Hand Crack and Singletrack: Immigration to Emigration

Great running in the Aspens

Having completely slacked off with my running while in Greece(with many accusing remarks from James and Nate) I decided to pick it up this last half of the week. A friend in my old ward who grew up here and experienced what he called the "golden age" in the wasatch where he could go anywhere he wanted and not see a soul, currently calls the mountains Wasangeles due to what he feels is an absurd amount of people using "his" mountains. He's a great guy, but a little jaded for sure. However, I totally disagree with him. He does have a point that it is literally impossible to do pentapitch without 40 other people waiting, or to hike to lake blanche on a Saturday without cars lining the road down to Storm Mountain, but I did 3 runs up Emigration Canyon this week, and did not see anyone on Wednesday/friday and only a few others saturday, minus the 25 person Indian family reunion caravan at the Big mountain summit.

My point: the wasatch can still be solitary if you climb harder than 5.7, don't mind not skiing at Alta, and run a bit furthur.

I mananged to log 42 miles in 3 days since being back, doing some great loops up Emigration on the Mormon Pioneer trails, Killyons, Little Mountain, and GWT. Eight of those miles were run in baggy cargo shorts as I forgot my mojo's and refused to run in only my compression shorts despite the unpopularity of the trail I was going to run.

In honor of my new favorite Taylor Swift song, "22", and her overpriced saturday night concert tickets, I set out saturday to run a long one of 22 miles, but failed and ran 24. I hope she'll understand.

One of my favorite loops in the wasatch is the 24 miler starting at Mtn Dell Golf Course, running up the MP to Big Mountain, across the GWT to Parleys summit, down to Jeremy ranch, and back up and over down Alexander Creek to the car. Annie joined me for a 16 mile variation while I did the full 24. It was a spectacular day to be outside, and the singletrack of the GWT is as good as it gets near Bald Mountain. We saw a moose and a toad. The current building/construction near Jeremy Ranch requires some trespassing on supposed private property to do the loop proper, but no one was arrested.