Summit junkie!

We had a really good Mothers Day, visiting family and eating waaaaay too much. After the kids were in bed I worked my abs for 40 minutes and did 20 minutes of stretching. I rolled my ITB's and they are both really sore.

45 minutes on the elliptical after the kids were in bed. I watched the Jazz get destroyed by the Lakers, but I could only take it for so long and I ended up putting on some Survivorman.

I also rolled my ITB and stretched.

I took yesterday off to rest my legs, and I didn't want to do anything too serious, so I did another 45 on the elliptical. Exactly like Monday.

I also rolled my ITB and stretched.

I will be getting up early tomorrow to lift at the gym and then Friday I am going to climb up Tanners Gulch in Little Cottonwood and hit one of the peaks on the ridge. Next Wed I am probably going to do North Timp via the Cold Fusion Couloir, which is a steep chute on the north face of the mountain. I'm excited to finally hit some sweet Spring mountaineering routes.

I woke up early this morning to lift at the gym and I had a really good workout. I warmed up on the machines for 15 minutes, and then used the free weights for the next 30. Everything felt really good. I had some extra time, so I finished with 4 on the TM at a nice and slow 9:00 pace.

I had a crazy morning. My alarm went off at 3:30 and I was trying to get out of the house by 3:50, but I accidentally spilled a container of spaghetti sauce all over the kitchen tile. D'oh! It took me 10 minutes to clean it up and I was rushing to get out of the door.

I met Trevor and Matt at the Little Cottonwood Park-n-ride at 4:30. Trevor is an avid backcountry skier with over 130 days in this season. He is a really cool guy and was sporting a tye dye shirt and a Hawaiian swim suit over his ski pants. We met Lana at the Tanners slide area parking lot and geared up. The goal was to climb Tanners Gulch and Sunrise Peak.

Tanners is a steep couloir (chute) that has a reputation of being one of the most avalanche prone areas in the Wasatch, so it doesn't get climbed much until May. The conditions looked to be good and Matt had climbed it 5 days before and it was perfect, so he said snowshoes would not be needed. Lana already had them strapped to her pack, so she decided to leave them on.

We started a few minutes before 5:00 and within 10 minutes we were in the gulch heading up the steep snow. It was really cool seeing the headlamps going up the snow and making their way into the gulch.

After about 30 minutes we ran into a huge problem. The snow had a hard crust, but it was only a few inches deep, and below it was much softer, so we started to break through and post-hole. Matt and I were hoping that the conditions would change the higher we went, while Trevor put his skins on his skis, and Lana put on her snowshoes. They quickly started putting distance between us, as we were totally bogged down in the snow. Every step was a struggle as we sank up to our knees and we both cursed under our breath knowing we should have brought the snowshoes.

We took turns breaking the trail and Lana and Trevor got way ahead. After an hour we had only gone .6 miles and I had to laugh at the thought of what our first mile split would be. Eventually we decided that we were not going to make it to the top of the gulch in time to summit, so Matt wanted to turn back because he had to get to work. We went up for 1:40 before we decided to turn back. We called Lana and she was going to keep going for the top and Trevor had picked a different line to ski as he was sinking to his waist in snow and really struggling.

After a tough start we both had a really good glissade (slide on our butts) for a good portion of the way down. When we were almost to the bottom Trevor came gliding down on his skis. He said the conditions only got worse, so he decided to bail too. We ran into pieces of an animal (we think maybe a beaver) that had been a meal for something probably earlier in the night. There was a stomach, some teeth, a piece of a jaw, some hair and blood and that was it. It looked like coyote tracks in the snow. It was kind of gross.

We made it back to the car in 2:31. Lana went all the way to the top and ran into some really spooky conditions with a lot of sugary snow, so she decided to turn back and I think that was the right move.

It was a fun day, but a little disappointing. The only silver lining is that my legs are still pretty fresh, so I can run in the Grandeur Peak Fun Run tomorrow. I will post s few pics and a video later.

Climbing the gulch

Skiing Tanners

What a fun day! I did the Grandeur Peak Fun Run this morning. It is a free trail race that starts at the Grandeur Peak West Ridge trailhead, goes up and over the peak, down through Church Fork to the Pipeline trail and then over Rattle Snake Gulch and back to the trailhead. This would be my first trail race and I was excited.  I got to the parking lot a few minutes before the start and met Twinkies there. I did see a few familiar faces and a lot of serious looking trail runners. I thought I was probably out of my league here, but it was going to be fun to see what I could do.

After writing our names down and waiting for a few minutes the race started with everyone running up the trail. I was in the middle of the pack and very quickly the trail becomes too steep to run. This is one of the steeper trails in the Wasatch and it pretty much goes straight up the mountain. I was doing very well and feeling great power hiking up the trail, passing people along the way and not very many people were passing me, which I thought was a good sign. I figured that this would be the only place on the whole course were I would have any advantage over some of the runners because I have been doing a lot of elevation hiking and running.

We all settled in after about 15 minutes I didn't pass many people and I was only passed a few times before reaching the summit. After I reached the first mile I could still see Twinkies ahead of me and I was surprised because he usually motors up the peaks a lot quicker than I do, so I figured I must not be doing too bad and I was feeling great.

At the 45:00 mark I was hiking with an older guy and his dog that I would see on the trail the rest of the way. He commented that I was doing great and that we were about 15 minutes from the summit. I was hoping to hit the summit in 1:20, so that made me realize that I was going up a lot faster than I thought I would. The summit ridge has some snow, and it did slow us down a little, but it wasn't too serious. I hit the summit at 1:06 and it was easily the quickest ascent of the peak for me. After giving my name to the guys on the summit I headed down quickly. The trail still had a lot of snow and there were a few places that were technical. A guy in front of me fell, although it wasn't anything serious.

I actually motored down pretty well and was feeling really good. Only a few people passed me heading down Church Fork and one of them was Twinkies. I was shocked to see him behind me and found out that he had taken the wrong trail following someone else. He cruised past me and I didn't see him again until the finish. I passed a lady just before the Pipeline trail and then once I hit the Pipeline, the trail flattens out and heads down the canyon. This was the toughest part of the race for me and my pace slowed a lot. I think about 8 people passed me here and I was losing energy.

At Rattlesnake Gulch I stopped to rest and take a Hammer Gel and it almost made me puke, Yuck! I took off my long sleeved shirt and while I was stopped two more people passed me. Heading up the Gulch was tough. It was steep and a little muddy and my energy was down, but after I got to the top I was feeling much better and the rest of the way my energy was really there. Nobody else passed me the rest of the way and I picked up my pace.

I finished in 50th place (not sure how many people there were) but I felt really good and my knee which has been bothering me for two months didn't give me any problems at all. It was only slightly tight and I felt like I could have easily kept going without any issues.

This was a really fun race and I will be back to do it again every year. It was definitely a tough course, but I loved every minute of it.