I wanted to get to the gym last night to lift, but I started putting my Christmas present together (a new TM) and it ended up being a bigger project than I thought. I finally got to sleep around 1:00 am and then I was up at 5:00 to meet Jun and MatthewVH in Lehi to climb Lake Mountain.
We started a little late. It was cold and the trail was basically frozen, and we started off at a slow pace to warm up. After about a mile we were hiking the rest of the way. Jun and I pulled ahead and Matt who has been spending the holidays eating fat and resting was lagging a bit behind. We waited for him once to catch up, but we had to push it some because I had to get into work. The conditions were near perfect this morning with a nice 4X4 track almost all the way to the top without much ice. Jun and I talked about our plans for 2011 and the time flew by.
The last 1/4 of a mile before the summit the 4X4 tracks stopped and Jun and I took turns breaking the trail in the knee deep snow on the steeper slope leading to the summit. It really slowed us down, but it wasn't too bad. Once on top it was COLD and the views were stunning in every direction, with a blanket of fog in the valleys below it reminded me of climbing peaks in the Cascades with the typical cloud caps. Incredible! You have to work for views like these. I choked down a frozen gel and had some of my slushy water and then we headed down.
Matt was just making his way up the deep snow, but turned around because of time. Once we were back on the 4X4 track I stopped to take care of a wardrobe issue and Matt and Jun took off and I didn't see them again until just before I got back to the cars.
The run down was just heaven. So much fun! This is why I run. I had a smile on my face and was just giddy. I felt great and just enjoyed running down the hard packed snow track while taking in the views. We finished in just over two hours which isn't too bad considering the conditions, and Matt kept up a great pace the whole way too.
3100 ft of vert. | 