Millcreek Yurt

Winter has a beauty all its own that summer cannot match. I love the stillness of a snow covered mountain, summitting snow capped peaks and I love the fresh brisk air. However, winter also brings different challenges. Traction and cold are the two biggest factors but also the dark, a lack of enthusiasm, the occasional illness and the nasty inversion. In the summer I enjoyed early starts to a long solo run. I tried to continue this throughout the winter but running along in the dark on a mountain trail when you can see the fresh cougar tracks messes with the mind. Not that it stops me completely, but it has a handful of times.

Francesco, Mama Jennilyn, Mama Jen, Nate from Tron, Me, yet another Matt

I have found that one of the best ways to get over the winter blues is to get out on more group runs. Motivation comes much more quickly when other people are involved. The past two weeks I've ran up Millcreek Canyon a few nights with some Wranglers. We park at the winter gate and from there run up the well packed road to the yurt and turn around. It's about 4.5 miles up a mostly gradual incline and very runnable, even without traction. Francesco has been the main organizer of these runs and it's been a different group of people of varying speeds each time I've gone. As always, all the people I meet in my sport have been great to share a trail with.

Map and Stats of Millcreek winter gate to yurt.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

My brother Matt is working his way into the trail running game.  Back in high school, he was a better distance runner than me, but due to a whole lot of school and many new promotions over the last 12 years, he's a little late getting back into the running game.  I'm not entirely sure, but I think he finally caught the bug when we went on our summer backpacking trip up to North Willow last summer.  He recently moved to Mesa AZ, and one of the requirements of his house hunt was the proximity to the mountains.  The first peak that caught my attention when I was helping him identify good areas was the Four Peaks area of Mazatzal mountain range.  It is called Four Peaks because of the very distinct 4 peaks.  The only one that is named is the tallest and northern most one, Browns Peak, which has a summit height of 7,657 feet.  Considering Mesa down below is only at 1,243',  it was a significant elevation change for Mattie.

Looking East towards Four Peaks above a lot of cacti.
Browns is the leftmost peak.

The road to get up to the four peaks trail head was a very rough, very slow 20 miles of dirt road.  Not being a native to AZ, it was amazing to see the thousands and thousands of 25' tall cacti.  I half expected the road runner and Wyle-E-Coyote to dart across the road.  We decided that getting a commuter car up there would be a difficult task indeed, and were glad we were in my Durango.  But upon reaching the trail head, most of the cacti were now down below us, and the mountain felt like home to me.

Mattie, about a mile in.

The actual trail from there is a rather short 2.5 miles to the summit, and most of that is runnable.  I need to point out and gloat a little that it felt so good to be running on a dry dirt trail again.  Everything was going smooth until we got to the last 500' scramble up the scree shoot.  Right before attempting it, we chatted with a man who said that he was going to loop around to the north, where the ridge drops down lower, and then follow the ridge to the summit.  I'm still quite surprised that no trail takes that route.  But because of the lack of trail, we decided to go up the shoot.  After climbing the scree for a minute, Mattie became somewhat uncomfortable climbing up the loose rock that required hand and foot, and I didn't blame him.  So, we looped back down to attempt to go around to the lower ridge.

Proof of my failure to find a good route.

Climbing through shrubs through a few inches of snow around to the north, we tried to make our way over to the ridge.  Then I made the mistake of trying to cut up the mountain a little early before we reached it.  The cliffs forced us back towards the south, and before we knew it, we were right back at the scree shoot, about 50' higher than we were the first time.

At this point, we called it.  Our wives wanted to go out shopping later that day and we decided we didn't have enough time to try again.  The great thing about mountains is that they aren't going anywhere.  I'll be back to visit Mattie soon enough, and when I do, I'll get my revenge on Browns, and it will feel the full weight of a little plastic red monkey.

Browns Peak map and stats.

Lone Peak Snowshoeing Adventure

Me, Cy, Ashley's husband, Matt, Steve, Ashley, MVH, Milk Drinker

Me, 3 yrs. ago
just below Ennis Peak.

Exactly three years ago I started training for my first marathon. My biggest worry was mile times and my smallest worry was how to fuel. I hadn't ran seriously since I was in high school (if you want to consider that serious, I don't really). I had always loved hiking and being in the outdoors but didn't start trail running until after the marathon. I was inexperienced. Just look at the excellent photo on the left. I was sporting my wonderful heat trapping scout hat, a cotton shirt with some extremely flexible jeans :)  Oh, and don't forget the comfy backpack and hiking shoes. Yeah, I was almost hip. I look back and laugh at many things. The clothes, shoes, packs, food, blisters and fatigue.

Much has changed over the past three years. Summitting Lone Peak in the middle of winter is a direct result of these changes. The first time I hiked Lone Peak was before I considered myself a trail runner and a year before my first marathon. It is one of my favorite mountains to be on. Unfortunately, I was unable to get up there this last summer, so when I heard about a winter ascent by the Wasatch Mountain Wranglers I jumped at the opportunity. I've wanted to do a winter camp up at the cabin or in the cirque below the summit as well.

Lone Peaks on Lone Peak.

A fellow Wrangler, Matt Van Horn (MVH), organized this excursion. I've gotten to know him online over the past year but this was the first time I met him in person. There were nine of us, and I'd never met any of them before this run (MVH said he doesn't run with snowshoes on his back, but he's a liar). I marvel at how I can spend nine hours on a mountain of pain and joy with a bunch of people I've never met before. Every time I meet new people on a group run it always seems like we've been friends for a long time. This trip was no exception.

