Summit junkie!

Weights at the gym for an hour working my upper body/core.

Ave Twins with MattW from i Street.

I really like starting at this trailhead. It is a bit shorter than starting from City Creek, but we didn't have much time, so this is a really good option. There was a nice packed trail from the start all the way to the summit of the first twin and we had some good conversation all the way up. From the first to the second twin we had to blaze through some deep snow, but it wasn't too bad. We hit the second peak, took a break and then cruised back to the first peak. Just before we hit the summit the KSL news chopper buzzed us and spent about 30 seconds flying around us. I'm not sure if they were filming us or what, but it was pretty cool.

We had a really fun cruise down. Just like our last run I led all the way up and Matt all the way back down. It was a really great day to get out above the inversion to play in the hills.

Matt 'working' on the second summit:

Ave Twins with Tara, MattVH and ZacM:

Oh my gosh it was cold when we started at the Capitol building at 5:30 am. We had a really fun group and I was happy it warmed up as we ascended higher on the trail. The trail is in phenomenal shape right now with nice packed snow all the way to the top of the peaks. We had some great conversation and enjoyed the views from the top. We had a very nice cruise down, but the last mile was cold again as we re-entered the gunky dirty inversion and it took me a few hours to warm back up after we finished. That was the perfect way to start my day with great friends.

Little Black Mountain attempt/Ave Twins with Je10:

In the afternoon I got back out with Je10. It took us a while to get moving because I had a work call, but once we got on the trail we had a fun run up out of the crappy air with lots of sunshine and smiles (but no unicorns). Our goal was to knock off Little Black Mountain aka Ted but due to our late start it wasn't looking great, but we were going to try. The temps above the cruddy air were super sweet as we took the turnoff over to Ted. I found some cougar tracks on the ridgeand spent the next several minutes looking for a really good one. We finally did find a couple. As we started to ascend the steep slope up Ted the trail tracks thinned out and it was going to be a total slog to get up there, so we decided to go back and tag the twins because of time.

We had a total blast cruising down some hills in the snow. I was running low on energy, so I took a gel and we finally hit the Twins and enjoyed the sweet views on top (my third summit in 24 hours). Je10 wanted to go back down the bobsled and told me it was one of her favorite downhill runs, so I agreed. I actually loved running down there and Je10 was getting in some extra miles playing on the steeper side slopes. Going down the sled did require an uphill run on pavement for almost a mile to get back tot he cars and I gave Je10 a hard time the whole way. It was actually quite fun though and I really enjoyed the run.

Je10 rockin' the short sleeves above the valley crud:

View Benchmark attempt with CraigL:

I met Craig at 5:20 am at the VB trailhead on Vintage View. We figured that someone had to be dumb enough to track out the trail since the last snow 4 days ago, but we were wrong. The snow was deep and not tracked at all from the start, so it was a major slog to say the least. 17 minutes for the first mile and I think the second was a touch longer than that with deep snow to deal with. Because of time VB was likely out, so we stayed on Ann's trail and ran back to Potato Hill and then down to the Red Rock trailhead.

The trail was actually tracked some from the tunnel back to Red Rock, so the running was a lot easier. Once we hit the trailhead we picked up the road and ran back to Vintage View. It definitely felt a lot tougher than 6.5 miles.

Ave Twins from I street with MattW:

This was my 4th summit of the Twins this week. The trail is so good right now and I would rather go where I know it is good than waste my time slogging somewhere else. I met Matt at I Street and it was pretty cold when we started. The inversion is just sick right now and I was really looking forward to getting up above it and maybe finding the sun. It took a few miles to break out of the muck and unfortunately there was a layer of clouds above the inversion that hid the sun, so it wasn't much warmer up there, but the air was a lot cleaner to breathe.

We weren't super fast, just plugged away and bagged both peaks and hung out for a few minutes checking out the dirty air down below. SICK! On the way down we could feel/smell/taste the difference as soon as we hit the thick soupy air. Yuck! Another peak bagged.