Bear 100...Guess Who's Running?

This chick!!

I signed up back in July, in a post-Hardrock crewing daze, so I'm a little late on reporting this.  But better late than never :)

I'm so excited to have another 100 on the horizon.  Bear 100 has a fairly loyal following and I've heard nothing but good things about the course, the people, the organization (supremely low key).  I've also heard that everyone gets lost, that it's just a matter of how and for how long.  So, I'll be carrying the turn-by-turn directions in my pack :)  Kid you not.

I knew I wanted to get in a 100 mile run this year, and it was really between two very different events for me, Bear 100 and Javelina 100.  I've done what are considered four "easy" 100s so far (I know, oxymoronic, right?), and I decided this was as good a year as any to step it up a notch; try something outside my comfort zone.  Not that 100 miles isn't already fairly uncomfortable, but add in some mountains and some altitude to give it that extra flavor :)

Pumped am I.  I'm sure I'll see some of you out there.  In the meantime, may the training continue!

Paige, out.

No Reservations: The Final Round

I think I say this every time there's been a blogging lull, but, seriously, this is the longest I've gone without blogging.  Ever.  Hopefully, the wait was worth it.  

(I really feel like I just abused the heck out of the comma in those first sentences, but I'm not quite sure :)  So forgive me if I've wronged.)

Sooooooooo, I left off with some high altitude adventures.  And I've completely bypassed my Hardrock  100 pacer report, but that is also in the works.  I've had fun taking a buttload of pictures so this is once again a little journey of pictures.  I think they sum up the last four weeks of No Reservations.  It's been a super fun adventure and I'll definitely be posting a summary.  I like looking back on cool stuff :)

Without further adieu, the last stage of the No Reservations summer:

Gunnison and Crested Butte, CO were our next stop, after Hardrock, to visit some family and check out an area I'd never been to before...

The view atop Mt. Crested Butte...of course we ran it, what else would we do in that town? ;)  We ran mountain bike trails up and down the mountain for a nice little long run.

Next up, Boulder, Colorado for some wedding action: congrats Julia & Russ!

There is going to be a lot of "next"ing in this post...fyi.

Next, we stopped off in Rocky Mountain National Park to camp out and do a couple quality trail runs.  We ran up to Ypsilon Lake the first day and then the Lawn Lake-Crystal Lakes trail the following day.  Gorgeous, rugged and awesome.  Pure Colorado.

Lawn Lake

Geof modeling in front of Lawn Lake

We couldn't decide which way to go...so we did both :)

After RMNP we decided to head home for a few days before hitting the road for the final stretch of our summer adventure.  In the midst of our homebody-ness, I took a phatty digger running around town and earned myself a nice hole in my knee.  Awesome.  But, we managed to eke out some great Wasatch running and even took in the Speedgoat 50k at Snowbird.

Hanging out atop Hidden Peak waiting for runners to come in

LEWIS! hanging tough in the top 15!

Rickey Gates, eventual "official" winner, climbing up Hidden Peak (mi 26)

Rob doing his best impression of TK... ;)

Let us see now, after chillin' at home for a bit we packed the truck again and began the looooooong drive up to northwest Montana to take in the ridiculous beauty that is Glacier National Park.  If you've never been, go.  Unless you hate nature and beautiful things, go.  Even if you do hate those things (which I sincerely doubt if you're reading this here blog :)), go, and you'll find that you do in fact love nature and beautiful things.  Glacier is hands down my favorite national park.  No contest.  I love it.

