It hit me the other day that I haven’t run a 50k since Bryce in June 2016 – almost 2 years ago. That kind of bummed me out. Life has gotten busy and I can’t bring myself to pay registration fees for races. I keep telling myself, “Oh, I’ll just run a 50k on my own for free.” But of course, I never do. I actually did try in December 2017, but it didn’t pan out. Well, fast forward to…
Lots of short runs lately, so I decided to see if I was up for a bit more mileage. A fellow professor joined me to run the Timp Trail Half Marathon course. We’ve had so little snow, I suspected most of the route was dry. I was mostly right – a couple patches of wet dirt, some mud, but not bad. What was bad was my body. Not only did I get killer cramps in both calves and one quad,…
For supposedly being my favorite place in the Utah County Foothills, I don’t visit the Chris Fisher Flats meadow up above Grove and Battle Creek often enough. In fact, I realized it had been over a year. Wow. I think I’m done doing the Grove-Battle loop though. Coming down Battle has some no-fun rough spots…but some pretty spots. I can’t decide. Today I opted to go up and down Grove as I heard Battle was icy. It was just magnificent…
I live under the shadow of Cascade Mountain and one of my goals this year was to summit it. It is a long haul though – with a 5-7 mile approach to the saddle and then 3 miles up a trail-less ridgeline to the summit. That means a minimum of 16 miles roundtrip. With little water access, I was leaving this for the fall when the temps dropped. It looks like I waited too long though – or didn’t time…
I have been wanting to summit the modest bump of Little Baldy (just south of Big Baldy in Utah County) for a while and have been eyeing the west ridge for the approach. Tim joined on this ill-advised adventure, but the fall leaves promised good views. Indeed, the colors were popping. We went up from Dry Canyon, the wound our way up to the bottom of the West ridge. It was mostly clear – a trail faded in and out…
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…
Since friends have run some races in the Tushar Mountains and raved about how blown away there were by the place I have been dying to get up there. With the Mrs. out of town I took the kids on a little trip. Though our two hikes was aborted early without reaching either intended end point, we did enjoy some dirt road driving, old mining camps exploring, etc. Wow. I will be back.
A couple fellow professors joined up for a run after our department meeting today. We looped from the Rock Canyon trailhead over to Slide Canyon, hiked up to the Y, past it and up past Apache Falt, down First Right Fork, and then down Rock Canyon. Over and up to the Y it was blistering hot – in the mid-90s. By the end as we descended Rock Canyon, it was on and off torrential downpour. Ha! It was fun to…
Murdock Peak sits above the top of Millcreek Canyon, to the north. Most tag it from there. An alternate approach from Lambs Canyon requires access to private property roads, which I was lucky enough to have this weekend at a friend’s family cabin. We took some old forgotten and overgrown roads and trails. It was gorgeous. We started at Salamander Pond/Lake and took an old road up past it. It was overgrown, but there was a clear double-track. Along the…
Sinful, right? I have lived in Utah for 4 years and still hadn’t visited the state’s highest mountain range yet. With my two kids in tow, we trekked up to the Uintah Mountains for a hike. We did a loop in the “Lakes District,” clockwise past Crystal Lake, Cliff Lake, Petite Lake, Watson Lake, Clyde Lake, the Twin Lakes, Wall Lake, and many other unnamed ones. My kids, ages ~7 and 9 did great! The whole route was above 10,000…