July 29 - Aug 4

7/29/2013
Mon-AM: 3:44, 7100' ~ Grand Teton
Up and down via Owen-Spalding. Still pretty tired from Speedgoat, duh. Lazy 2:16 up, 1:28 down. Nasty weather was lingering to the west all the way up, so I spent very little time on the summit, fearing electricity in the clouds. Just as I got past the Belly Crawl and back to the Upper Saddle it started snowing quite hard, which was interesting, and then it was raining on me the last 20min before the parking lot. Always good to get up this mountain, though.

7/30/2013
Tue-AM: 3:50, 5600' ~ Teewinot
Jodee wanted to go up a mountain, and I needed an easy day, so we decided on Teewinot. Strong hiking on the climber's trail (only a few minutes slower than when I'd done it on Sunday) but then the last 1500' of mostly 4th Class terrain (understandably) slowed Jodee down. Tagged the summit in 2:15 and then took our time getting back down through the techy stuff before jogging back down to the cars. Weather didn't move in as quickly today, which was fortunate.

7/31/2013
Wed-AM: 3:27, 7100' ~ Grand Teton
Up and down the O-S again. I had to be back in SLC in the evening, so decided I needed another lap on the Grand before the drive. Yesterday's easy outing definitely helped and I felt quite a bit better today, going up in 2:07 and descending in 1:20. I lost a bunch of time on the descent, though, as it took me several tries to find the correct chimneys to complete the O-S downclimb. Legs felt much better on the descent than they did two days ago, though.

8/1/2013
Thu-AM: 2:51, 6000' ~ Twin Peaks, SLC
Up Stairs Gulch and down Broad Forks with Joel. I didn't pull into SLC until late last night, so I was pretty groggy this morning. Stairs Gulch is a pretty great line, ascending a vertical mile in ~3mi to the 11,300' Twin Peaks. Lots of Class 2 and 3 terrain marching up low-angled slabs of slate and schist with a few moves of Class 4 thrown in. We opted to make it a loop and descend the trail, where I nearly stepped on a groggy rattlesnake. Finished with a fast mile+ running the road back down to the car. Always fun getting out for a scrunble with Joel.

8/2/2013
Fri-AM: 2:20, 5300' ~ Twin Peaks, SLC
I was really indecisive about what I was going to do this morning, so ended up just tagging Twin Peaks again, this time just running up and down the Broad Forks trail. 1:26 to the summit of the East Twin. Ran into two moose on the trail in the upper basin, above the lake.

8/3/2013
Sat-AM: 2:20, 5000' ~ N+S Olympus via West Slabs, SLC
Parked at the junior high school at Oakview Dr just off Wasatch Blvd and ran the streets up to the West Slabs TH. Scramble up the Slabs was a ton of fun, and then lots of scrambling up the ridge to reach Olympus' North summit. The downclimb from there into the saddle below the South summit is definitely the crux of this whole run. Tagged the South summit, and ran the trail easy back down to Wasatch Blvd where I then took the contouring use trail until having to run the road the final mile or so back to the school. Great loop.

8/4/2013
Sun-AM: 2:15, 4500' ~ Mt. Rosa (11,500')
Down in Colorado Springs. Parked at the upper Gold Camp lot (above Helen Hunt Falls), and ran up 7 Bridges to Pipeline to Frosty's Park to the summit of Rosa. Descended Buffalo Canyon to St. Mary's Falls and back to the car. Awesome loop. The trails in the COS are so smooth and runnable, it's really a lot of fun after spending all summer on off-trail, techy terrain. Tagged the summit of Rosa in 1:27 before enjoying one of the funnest, most flowy 4000' descents that I know. Really great trails back there with no one on them.

Hours: 20h47min
Vert: 40,500'

Really fun, varied week of running. Ended up being too tired in the Tetons---and the weather ended up being too uncooperative---to really get in any long days and do any scouting of the Traverse. No worries, though, those mountains are so incredible it's really hard to go wrong.

Also, finally got my Speedgoat 50K race report posted. The 10 days post-Speedgoat were pretty busy for me (Tetons. Outdoor Retailer, visiting family), so I apologize for it probably feeling like old news.

The complicated terrain between Teewinot (in pic) and the Grand Teton (standing on it). Mt. Owen isn't even visible.

A tip from a comment on last week's post turned me on to these guys. Good ol' Montreal, getting things done in the music scene.

Parlovr - 3 songs in a tunnel - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Parlovr - Hell Heaven - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.