Rob n' Rina highly recommended we do the Dawson-Pitamakin Pass Loop for our long run so that's just what we did.  We followed the loop route up, down and around a huge mountain for 20 miles, then headed back out to get another 5 miles to make it a legit long run.  It was crazy pretty and gave us a really great bite-sized tour of the park.  Barely a soul up there, all things considered.  After leaving Dawson Pass (we ran clockwise) the trail is carved out of the side of the mountain and goes on forEVER.  It was terrifying to me because the footing consisted of loose rock and shale so a slight misstep would have been fairly traumatizing, to the tune of falling off the side of a steep cliff.  So, I walked.  But eventually it turned back into a less scary trail and I could stop hyperventilating ;)

Atop Dawson Pass

Geof at Old Man Lake, below Pitamakin Pass

Alder Falls

The next day we were pretty jazzed about how our long run went, and the legs were surprisingly recovered, so we felt like doing a little more.  I found us a nice little 15 mile route, from Logan Pass to the Granite Park Chalet. Freaking cool ass trail!  And completely runnable!  Be warned, it was crazy busy (notorious), and it's singletrack most of the way, so exercise caution. Hence, the parking lot was full at Logan Pass (also notorious), so we parked at a pull-out 1/4 of a mile down the road.  No bigs.  More miles, more fun :)

Snowfields higher up on the trail.  It was fun to run through snow, in August :)

Bear Grass

"Bear?  No bear?  C'mon bear!"  Geof really wanted to see a bear...from a distance.  No dice.  Thankfully :)

A personal favorite: St. Mary Lake...it's stunning in person

Sadly, we had to leave Glacier and head further west for more adventures, but first we wound our way down to Whitefish to check out the town (adorable!) and inhale the best biscuits and gravy I've ever had.  Next up: Seattle, WA!

On the way to Seattle, we stopped at Snoqualmie Pass to do a 10 miler on the southern Pacific Crest Trail.  After  a few miles heading up on some really amazing trail, the route became totally covered in green...and neither of us are well versed on poison oak or sumac (both are present there) so my infinitely whussy side came out and said it was time to turn around.  We finished up our run on the north side of the PCT and did hill repeats on the ski hill there.  Lemons, lemonade :)

Running down the PCT

Seattle was great fun!  Neither of us had been there before so we got all kinds of touristy and really enjoyed ourselves.  The main event, however, was the union of Wyn and Sarah.  It was an incredibly beautiful ceremony in Olympic Sculpture Park followed by a crazy fun reception inside the Seattle Art Museum.  Congrats you two!

Touristy stuff...and totally worth checking out!

The SLC crew representin': Rob, Rina (RnR), Tom, Geof and I...photo booths rock.

Sarah and Wyn

Did someone say ferris wheel?  At 11:30 p.m.?  On the Bay?  Okay!!

More touristy stuff...The Space Needle

Cool sights at the Experimental Music Project beside the Needle

After leaving Seattle behind, we had one final big event to make it to, down in San Diego.  So we set out on the loooooooong drive down the 5.  Of course, we made a few stops along the way.  Next up was Crater Lake National Park.  AWESOME PLACE.  You should also go there sometime, too.  

We did our long run from the connector trail (Alice Springs) that was literally 20 ft. behind our campsite at Mezama Campground and took that to the PCT, then hopped on the new PCT connector trail that takes you around Crater Lake.  Incredible views!!

On the PCT

Wizard Island within Crater Lake

On the Rim Trail.  Lots of up and down and lots of killer views

We love nature and things that grow so after leaving Crater Lake we drove down to Redwoods National Park (which is a small part of the larger conglomerate of Redwoods State Park, which is a small portion of a big grouping of various redwood parks) and checked out some tall nature.

The tree on top was growing on top of a fallen redwood.  How did that happen?  We were fascinated by it!  The felled tree had to of been down for a REALLY LONG TIME in order for the other tree to climb on top and grow huge.  But the felled tree didn't look like it had fallen all that long ago.  Crazy!  Nature is awesome.

Hello, anyone home?  Any spideys in here?

