Driven

El Flag Rock. Snow up to the knees on the North side descent.

I ran up to Avenues Twin Peaks 'smorning with terrific peeps Scott, Matt, Craig and Jennilyn. The trail is really great right now so I am going back tomorrow morning (Friday).

Aves Twin Peaks from Capitol

Running up the trail is the easy part. I am a night owl so the hard part is getting pulled out of a nice deep sleep by a ringing alarm at 5AM, overcoming the inertia of bed, and getting out the door.

I've had some really crappy trail runs lately, which had nearly shattered my confidence. Yesterday I ran the Avenues Twins and had a fairly good run, physically. One of my knees has been acting up and seemingly getting worse with each day of trail activity. I went back this morning and ran from the Capitol again. Short story: One of the best trail runs I have had in a while. I wore new shoes and they performed exactly as I had hoped, and my knee felt like new.

On the descent from the Twins I paused and looked East toward Little Black mountain. What I saw in morning twilight was a living black and white winter landscape photo. Those kind of views are every bit as encouraging as the endorphins I gobble up during physical activity.

Yes it is very cold right now, so I do not look at the temperature reading. I just go and warm up after half mile, and stay warm pretty much the entire way.

East Twin summit in 59:30, RT in 1hr48m

Farmington trails with TheMrK. Flag Rock, then down to pond area, then up to upper terrace trail to Shepherd Creek, and back.

Ave Twins

My 3rd time up in 4 days.

So nice to do a 10 mile run in the snowy foothills above Salt Lake City; then come home, shower, and go back to bed.

With Scott, Jun, and J.

Avenues Twins after work. Ran down into Mem Grove then up to the South side canyon road to the trailhead. Feeling really good. Saw Je10 as she was running up for her second lap on Twins today.

Foothills run from the zoo to City Creek and back. With Scott, Jun and Dorsimus (for Mt Wire/Red Butte).

We  started at Hoggle Zoo, going straight up to Mt. Wire. Then, down to Red Butte. The up to Van Cott, then Down to Shoreline Trail, then up to Avenues Twin Peaks, then down to City Creek. We turned around and ran the Bonneville Shoreline trail back to the zoo. Felt good to City Creek, then got achy breaky and ran out of water in the heat of the afternoon. Nevertheless it was a fantastic adventure run in the foothills above a major city. All that climbing added up to nearly 7,500 feet.

Tried to run the neighborhood streets around home. Too frigging slick. Got two miles before I said the hell with it.

Home to Farmington canyon, couple miles up, then back. Nicely runnable now with snow machine tracks and frozen smooth troughs.

Five miles up Farmington canyon with the Snow Snorkelers. MGW was there, as was his bro Aaron W., Steve, and Ryan. and Matt 'Twinkies" Ricks.We ran from the parking above Farmington pond to the Sunset campground and turned around. As promised, Ryan wore shorts.

Ten in Farmington Canyon.

No big woop.

Two hours and 15 minutes of meditation, talking to myself, and singing bits of Handel's Messiah.

Five up, five back Farmington canyon.

PM: Five more after work.

From home, Flag Rock attempt. Had to abort before the trail begins the climb toward upper section because nobody but the deer have used the trail since the big snow. Bailed out down to the neighborhood. Then I ran to .5 mile up Farmington canyon, then home. Should have stayed with what has been effective lately. Still, I've had a remarkable week this far.

I met Steve N. and John C. at the -B- above Bountiful. We ran up Skyline Drive,  intending to go as far as the area where W100 course has its 2nd full service aid station. The road was well packed but not as good as we had hoped. Pre-dawn, a few miles up we stopped and gazed down at nebulous lights glowing under the smog. The brightest light under the cloud was the Bountiful temple. At 4.5 miles John went back down and Steve and I continued up. After Buckland turn-off the snow was no longer supporting us fully and we slowed significantly. Steve entertained me with the story of his close encounter with a real live mountain lion above Bountiful. We reached our destination, reveled in the sunshine, and continued up further as far as we could go. We followed snowmobile tracks to a hill, then turn around. Running back was tough.We sank up to shins every 30 feet. It was hard work. Conditioning, I told myself. Did I mention we had an excellent view of the blue sky above inversion? It remains blue up there, I assure you. It is the ghost of Lake Bonneville out there.  Further down we descended into the smog, could smell and taste it, and agreed it was horrible. At the end we had 17.60 miles. I wanted 20. So I said later to Steve, drove home, and ran 2.4 miles down to the bird sanctuary. I had some goals this week and I mostly met them, although I fell a little short on the distance I wanted to have by today. What I feel is more important than distance, however, is that I got up at 5AM every day and went out into some seriously cold outside.

