After our surprising and dominant (surprisingly dominant) intramurals victory last night, my brother and I were under the impression that we'd be playing again tomorrow. That turned out to be wrong, but by the time I had figured that out I had already made plans to take advantage of my light Friday schedule and do my long run today. So, I dropped Catherine off at the bus this morning and then headed up to Grove Creek Canyon. I had no actual plan for my run this morning, so I started with an out and back up the canyon to the bench. There was less snow up there than there was on Wednesday, but what remained was slick and bulletproof. Even so, I finished the climb in a not terrible 26:25. I made a leisurely descent, and on my way back down I thought about just running laps up the canyon. I had convinced myself that that was the way to go, but when I got back to my car to drop off some layers I changed my mind and headed south on the BST. By that point I was thinking I would run an out and back to the Orem trailhead and finish with another lap up the canyon if I felt like it. But when I got to Dry Creek I changed my mind and headed up the canyon to Trail 51 to scout a route for next weekend. Bad idea. The trail conditions went from sloppy to impassable so gradually that by the time I realized I should turn around I was at the halfway point and it made just as much sense to keep going. For some reason, there are still massive amounts of snow up there, despite all the direct sunlight. The only explanations I can think of are that 1) the snow builds up in deep drifts along that trail, and 2) the trail is much higher up than I thought. Whatever the explanation, I was postholing through knee- to thigh-high snow for way longer than I would have liked to. After more than an hour during which I covered just over two miles, I emerged in Battle Creek Canyon with bloody shins and soaked and frozen hands and feet. I was hoping the Battle Creek trail would be in similar condition to the Dry Creek and Grove Creek trails, but no such luck. Battle Creek is probably the coolest of the three canyons, but it also gets the least sun, and winter isn't nearly as quick to retreat. Add in some super technical singletrack and two numb feet, and the going was slow. At one of the many bridge crossings near the bottom, I overtook two girls and a guy hiking down the canyon. The guy and one of the girls were on the other side of the bridge were waiting for their friend, who was slowly picking her way across. I could tell she was nervous, so I stood back and waited for her to cross before crossing myself. But then her friend told her there was a runner behind her, so she looked back, saw me, got startled, slipped, fell on her butt, and started crying. Awkward. Anyways, from there to the bottom of the canyon the trail widened into a dirt road that was covered with enough clear ice that it felt more like a skating rink than a trail. I moved over and ran through the bushes on the shoulder, which allowed me to make it down without further incident. From the mouth of the canyon it was a short run back to the car, and I was so glad to be done. In short, 13 miles in just under three hours. The appeal of mountain running is the adventure, but it doesn't always work to your advantage.
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