Big tree, little G :)

We camped at a great campground in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park (I think it was the Hidden Springs Campground).  Awesome place, and huge.  And the bathrooms were clean :)

The next day we drove down to Roseville, CA to spend the evening with Uncle Steve.  In the morning, we rolled out and made the final push for San Diego.  One of my brothers, Toper, was graduating from Marine basic training at the Marine Corps Recruiting Depot in SD.  So exciting!!  I have to gloat a little here: he was named lance corporal and Series Honor Man (e.g. series badass), as well as being named Company High PFT (aka iron man...in laymen's terms: most fit recruit in the entire company of almost 400 recruits).  Bam!  That's how we roll in this family!  PFT stands for Physical Fitness Test, but Geof came up with a better meaning: Pretty F***ing Tough :)  True story.  

Since Toper was such a BAMF he got to wear his dress blues for the ceremony (he's the one holding the flag)

I said to show me his Marine face...

Proud sister and momma-dog with the new U.S. Marine (photo by Geof Dunmore)

He was so excited to have 10 days of leave, and wanted to show off his mad iron man skills

We were so happy we could be there for his graduation.  It was freaking cool to see him work so hard towards a goal (he was training for over a year before he was recruited) and went in with the goal of getting lance corporal and he did it.  And he survived!  It was so inspiring to be there.  I suddenly felt like doing some push-ups and planks :)  Yay, Toper!

We spent a couple days with my family in San Diego and managed to take a week off from running.  Oops.  By Sunday, we were ready to head home and get started on real life.  But we wanted to close it down right.  We stopped at a Utah favorite, Mt. Timpanogos, and whipped out a long run.

Past their prime but the wildflowers in the basin were still amazing!  Imagine what it looks like in June!

A week off of running, and spending that week at sea-level, had us moving a little slow and breathing pretty hard, but we managed to get it done :)

And that's a wrap folks!  

It's great to finally be home and start working towards building our new life here in Salt Lake City.  We learned a lot over the last 2-1/2 months, experienced some truly amazing places, ran some unbelievable trails, met and spent time with some fantastic people, family, old friends, and just generally squeezed everything we could into that time frame.  I feel like we really did make the most of our time on the road, for the most part.  A No Reservations wrap-up is in the works!

Paige, out.

No Reservations: Adventures in the High Country

YES!  Two posts in two days!  Feels good to catch up :)  It may be a short bit before I can put my Hardrock pacing/crewing experience into words that make sense and that can convey the sheer level of stupid awesomeness that was occurring there.  So, I decided to go ahead and write a much easier post.

This blog has a fever and the only cure is more pictures!

I will not apologize for that one.  

Today's photo adventure is all about the art of getting (up) high.  Colorado has no shortage of high peaks and hidden gems and we've worked hard to squeeze as much of it in as we possibly can.  After more than a month spent training and sleeping well over 8,000 feet (and over 10,000 feet a few nights!) I feel like I'm finally getting my high altitude wings :)  Still plenty of heavy breathing, but that's about it.  The running is getting better and better and the views simply can't be beat.  Here's a sampling of some of our higher Colorado adventures...

Mt. Elbert - 14,433 ft. (highest point in CO!)

Geof outside the campground, with Mt. Elbert in the background..."we're comin' for you Señor Elbert!"

At the trailhead!

Climbing up, to the tune of 4,000 feet in less than 4 miles in a complete meteorological fog, but at least it wasn't raining :)

Great view, huh?

The top, at last!  It was windy and cold up there and the view was lacking, but the achievement was awesome.  We were on top of Colorado!

The view from the top

Summit shot

You can't see it in this picture, but trust me, Twin Lakes is just below and was fully visible for like 5 seconds.  The next morning we checked out of Leadville and made our way further west to...

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park...not so high, but so cool

And that's about it.  We got outta there as the storm began to rage...and headed for Ouray!

Ouray, CO - Geof is not high here, but the swings were fun :)

The Ouray Brewery treated us kindly as we warmed our souls with brews and chocolate.  Camping at the 4Js Campground in town was awesome and allowed us to walk to our swings :)  The next morning we broke down camp and went for a little hike with Gretchen (who also happened to camp at the same place, unbeknownst to any of us beforehand!)...

