Running on cloud 9!

Looking back toward Static from my little detour into the unknown.  My mental map notes said to stay runners right coming into Alaska Basin, but apparently not too far right.  I ended up on the sucker trail you can see cutting across the talus.  It lead to a pass and dead ended. Probably added a mile and 800 feet of climbing. 

Back on track and wildflower running in Alaska Basin.

More of the same. Stunning place to be.

Starting the climb up to Hurrican Pass, looking back up A. Basin toward Static Pass. Mile 24 or so.

Approaching the top of Hurricane Pass, the Grand and Middle Tetons coming into full view. Pics don't do it justice, incrediable place to be. Mile 26 or so.

Great view of the Southwest col route on the Middle Teton.  This is the route I did a couple of weeks ago.  Follows the talus slope from the saddle up through the v-shaped notch in the rock above.  Looks like the icey spot that had my shaking in my shoes is finally gone.

Looking forward to some downhill runn'en.  Cresting the pass and headed into the top of Cascade Canyon. 

Upper part of Cascade Canyon.  There may not be a prettier spot in the lower 48 than the top of Hurricane Pass into Cascade Canyon.

Long descent from here.  The trail got more and more crowed the closer I got to the boat drop off from Jenny Lake. The last few miles down to the lake were pretty much very slow walking.  It got to the point where I would have to have been completely rude to pass people or just settle in behind the conga line and pass when I could.  I really had no idea it was possible to walk as slowly as some people moving however.

The couple miles around the lake seemed to take forever.  I was out of water, it was getting a little hot and still too many people and too narrow of a trail to really run much.  This is one of the biggest reasons I think the counter-clockwise loop would be much faster. One would get through this section of trail early, before the masses of slow walkers showed up. 

Made the loop back to the truck and settled in with a cold Coke I begged off a nice couple from Arkansas parked next to me. Next to Kalalau Trail, this might be the new #1 on the list of best adventure runs.  Perfect loop, just the right amount of climbing, not too long or too short, and non-stop vistas to whole way.

Stats:

Around 36 miles with the detour, 8100-8800 vert, 7:48 on the watch with one clock stop at the top of Hurricane Pass.  I would guess the crowds on the trial in the last bit added 30-40 minutes.

Packed up, grabbed a bite in Jackson Hole and made it home by 8:15.  Almost under 24 hours for the whole trip.

AM: Easy 6 

PM: Hour on the trainer

Helped out at the Speedgoat 50k.  Good to see so many friends running well.  Watching Tony K descend off Baldy is an image that will stay with me for a long time.  Amazingly fast. Probably logged a few miles running water back and forth to runners and running/hiking between the Hidden peak aid and the tunnel aid. 

Easy paced 8 miles or so in the heat. Bluh.

AM: Easy 6

PM: Malan's PR. Had no intention of running a PR, just wanted a solid paced run up and down.  Ended up with a 49:53 RT, with two pit stops for a shoe tie, a few moments of digging around in the leaves and deep cursing when a bush ripped my Ipod out of my pocket, and deep inhalation of ganja when I ran through a freshly exhaled cloud and a group of hippies. Felt like a good effort, but wasn't all out. 4.5 miles, 2250 vert.