Menu Close

Month: August 2017

True end-to-end Uinta Highline Trail attempt

My favorite mountain range is the Uinta Mountains in Utah. There are other ranges more beautiful, but the Uintas are so remote and challenging to run and has its own special beauty. It is one of the few ranges in North America that runs east to west. The Highline Trail (#025, #083) runs nearly the length of the mountain range. In its entirety, the Highline Trail is about 107 miles long. (mileage will vary because long sections are routes with no trail wear and the trail splits at times giving alternate routes.)

Eastern Trailhead
Eastern Trailhead

Many runners and hikers have considered the eastern trailhead of the Highline Trail to be the Leidy Peak trailhead, resulting in about 82 miles for the Highline Trail. I too considered that to be an end-to-end run when I ran it in 2010, the first to run it solo, unsupported. These runners and hikers are too quickly discarding the eastern portions of that trail to give themselves credit for an end-to-end Highline Trail run or hike. They are skipping 25.5 miles to the east that for decades has been documented as being part of the Highline Trail.