Bear Creek Trail - Ouray, CO (doing some recon on the Hardrock 100 course with Gretchen)

Great little 5 mile + hike along the Bear Creek section of the HR100.  Lots of exposed stuff, lots of slate, lots of sounding like we were walking on broken plates, lots of old mines, lots of wildflowers, lots of muscular quads, and lots of laughs and fun :)  We worked up an appetite and decided to dine in Silverton, our final destination!

Handlebars was the only place in town that could handle a bunch like this...Gretchen, Geof and I housed some serious grub and Meghan just watched in disgusted awe ;)  We also simultaneously plotted out the next day's adventure...

Handies Peak - 14,048 ft. (highest point on the Hardrock course!)

Meghan guided Geof and I up to the highest point of the Hardrock course, and another 14er: Handies Peak!  We left bright and early to make the short drive to Grouse Gulch and began the long, steep climb.  It was a 'handy' little 4,500 ft. of vertical gain in less than 6 miles, including the climb back out of American Basin.  Awesome.  

Heading up to the pass, the sun was beginning to rise above the mountains!

At the pass, finally!  Fricking amazing views.  And now we needed to plunge down into American Basin and then scramble up to Handies

American Pass Chicks

And we made it!

I said this many times over the last couple weeks..."This place actually exists!!"  Holy eff.  The view from Handies is something to behold

Chicks chillin' at the top, snacking on delicious runner snacks.  Like Gu.  Mmmm.

Hematite Gulch - 12,600ish ft. - Silverton, CO

So since Meghan is just too much fun, we schemed another little adventure for the following day.  Gross right?  I love my life.  This time, Bryon joined us, and, teamed with Meghan, they sufficiently schooled Geof and I on the art of uphill running...(and who are we kidding, they schooled us on downhilling, too)...

Geof hung with the dynamic duo for a couple switchbacks, but then it was clear they were much more motivated by free beer ;)  

I think that road below is the way to Cunningham Gulch, the final aid station of HR100

Our goal for the day, Hematite Lake!  Gorgeous and totally f'real, complete with a little island in the middle.  A nice little 3,000 ft. of vertical gain in 2.5 miles.  Awesome.  Again.

Bryon was in a picture-taking kind of mood so we played around and he snapped away...

Geof and I looking natural, frolicking in the wildflowers

Photo credit: Bryon Powell

Oooo, interesting things :)  I think it was a mine shaft

Photo credit: Bryon Powell

Now, in order to cross this wobbly path onto the island, one must stick their butt as far up in the air as physically possible.  Follow me.

Photo credit: Bryon Powell

Skiing down the scree!

Photo credit: Bryon Powell

Photo credit: Bryon Powell

Kendall Mountain (Benchmark) - 13,066 ft. - Silverton, CO

Skip ahead a few days (don't worry, my Hardrock 100 pacer report is forthcoming, but it deserves its very own post) and before we headed out of Silverton we wanted to do a "classic" run.  Kendall Mountain is right in town and easy to get to.  You can actually drive it most of the way up if you have a high clearance vehicle, but those of us only slightly more adventurous just run it :)  It's just shy of 4,000 ft. of vertical gain in what ended up being about 5.9 miles for us (though other sources claim it to be as much as 7 miles one way).  The majority of the way up is a wide, rocky 4WD road that winds around and switchbacks its way up the mountainside.  Then there's a few hundred feet of scrambling to the top.  The weather was sketchy from the start, but held up until about halfway up, when it began to come down in buckets, complete with hail.  But, no thunder so we pushed on.  It cleared after not too long, but we kept the rain jackets on as it was a touch chilly.

It's a gorgeous hike/run up and the run down was awesomely fun.

Almost to the top...

Kendall: done.

A curious little chipmunk

Hello down there!  Silverton down below

Colorado is crazy beautiful if you haven't already gathered that :)  And we just can't get enough of the high country!  This summer rocks.

Paige, out.