A week ago I met Matt Williams and Matt Van Horn at the Grandeur Peak trailhead for an early morning climb to the summit of Grandeur Peak via the West Ridge. The plan was to complete the loop by going down into Church Fork, run the Pipeline and then back to the WR trailhead, which is one of my favorite training runs in the Wasatch. That was the plan until we encountered deep snow most of the way up which required us to break the trail on about 3/4 of the mountain with 2-3 feet of new snow. It was arduous at best and slowed us down a lot and we ended up taking a little over two hours to hit the summit, so the loop was out.
Even though we weren't able to do the whole loop we had a total blast and Van Horn shot a sweet video which I will post below. I haven't been wearing my gators since they were stolen out of my car at the Wire trailhead last year and in my morning fog while getting ready I put on short socks which ended up being a huge mistake. I had a lot of snow and ice buildup on my tights and some of the ice was rubbing on my ankles and heels and when I got back to the trailhead I saw blood on my socks. Are you frickin kidding me? So now I have these oozing sores on my heels and ankles and now a week later they aren't much better. There might be a silver lining in all of this because the wounds have forced me to wear a different shoe and the only shoes I have that don't rub on the sores are the Altra Lone Peaks. I wore the Lone Peaks on a trip up Lake Mountain and they were incredible! They are extremely comfy and have excellent traction as well. I think I will slowly start to mix them back into my shoe rotation.
Grandeur Peak video
No comments:
Post a Comment