CCURDLE Coyne

After last weeks festivities gathering ticks in LCC Court and I decided we needed a bit more action saturday morning before the rain started. With Annie still out of commission with arm issues, we men headed up to try our luck on Boomerang and Coyne Crack, up near the Thumb. Boomerang is a 2 pitch 5.10.  Pitch 1 has fantastic right leaning finger jamming, great gear and a bomber 2 bolt anchor and pitch 2 has scary waterfall slab face and corner climbing protected by old pitons with ratty, soaking wet webbing attached intermixed with thought provoking pod gear with a slung bushel for a belay. Court got pitch 1, and I was lucky enough to get pitch 2. Who had the better lead?

Pitch one(the quality pitch) of Boomerang

Coyne Crack is a splitter finger crack that goes at 11d and worked me last year. I was excited to return and try to send it for a respectable 2nd attempt on it. All went well and despite desperate mantling after the first crux section, I managed to pull off the redpoint. To ruin my day, Court onsighted it shortly thereafter. Whatever. Congrats to the kid. Not to downplay his accomplishment, but I did spray him down with gear beta prior to his go. But I just say that to make myself feel better about getting shown up. Superb route. Hope to return and try our luck at another hard 11c, Spring and Fall, next week.

Looking down at the crux section of Coyne

Yosemite? Try LCC

We each lapped it again on TR after our respective sends.

After climbing I set out for a long run. With the high country still socked in with snow, and my creativity deteriorating on more possible linkups on the University bonneville section of trail, I turned my attention the draper canyon trail system. You may have heard of the WURL, or the wasatch ultimate ridge linkup. My run, inspired by that challenge, is known as the CCURDLE, or Corner Canyon Ultimate Rainy Day Linkup Extravaganza.. This run isn't especially well known among ultrarunners as I created it as I was driving to the trailhead yesterday. The acronym came to me as I observed the consistency of my chicken bacon artichoke pizza vomit after completing the run.

If you haven't run in Corner Canyon, or biked, the Draper trail crew down there did some legit work. All the trails are well maintained, well signed(even providing some life advice at times), are closed when muddy, and have updated maps and bike maintainance stations. The one problem they do have however is that the place is a maze. If its your first time, expect to get turned around.

The fat maps around the area state there are 17 different trail sections that can be traveled on. My goal in doing the CCURDLE was of course to run all of them. Now before you buck your head in disbelief, many of the trails are less than 1 mile long. Some however are 3-5 miles long, so it balances itself out. Linking them all together proved to be a challenge, which I failed at(due to rain, laziness, hunger, not knowing where that trail was, etc), but I managed to hit a considerable portion of them(like 12) in 3 hours plus the standard 6 mile Bonneville section over near there. Basically you just run up and down this bluff a bunch of times on as many different trails as you can, running into the same people over and over who are essentially doing the same thing.

The sign says many of the trails are red, meaning closed.......

But the signs hang mercifully down!! 

How many cliche LDS proposals have happened here?

A call to serve and protect

Dictating social queues

Advice for happy living and tick infestation

The trails I hit were: Bonneville, Clarks, Ann's, Rush, Corner Canyon Road, Ghost Falls, Aqueduct, Gasline, Canyon Hollow, Brocks, Potato Hill, and couple other connector trails. If you're interested in training for the WURL, look somewhere else. There is no off trail hiking, no summits attained, no ridges, minimal vert, and many grandma's on unicycles lapping you, but at least you can say you did the CCURDLE.

A New SKT on the Wind Cave/Green Canyon Loop

Great view of Mt Logan from atop ridge

There is much talk about so called Fastest Known Times(FKT) in running and climbing. The concept is simple: certain individuals try to beat the current record time on a given course, whether it be a standard 100m track in the Olympics, the R2R2R in the Grand Canyon, or your neighborhood backyard mountain run. The "known" part of it implies that it might have been run faster, only the humble hardman/woman who did it just isn't reporting it, so we just go by what the arrogant media attention hoarders report.

However, what often isn't reported, or isn't given credit, is the just the opposite. The SKT, or slowest known time, usually is looked down upon, due to the obvious lack of fitness, orienteering, or preparation by the participant. I myself am quite pleased when I can beat the fastest time on a certain course, but also recognize the harsh torture and effot that usually accompanies a SKT. I am a pro at achieving SKT's. Examples include our Gannett trip, where we were utterly crushed by the mountain, or Nate and I's epic Wellsville hypothermic experience where our SKT is still yet to be determined as we did not finish. Farmer Bill had to drive us to Wendy's in Brigham City where we warmed our goods with the bathroom hand warmer till the calvary arrived.

Annie and I would like to announce our new SKT on the classic, yet rarely done, Green Canyon/Wind Cave loop up in Logan which we accomplished this weekend. I am not qualified to say how far the run is or how much vert is lost/gained due to lacking a GPS watch or the time necessary to map it out on Google Earth, though if pressed I would say in the 15 mile range and maybe 2-3k of vert. The loop starts at the mouth of Logan canyon, then traverses north across the Bonneville, then up Green Canyon, up and over and down the ridge to the Wind Cave trail in Logan, then out using the Stokes Nature Trail back to first dam. And with the new Pipeline trail in place, feet on pavement time is minimal. Regardless, if you are interested in beating our SKT, here are the requirements.

You must:
1. Jump "trail closed" signs and construction equipment on the Bonneville shoreline section.
2. Slip and slide up and down the icy Green Canyon road which receives no sun until the summer solstice, tagging the top of Green Canyon for unneeded extra miles
3. Either posthole in waist deep soft cold slush on the Green Canyon ascent or abandon the trail in favor of attempting to link together thick, steep but dry schwak. Climbing unstable loose limestone cliffs is usually helpful to avoid both.
4. End up 1 mile west of the Green/Logan saddle where the descent trail is located.
5. Descend through the "Angels Landing" of Logan trail by somehow kindly asking farmer John and college student Billy to move aside.
6. Spend 10 minutes lost in the Guinivau/Malibu campground across from the Wind Cave trailhead searching for bridge across the river to access the next trail section. (its 1/2 mile up canyon, not down)
7. One member of your two man crew must roll her ankle near 3rd dam, but manage to courageously hobble to 2nd dam before being picked up by the first member.
8. Remove and replace your long sleeve shirt 10-35 times due to constantly changing temperature conditions.
9. Solo the 4 bolt 5.6 on the Date Wall as rain starts to fall 
10. Take an absurd amount of pictures to put on your lame blog. 

My time: 4:30 with Annie being the person mentioned in requirement 7.

The Wellsvilles are always a pleasant sight. The electrical wires are not

Starting up Green Canyon, the dry portion

Icy section of Green Canyon

Fun singletrack

Off trail schwaking, but no snow!

Annie choosing schwak over postholing

Completely off route, but beautiful terrain nevertheless

Finally on trail again. One of my favorite sections

A new bridge near the base of Stokes provides access to the new Pipeline trail

Some guy was really bored when he decided to bolt this 15 foot wall