Back in Flag!

Susan and I had a great trip to Washington camping, climbing, running, canoeing, biking, hanging on the beach and visiting family. I'll have a trip report posted soon...need to go through all the photos!

Getting in to town today, my first order of business was going for a run to stretch the legs after a couple days of sitting in the car. I took the opportunity to sample a 5ish mile new section of the Arizona Trail between Snowbowl Road and Aspen Corner on the Peaks.

Man, was it awesome. What a great addition to the trails in Flagstaff! Not only does it travel some excellent sections of the mountain but it offers up some really cool high elevation trail 'link up' opportunities that I look forward to completing. I can not say enough about how much I enjoyed running this trail. With Aspen groves, thick green grass and ferns, big Pine and Fir trees and super smooth rolling single track at 8,000 feet...what's not to like? It's now one of my favorites in Flagstaff.

Note: There is a mile section in the middle of it that wasn't finished yet. Don't let this stop you from checking out the trail though. It is well flagged and people have been hiking it enough to have created a faint trail so it doesn't really slow you down much. I didn't have any trouble finding my way and only had to walk a few times due to down trees and brush that haven't been cleared yet.

Also... on the way back down the trail I went down a gully to investigate some rock I spied on the way up. There wasn't really anything tall enough to put a good concentration of routes on but there was some good opportunities for bouldering. In fact, by accident I spied a cave there that was flat out sick. It's big, steep and has holds. I think there could be some really amazing hard boulder problems in it... and the walk isn't too long! I'll have to get some strong boys up there to send some lines. There's a couple lines in the thing that could be pretty classic if they climb as well as they look. We will see...

Running Log

Two weeks ago: about 25 miles

Last week: about 32 mile (with a good 16 mile run with no foot pain. Getting more brave...)

Today: 10 miles and 1,000 feet of elevation gain (Snowbowl Road/Aspen Corner AZ Trail out and back)