We started about 6:00 a.m. at the Orson Smith Trailhead. After about two miles we rested a moment and collected ourselves. One of the group was falling far behind already. When we saw his headlamp the group moved on. I hung back and decided to hike with him to give him a bit of encouragement. He'd never been on the trail before and mentioned that he'd only started running this past year. It's never fun to be on a new trail by yourself in the dark. I hiked with him about two more miles until it was light and I knew he would be able to follow our tracks on the trail.

The group summitting Ennis Peak, about 4.5 miles in, 3 more before Lone.

I ran through the part of the trail that is called the tunnel and started up the next steep part just catching the group as the trail leveled off for a time. Soon thereafter we stopped to strap on the snowshoes. For some reason my pack wouldn't surrender my snowshoes so it took me about 20 mins, no joke, just to get them unstrapped. I was getting cold and needed to start moving and I had fallen behind once again. Just as I finally started out I caught a glimpse of the slow dude. I was relieved that he wasn't lost. I shouted an encouraging word and set off to try and catch up to the group again.

First view of Lone Peak after going up and over Ennis Peak.

Scrambling

It took me about a mile and a half and a little more than an hour but I finally caught them. I enjoyed hiking with them the last mile or so to the saddle above the cirque. This part of the mountain is absolutely stunning, summer or winter. It is a long arduous hike to arrive at this point and well worth it. Upon arrival at the saddle we rested a moment and removed the snowshoes for the final ascent. This part of the trail often requires you to bend over on hand and knee in order to scramble up the steep slope to the top.

There are several spots that are actually quite treacherous to traverse in the summer that require boulder hopping on some crags. So you can imagine how much more dangerous walking across a knife edge of snow might be. Not to mention this snow was particularly loose and powdery. It was dangerous to say the least. I have little experience doing this and I don't own an ice axe. So I didn't go all the way to the summit, which is ok. I'm still alive. Maybe next time. Five out of the nine made it to the summit. The rest of us didn't have a slight death wish so we got as close as we could.

The brave 5 almost at the summit.

Almost summit monkey.

After getting back down to the saddle we ate lunch and prepared ourselves for the descent. I took my tights off, changed my socks and ate some jerky and a snickers bar. We couldn't have asked for a better day. It was a beautiful clear sky and actually quite warm. Ashley did the entire hike in short shorts and a tank top. At times I wished I had packed a bit lighter on the clothing, but better safe than sorry. We came across the last member of the group and he decided to make the final climb alone. We wished him well and I said a little prayer in my head for him, then we took off.

Going down was a lot of fun. It involved running in snowshoes, trying to ski in snowshoes, slipping and sliding now and then, and bunny rabbit hopping which usually ended with my face in the snow. When we got around Ennis Peak we took off the snowshoes and I said my goodbyes and started running. I told my wife I'd be home around 1:30 at the earliest. I was now almost an hour late and still had about four miles to go before reaching the trailhead.

I can't wait to do it again. Great views and great people. It was a spectacular day. I took tons of cool photos, here's a few more:

One of the knife-edge ridges. The Salt Lake Valley in the background.

Matt and Me.

MVH, the first to summit.

Lone Peak, The Majestic.

Map and Stats of Lone Peak, winter ascent.

Things and New Year and Goals and Stuff

2013 is over.  Finally.  Generally speaking, I've had better years.

It feels good to have a fresh start.  And like any ambitious amateur athlete, I've set some goals for myself for the new year.  And I'm really excited to go out and reach them.  With these goals,  I'm hoping 2014 will be a break out year for me.  And I'll let Sam tag along and ride my tail wind.   For the last three years, Sam and I have hovered around 1,000 miles per year each, and while it's felt really good to accomplish this 3 years in a row, like some kind of crack addict,  this just ain't cuttin' it any more, and we need some more of the good stuff.  

Goal 1:  2,014 miles in 2014.

One thing Sam really did this last year was to stop being such a social misfit and actually start talking to people.  The facebook group for the Wasatch Mountain Wranglers has led Sam to reach out to a lot of new people and make some new buddies.  I on the other hand prefer to keep a rather low online profile with the philosophy that it is better to remain quiet and let everyone think you're a fool than to open your mouth and prove it.  Especially for the whole world to see on the internet.  But giving Sam his credit, we have got to know a lot of awesome runners.  And one thing we've learned is that the more we hang out with them, the more we realize we need to up our games.  So, with that in mind, we signed up for our longest race to date.

Goal 2:  Complete the Zion 100k race.

This was, of course, a prerequisite required by my wife for me to sign up for my first 100 miler.  We are planning on doing that in the fall, pending the needed home budget appropriations for:

Goal 3:  Complete the Bear 100 mile race.

Of course, when setting goals, you have to set smaller goals to get to the larger goal.  So here's some of my sub-goals:

Subgoal 1:  100 miles in the first 10 days of January

Subgoal 2:  250 miles by January 31

Subgoal 3:  Finish the HOMM Oquirrman challenge.

Subgoal 4:  Quest For Kings Marathon finish time of less than 6 hours.

Subgoal 5:  Summit Mount Olympus in 1 hour 20 min or less.

And speaking of Mount Olympus...

We decided to spend our first run of the year on that guy.  Sam put out the invitation to the Wasatch Mountain Wranglers that on January 1 we were going to start at 7:00, and sure enough, a few people showed up to join us.

Trevor, who had taken home the Quest for Kings marathon cowbell two years ago, took off early, and I didn't catch up to him till the summit.  He reached the summit in an astonishing time of 1 hour 12 min.  26 minutes later I reached the summit with my third best summit time ever.  I'm feeling pretty good about that considering it is still winter and that I haven't done any real "red-line" or steep incline training since my last injury.  Sam and Jeremy came trotting up about 10 minutes later, and then we all went cruising down together.  Loved the run.  Quads are still sore.

Chris going down, and Jeremy going up the final scramble

Jeremy, Sam, and Trevor

Jeremy, Steve, and Trevor