I took advantage of an early out from work for the black holiday. Myoolah Park is a couple miles up the skreet from work, so I did a run to elephant rock X2. Parked at the church down the road for the xtra distance. No water, no gels.

Davis county trail runners out again for a jog up F-town canyon. The road is pretty good right now; Steve, MGW, Aaron, and I ran hard down for a RT time of 2 hours.

Grandeur Loop +

I parked at the shopping center and ran to the West ridge trail head. Then, up. Even with the extra 1.5 miles and a poo break just above the parking area, I reached summit in 1:35. Ran down Church Fork, slippery until the switchbacks. Warm. At the Pipeline junction I ran up trail to the parking area for the winter rec, then 4 miles back to Rattlesnake and down canyon. I am not so trusting this Garmin vert calculation. With elevation corrections enabled the total for today is 4612 ft; disabled it is 4,000 ft. What the crap? I did run up canyon a few hundred feet, including short ups and downs but I don't think after the peak I did an additional 1400. I am calling it 4000.

Lone Peak

My 16th ascent of Lone Peak. I was with a group of 10 and about 8 of us reached the summit rock. This mountain is dangerous. Every year we hike up there, and every year I say to Judy: I think I will stop here at this safe place. Then she goes on ahead, over the first rock, and I follow. Then the first snowy knife edge; then crouch and crawl under the second rock, around a corner where there is not enough of a snow ledge to support me if I get off balance and slip to my left. If that happened I would bounce a couple thousand feet down a seemingly vertical drop full of endless granite boulders. Then, the second snowy knife edge, and negotiations with slippery boulders until we carefully crawl onto the summit rock. For the downward trip we reverse it all.

This morning was the most, thickest fog I believe I have seen in my life. The drive to Draper from Farmington was tense. I know those roads and still made a couple wrong turns. If that fog was stacked high over the mountain I would have gone down. I was late to meet the group but didn't worry because I knew I could catch up. Seems a few minutes after I started hiking, clear sky appeared. Then I was above the fog. I do not exaggerate when I say that looking down upon the Salt Lake Valley, everything was covered, as if a white lake had drowned a million people in a major metropolitan area. Everything, that is except the Draper LDS Temple. It was the only man-made structure visible from high on the mountain. Everything else had disappeared.

There were a lot of new-to-me faces. Michael led the group, and he, Judy, and I were the veterans. Michael is in his mid-sixties, still going strong. He led us up first to Enniss Peak, where we got our first look at Lone Peak. All my times up in that wilderness and I had never hiked a few hundred feet up to Enniss. It even has a round metal marker stating the name. We hiked up into the cirque, and views of the granite walls under the peak were spectacular. The higher we went a curtain of cloud dropped in front of the peak and it was gone. We never saw it again, even when we were on the summit. We were climbing in the cloud the remainder of the ascent.

A word about fitness. Five years ago my first Winter ascent of Lone Peak was the most difficult hike I had done. I was slow, exhausted and fat, and determined. I reached the summit. Today I am 25 pounds lighter and felt fantastic the entire day. I had boundless energy. I reached the summit. It was easy. I ate ultra food: Gels, Stinger Waffles, and a PBJ sandwich. That's it. And when I got to the car I didn't have a raging hunger. I am down to my ideal weight now. It feels so good not to carry around that extra crap. Running did this to me.

http://youtu.be/SsDDckJ_R5g

Eleben around the neighborhood skreets.