Poor air quality. Sometimes you have to rise above it. That's what I did today. I went to the trailhead of the Wild Rose Canyon Trail. I was going to run in snowshoes today, but it hasn't snowed for over a week and the trail looked well packed. I decided to run with my inov8's. A 1/2 mile into the run I got above 5500 ft and came into clean air. The sky was clear and I could see the whole valley with this ugly grey blanket over it. It was awesome up there. At 3/4 of mile I took a little known detour. The main trail goes down a steep hill and then up a longer steep hill. I refer to this as the 'monster hill'. The route I take is a gradually up hill that is slightly longer but avoids the 'monster hill'. At 2 miles I decided to turn around. I had planned to go farther, but the trail was less packed and the snow was getting deeper. The snowshoes would have been great at that point, but I didn't carry them up. I was also getting deeper into cat country and since I was alone, it was probably a good idea to turn around. It was a super fun Saturday run. | 