I met Twinkies at the Centerville Peak trailhead at 6:00 AM this morning. Our goal was to climb Centerville Peak, although neither of us had ever been to the top. I finally got my Garmin, and it was fun playing with it all day. The first mile on the watch was an 18:00 mile, but considering the steep grade I am definitely ok with it.
Twinkies was fast and I was constantly trying to keep up with him. We were able to run a lot of the trail, but I had to power hike up the steeper sections. We never could figure out which peak was Centerville (Twinkies I think it was the first knob we passed to the left of the trail). Just after the 3rd mile we were in snow the rest of the way, although it has a hard crust, so we didn't sink at all. I was feeling kind of nauseated and a few times I felt like I was going to lose my breakfast, so I did slow down some for about a mile.
We decided to go all the way up to an un-named peak just under 9,000 feet. The last 500 feet were steep and windy and of course Twinkies beat me to the top. Once on the summit we took some summit jump shots and then Twinkies told me he was going to "bomb it" down and he did. We both ran all the way down and the steep run in the snow off of the summit was the best part of the day for me. I was feeling really good too.
It took me two hours to get to the summit and exactly one hour back to the car. Twinkies met me with about a half mile to go (he had run back up) and it was fun running back the rest of the way. We had an amazing time and it was the perfect way to start my Saturday.
A few pics: Twinkies climbing up the snow slope
Twinkies summit jump-
Me on the summit-
|