Matt Hart, Evan Honeyfield, Luke Nelson and I ran a good chunk of the up-coming Pocatello 50 just to see how it is going to work out. The overwhelming reaction from all of us was, wow! this is going to be a great race. We ran the first 18.4 miles from the start to the City Creek TH then drove to the East Fork of Mink Creek road and ran up the beautifully forested trails up to the saddle on the north side of Scout Mtn, perhaps the best section of the course. Check out a highlight video below!
Posted in Pocatello 50, Running
Posted in Canyoneering, Rock Climbing, Running, Scrambling
The 2008 inaugural Mount Olympus Wilderness Volunteer Cleanup Event was a great success in many ways, but also had a few hiccups. The field of volunteers turned out to be an incredibly talented group of local mountain athletes. Their experience proved to be useful in dealing with the difficult terrain and the near-impossible route finding during the last 3 miles, caused by a hiker who felt it prudent to remove the markers that had only been in place for several hours.
The moisture gods were kind as we had an almost completely dry event (there was a tiny bit of snow for the final volunteers coming over Gobblers). The temperature gods, however, we’re not so kind as most folks were greeted with below freezing windchill conditions on the summit of Gobbler’s Knob and the north facing terrain in Millcreek.
The group was incredibly resourceful when faced with the unmarked terrain at night. Local Arie Leeflang used his knowledge of the area to read the course perfectly despite the lack of markers and was the first to cross the finish line for the course as intended. Ryan McDermott came in second for the same course, with only minimal help from the event director, who happened to be on-top of the peak when Ryan came along. A large group at the front of the pack decided to head north off Gobblers Knob and ended up doing some bushwhacking down the west face of the peak until they met up with the Bowman Fork trail. Mike Dawson, David Hayes, Roch Horton and Erich Kuster, chose this route and then left the Bowman Fork trail to follow the connector trail over to the Alexander Basin TH finish. Pat McMurtry also went down the west face of Gobblers Knob to the Bowman Fork trail, but continued on down to the Terraces and then ran back up the road to the Alexander Fork TH for what I calculate to be the longest variation.
A volunteer clean-up event will be held on Friday October 10th, in the beautiful Mount Olympus Wilderness Area on a pre-defined path from Neff’s Canyon trailhead over to the Alexander Basin Trailhead in Millcreek Canyon. The organizer will pre-place several markers (ribbons) hours before the event at trail junctions to aid in helping the volunteers navigate the path correctly and not get lost. This is done to facilitate folks moving at their own pace rather than having to move as a group. The last volunteer is asked to remove the markers as they move along the trail. There will be very few markers so all voluneers are encouraged to study the map below and bring a copy with them.
This is a 13 mile clean-up event with just over 7,100 ft of vertical gain! The details are below:
It’s great having Ryan back in SLC. We took off up Neff’s Canyon bright and early on October 3rd, bound for the Great Chimney a super-classic journey on Mount Olympus. It had been years since I had been up North Fork, but the memories of great times when I was in my early teens were still vivid. We did some good bushwacking and scrambling and found ourselves at the base of the The Great Chimney. It’s an easy scramble (5.7) up to the very defined ridge just northeast of the north summit of Olympus. Once on the ridge the climbing is still fantastic, perhaps some of the best quartzite ridge around. From the north summit some good scrambling, both up and down, leads to the true summit (the south summit) of Mt. Olympus. We then ran down the standard trail and both got blisters from our “just tight enough for climbing, but too tight for downhill running” Exum Ridges. What a grand adventure.
Posted in Rock Climbing, Scrambling
The new Bear 100 course was incredibly beautiful, just as expected (at least the part I saw). It was supposedly 95% new, and I was immediately interested as this is a great fall run, going from Logan to Bear Lake. The Bear is race I do for fun, which makes it a really relaxed atmosphere for me. I had a great time the first 46 miles, which I ran mostly by myself with the exception of a bit with Nate McDowell, Ty Draney, and Erik Storheim. After this point, my friend Tim Rude picked me up and went to mile 76, where I ultimately stopped. My stomach was excellent and I ate well the entire race. Overall I felt pretty good, but by about mile 70 a past anterior tibialis injury changed from annoying/dull to sharp/deep. As we hit the road at mile 75 we took a wrong turn and got lost for nearly an hour as the temperature dropped to 33 degrees. I entered the aid station and aside from being cold I felt very alert and surprisingly good overall, except my newly sharp injury. Oddly I just decided I was done. I think everyone was baffled by me dropping out given how happy I appeared. I had had so much fun up to this point, the thought of the next 25 miles would have destroyed the whole thing for me. In Leadville 2006 I crawled the last 25 with the exact same injury and it sucked. I didn’t want to do it again. So, I called it good there. I received was I was after already… A beautiful, quiet, and humble run in spectacular fall colors. So, we packed up and drove home that night. Kind of a strange decision and experience, but I feel pretty good about it.
Mindy and my sister Heather were my excellent crew and Tim was great as a pacer. It was a beautiful experience despite not crossing the finish line. Pictures here.
Posted in Running
My uncle Ron and I had been talking about heading to Devils Tower for years and we finally made it happen on the weekend of October 20th, 2008 with his buddy Dave along. It was a very brief trip, but we had a great time nonetheless and climbed classics like Assembly Line, Durrance Route, and Everlasting to name a few. Check out the pics here
Posted in Rock Climbing
All I’m saying is that if there has ever been a time where every last person’s vote is critical, now is it! The deadline to register is 20 days before the election, which means that you have to send in your form no later than October 15th! Get on it.
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Posted in Uncategorized
On September 13th, 2008 Luke Nelson of Pocatello Idaho and Evan Honeyfield of Idaho Falls, both extremely fast and talented runners, broke the current record on the Teton Circumnavigation run. They completed the ~34 mile run with 8kft of vertical in an astonishing 6 hrs 10 minutes, shaving off a full 19 minutes off the record. They started and finished at Lupine Meadows, heading up Cascade Canyon, over to Hurricane Pass, Buck Mtn Pass, down to Death Canyon, and back to Lupine Meadows via the Valley Trail. Map here.
Fast Runnings of the Teton Circumnavigation
Fine work Luke and Evan! Now it looks like 6 hrs is the number to break. Anyone… anyone…. There might be another good weekend left this year…. If not it’ll have to wait until 2009.
Posted in Uncategorized
The Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB) 2008 was an incredible experience for me. Now that I’ve had enough post-race time for my body & brain to get back to “normal” I’m ready to collect some of my thoughts from the race and blog about it. But, since a blog entry simply can’t conveying the true experience let me start this post by saying that if a ~100 mile run through spectactular scenery is your cup of tea, you should REALLY consider doing this race.
As my previous 2 posts mentioned I was able to come over to Europe for roughly a week prior to the race. The majority of that week was mostly spent in Switzerland, which was spectacular. The group consisted of me, Mindy, Steve and Teresa, which was a great team. We visited Interlaken (and surrounding areas), Zermatt, and Leukerbad, after which we headed to Chamonix Mont-Blanc in France to scope the scene prior to the race.
Posted in Running
