I summited a certain peak above Rock Canyon again – only my second time up there. The views are spectacular, but every time I go up or down Rock Canyon I tell myself I’m not putting it in heavy rotation. So rocky – not fun running. It is gorgeous though. This trip was planned when a visiting scholar wanted me to take them out trail-running. Max (who lives in Lincoln, NE where I spent 7 years) had a great time…
I just couldn’t get enough – Timp was so beautiful last week. This time I did in the heat of the day and suffered for it. It was hot and I had a sour stomach for a lot of it. However, once up top I had the summit to myself and I saw some nice goats at the saddle on my way down. Well worth it!
Oh hallelujah! I finally got up Timp! I got dumped on by a huge rainstorm and freezing wind on the way up, and then baked in sweltering hot humidity on the way down. In other words, amazing. I was a slow day though. I stopped under some trees a few times to wait out the rain and some huge groups of people (way more than the 15 person limit for Wilderness Areas) created some long traffic jams at the snow…
For work I did a writing retreat to a friend’s off-grid remote cabin in the Murdock Mountain region of Nevada, Elko County. Not only did I get an incredible amount of work done revising my book manuscript, but I took a few hours to tag the local peak. I approached from southwest, up a jeep road. I hit the saddle west of the false west summit and the wind was just ripping over it. It was gorgeous though. Along the…
I have been eyeing Mt. Mahogany for a while – from the freeway, while climbing up Grove Creek, from Timpooneke Rd., etc. I decided I needed to do a full traverse of the ridgeline – in preparation (hopefully!) for a full Timp ridgeline traverse later this year. MVH came with, and it was a great day on the mountain! We started at the Grove Creek Trailhead. To climb this south end of Mahogany, most take the Grove Creek Trail up…
Panorama from the Big Baldy Summit I have never gone all the way UP Battle Creek (I’m always coming down) and I have never summited Big Baldy from the saddle. I did it once from the SW ridge for the vertical kilometer challenge. Plans to loop the North Timp ridgeline fell through, so I slept in until 9 and did this instead – Battle Creek to the Big Baldy Summit and back. It was warm and I felt sluggish. I…
I decided to treat myself to a Mt. Timpanogos summit for my birthday this morning. I have done the summit twice from the Timpooneke trailhead but never from Aspen Grove. I decided to make a loop of it. Up Aspen Grove, down Timpooneke, then loop back to AG on the Salamander Flats, Snow Gauging, and Lame Horse trails. A 19.5 mile loop. I put out the call and two fellow Wasatch Mountain Wranglers joined – Keith and Tim. We started…
My local trail-running club, the Wasatch Mountain Wranglers, adopted the Timpooneke Trail Nr. 053 and Mt. Timpanogos Summit Trail Nr. 054 – two of the most heavily used trails in the entire state of Utah. Last night I joined for the first organized trail work event, clearing out the first mile of trail with loppers and shovels. It was looking gorgeous and I knew I’d need to get up farther in the near future. Then, this afternoon a friend posted…
Sam, a peak-bagging trail junkie friend, has been bugging me for a while to come join him up in SLC and the stars finally aligned for me to do so – to celebrate his birthday with a bunch of Orange Trail Monkeys up on Mt. Olympus. This was one of the peaks on my bucket list last year, but I failed to bag it. I knew these guys were fast and although Sam claimed he would be going slow, I…
I like maps and I like drawing routes on maps that I can only dream of ever running. I draw them and then challenge others to run them. See all of them at The Professor’s Trail and Ultra Courses. The Big Baldy Vertical Kilometer Challenge is in my backyard and I tackled it this morning before work. Yowzers. The SW Ridge of Big Baldy (above Lindon, UT – in-between Dry Canyon and Battle Creek Canyons) is crazy steep. From the…