A good day in the mountains. I took another vacation day today, and I had originally planned to go for another long ride. But yesterday my friend Jared emailed me about a mountain run up in the Cottonwoods, and since my knee has been holding up lately I decided to tempt fate and join him and our friend Jon. We met at the Big Cottonwood park and ride and Jared drove us up to Alta. From there we ran up the road and continued on past the end of the pavement, eventually picking up a trail up to Catherine's Pass(?). From there we ran down into Brighton, then up past Mount Millicent, then along a ridge over Solitude and then back down to Alta. For the most part, I enjoyed the run. And the scenery was spectacular--it's amazing to see what we have so close to town here. But once we hit the ridge along Solitude, there wasn't much of a trail, and I'm not really into that. Especially not the 3,000 foot descent straight down a loose slope when the trail Jared expected turned out not to exist. Still, it was an adventure, and I'm glad I went. According to Jon, that's how all runs with Jared end, so next time I'll be prepared. We were gone for about 2:45, but I didn't have my Garmin so I'm not sure how much time we actually spent running. You can read Jared's report here.
After the run I still thought I'd make it out for an afternoon ride, but after lunch with Catherine I didn't have time for a meaningfully long ride before meeting her at the temple, so I decided to hit Grandeur Peak instead. I took it easy on the descent because my knee was giving warning signs and I was listening, but before that I had a great ascent. The weather was reasonably cool and my stomach was settled, and at my steady but not forced pace I actually beat my race time. 2.2 miles and 3,300 feet (according to SportTracks) in 50:32. That's not bad, although the fastest ascent I know of is 39 minutes, which is hard to imagine.
| 