Grandeur Peak loop with Jun, Dorsimus and MattVS.
This is one of my favorite training runs. I met the guys at 7:00 am at the west ridge trailhead. Well, I met Jun and Dors, but Matt was nowhere to be found. His car was there so we speculated about where he was and after about 10 minutes we decided to start and he came running down the trail. Dealing with a case of insomnia he decided to get up early and do a lap to the summit and then meet us for round two. Awesome.
It was pretty windy to start and after about 10 minutes it was calm and warm as we made our way up the ridge. Jun went out a little faster and I spent most of the time on the way up with Dors with Matt not far behind. We reached the summit in 1:11 and took a break to snap some pics and I had a gel. Jun had to go back down because of time constraints, but we continued on down the Church Fork trail to the Pipeline. The fall colors are at a peak right now and the trail was absolutely unreal. Stunning views in every direction. We ran the Pipeline at a pretty casual pace and at Rattlesnake Gulch Matt and I decided to go down to the canyon road instead of up and over the saddle following the Grandeur Fun Run trail. MattVS looked a little disappointed that we weren't going up. Come on Matt, you already had almost 7K in elevation gain on the day. He is definitely a vert whore (one of the reasons I love the guy).
The run down Rattlesnake was fast and fun, but unfortunately we didn't see the Millcreek flasher to the dismay of everyone. We ran down the canyon road and then back to our car at a pretty decent pace. It was an incredible morning.
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