All day - 33 Virgin River Rim Trail. Have wanted to run this full trail for years, so we just kinda did a quick throw together planning of this trail last night. Met up at the store at 4:30 and drove up Cedar Mt. to Strawberry Pont. We didn't have a ride back to the trailhead at this point in time, but eventually got ahold of Hayden who graciously volunteered his day to tote us all over the place. Started the tail at about 6:30 with high hopes and great attitudes. Saw deer, elk and antelope throughout the day. Views off the cliffs and down into Zion were absolutely unmatched and indescribable. Dodged some intense thunderstorms with only brief lightning and hail. Unfortunately, Logan wasn't feeling too hot and struggled a bit. Steve drank his water pretty quick and when I dumped some of mine into his, I spilled most of mine. So he and I dropped off the trail to a campground my Navajo Lake to refill and Logan continued on. When we got back the trail, I noticed no footprints on the trail and worried Logan may have missed a trail sign. By 16-17 Steve and I were both getting pretty spent too. Still no Logan and we should have caught him by now. More amazing views and spectacular single-track trail through the high aspen and pine forest. Finally at about 26 I started to feel a little better and ran a few faster miles through a picturesque aspen meadow. Got to the "end" of the trail and waited for Steven at the trailhead for about 20 minutes. Started to go back and get him when he came out of the forest. Turned out he lost his phone and spent a bunch of time looking through the meadow for it without any luck. Still no Logan. Kind of had to guess at which direction to drop off the mountain to Woods Ranch, but had a decent idea and we guessed right. Got down there and Hayden was waiting for us. But not Logan. So I waited in case he showed up while Hayden took Steve to the car at the top of the trail. I really figured we would need to car the sheriff and have them search for Logan. But I had a very good idea where he had missed the trail and that would give us a good direction to look. I told Steve, best case was that Logan had backtracked and worked his way to the highway. Sure enough, after a few minutes they came and got me with a stranger they had picked up on the highway. After getting the car we went back to where Steve lost his phone and ran in just over a mile to look again. Still no luck, bummer. Overall and awesome experience. Would like to do it again when I was feeling better and when Logan was feeling better. So beautiful up there. Truly inspiring. (VertK 497) | 