What an adventure. I decided to try to do my first Timp summit for the year. I was on the trail at 1:30 a.m. I noticed the first snow near Scout Falls....not good, that is way too low for snow. Well, I've been up and down that mountain many times early in the season when in still had tons of snow. I knew the safe snow routes to take.
I caught up and passed a couple groups who were trying to keep their feet dry in an area where the runoff was flowing down the trail. After the rock slide, I caught up to another group wandering around in the giant snow field slope. They couldn't figure out where the trail continued. I gave them stern words that they should not be attempting the trail this early in the season if they had not ever been up it before, and certainly not in the dark. That could be disaster if they went off track. They wanted me to guide them, but I told them I would be going too fast. So, I took off, but they kept following. So after awhile I looked out for them, warned them whent they were off the trail. We had tons of snow fields to cross. There was more snow than trail. When we reached the huge snow slope below the basin, I explained where the trail was under the snow but said I was going straight up the slope. They watched me go and didn't follow my route.
When I arrived in the basin (10,000 feet), I could see that it was still almost totally covered in 1-2 feet of snow. In some places the snow was six feet or more. Wow, this was the most I have seen up there. I was wearing my micro spikes on my shoes, and they were doing super. I had great traction.
I crossed the basin with no problem and then looked up to attack the slope up to a shelf under the saddle. The trail was totally covered in snow, it would be of no help. In the past I just headed toward the sound of the water fall and found the safe route through the cliffs. But this morning I heard three water falls. I just couldn't see well enough in the dark to find the right route. I made my way up and was probably only about 30 yards from being on the shelf, but the final yards would involve a rock climb. I probably was in the wrong place. I knew once I got by this area, I would face one more steep snow slope to get up to the saddle and then it would be clear trail to the summit. But I decided this just wasn't worth it. This wasn't running, it was slow mountain snow climbing, so I headed back down. I wimped out, I've done this before in the dark going up snow slopes, but I felt nervous in the dark. It didn't look like anyone had yet gone up above the basin this season. Oh well, I made it up to 10,500. I could do this in the day, but it will be much easier in a couple weeks.
I crossed back over the basin and then found the group just arriving. I warned them not to try to go above the basin since there was no trail and they had no clue where the correct route was. I had a nice fun run down and dawn arrived. We had tramped down a pretty good trail in the snow all the way up to the basin, so I expect lots of hikers to start making their way up to that point.
I decided to go for some real running in the beautiful morning with all the aspens. As I was about to start, I ran into Thayne Clark and Scott Holmes out for a run up and over Alpine Loop to Aspen Grove and back. I asked if I could join in. We had a great run. Thayne knows all those trails very well and took us on all sorts of nice routes. It was great fun and I had a nice workout.
As I was driving home through Lehi, I saw several runners on the road. I thought, "I wonder if Smooth is out running?" Sure enough, in another block I drove by Smooth. I rolled down the window and yelled and hello. | 