First Winter Run up Elden Lookout Road

Every year, I mark the true winter running season (for me anyway...) by my first run up the Mt. Elden Lookout Road.   This 'first run of the road' happens when the first heavy snowfall has finally made a mess of the trails enough to force me to run a road to get to the summit of something. Even though I don't get too psyched on running roads, running the Mt. Elden Lookout Road in the winter doesn't seem like much of a road when it's covered in a foot or two of snow! Here's a couple shots from the top of Mt. Elden from the run.

(Road condition during the run and pretty typical conditions most of the winter.)

(Looking east from the top.)

(True summit of Mt. Elden.)

(The Peaks!)

Well... time to shift to mandatory trail running at sunrise (to beat the mud and slush...), trying to squeeze more out of the Grand Canyon and getting down to Sedona to run. I fought the coming winter a little at first...but changing seasons ain't so bad with the GC and Sedona just down the road!

Funny thing happened the last few days though...it rained a ton and now it is supposed to be sunny and in the 50's. All the snow in town melted and most of the snow on the dry lake hills too. I guess I may be able to squeeze in some more high elevation trail runs yet! In fact, I did a 10 mile loop on the Dry lake hills this morning and the snow was no big deal. The snow on the loop was never more than ankle deep. Seems like I may be able to keep one foot in Fall and one foot in Winter for a while yet.