I started running about 2 a.m. and ran counter-clockwise all the way around massive Utah Lake, an 82-mile adventure run. About 3/4th was rural country. Many cyclists do this every year, but I’m the first to do it on foot in a day. Here is my video report.
Usually the day after Thanksgiving, I find myself down in the Grand Canyon. This year I decided to stay closer to home and not risk injuring my problem knee from steep pounding downhills. For this year’s Black Friday adventure, I chose to travel two hours to Price Utah, and run up on a mesa north of the town, on the Western Book Cliff Mountain Bike trails. These trails have been developed by the Price Area Single Track Society (PASS).
Kings Peak is the highest peak in Utah at 13,528 feet. All of Utah’s peaks over 13,000 feet are located in the Uinta Mountains. I’ve summitted ten of them. Kings Peak gets the most attention and each weekend in the summer dozens of hikers make the trek to the top.
Back in 2001, before I was a runner, I did the normal 3-day backpack with my brother and our sons to reach to top. I remember seeing a guy with a daypack running. I asked what he was doing and was amazed to find out that he was doing a Kings Peak summit in one day! That really inspired me and just a couple years later I accomplished the same thing. Now I had been to the top eight times and been to Anderson Pass, right below the summit an additional four times.
For my birthday, I wanted to try to run the Skyline Drive end-to-end, something I’m sure no one has even attempted before. This is a 110-mile dirt road that runs from I-70 to Hwy 6, north-south in Central Utah. Most of it is above 10,000 feet. Craig Lloyd was interested in running it with me and we found a willing crew to drive along, Josh and Matt. I had scouted out and driven about 40 miles of it a week earlier. I received some good information from buddy, Bryan, who has spent many days up in that region.
With yet another winter storm coming into northern Utah for Memorial Day, I decided at the last minute to escape the rain and drive 4.5 hours southeast to run through another hidden gem in Utah that most people don’t even knows exists.
I had a spectacular 8-hour, 28-mile run in an area unofficially called the Wolverine Petrified Forest. I ran through two long slot canyons, Wolverine Creek and Little Death Hollow, and also visited the Escalante River. The region I was in is protected by the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
The San Rafael Swell is a spectacular area of Utah that is generally overlooked by all except off-road vehicle enthusiasts. The Swell is a large geologic feature located in south-central Utah about 75 miles by 40 miles. It consists of a giant dome-shaped fold or swell of sandstone, shale, and limestone that was pushed up millions of years ago. Numerous valleys, gorges, mesas and buttes have formed included what is referred to as the Little Grand Canyon which has been cut by the San Rafael River. The area is managed by the BLM and certain portions are protected as Wilderness Study Areas. The federal government has considered designating the area as a National Monument but no action is moving forward because of local concern about the impact on backcountry travel. Regardless, the area is spectacular enough to rival other national monuments and parks.
The area in the northwest section of San Rafael Swell is nicknamed “Little Grand Canyon.” It resembles the Grand Canyon on a much smaller scale giving an easier opportunity to experience this wonder either inside its depths or on top of the rim. The area on the rim is called “The Wedge.” The canyon follows the river for 18 miles from Fuller Bottom to the San Rafael Bridge.
The Bonneville Salt Flats are an expanse of hard, white salt crust on the western edge of the Great Salt Lake basin in Utah. They are 12 miles long and 5 miles wide covering just over 46 square miles. Near the center, the crust is 5 feet thick in places. That is 147 million tons of mostly table salt! It is the site of some astounding land speed records over of more than 600 mph. Surrounding the Salt Flats are miles and miles of Salt Mud Flats with various islands poking up.
I’ve been helping a friend who is working with the BLM to get a 100-mile race approved out in the area. I decided to go try running a portion of the proposed route. I took my son, Kevin with me, who is taking up ultrarunning. For this adventure, we would run along the Bonneville Dike through the salt mud flats all the way to Floating Island and back, a run of 26 miles. We would be about ten miles east of the famed Salt Flat Speedway, and about 90 miles west of Salt Lake City.
Capitol Reef National Park is one of the lesser-known parks in Utah. The park is in a remote area of south-central Utah that did not have a paved road going to the area until 1962. In 1971 President Nixon signed a bill to make the area into a national park. This park is still a relatively secret national treasure compared to the other well-known parks in Utah. It is an ultrarunner’s paradise because of its solitude, spectacular scenery, primitive and rugged trails, slot canyons, and gorgeous slick rock.
The major feature of the park is the Waterpocket Fold. This is a remarkable, nearly 100-mile long up-thrust extending like a rugged spine from Thousand Lake Plateau southward to Lake Powell. On the east side of the Waterpocket Fold is an extremely long valley that extends the length of the Waterpocket Fold. Bordering the east side of the valley are high cliffs of Halls Mesa. Winding through the valley is Halls Creek normally dry but runs full of water during flood run-off times. This valley can be brutally hot during the summer and surprisingly warm in the winter.
The Bear River – Smiths Fork Trail (#091) (Also sometimes referred to as the North Slope Trail) is a long-forgotten trail in the Uinta Mountains that crosses the North Slope from west to east. This mostly forest trail connects seven river forks, and climbs up and over six major ridges. It covers nearly 30 miles with climbs totaling more than 7,000 feet. The altitude for the route is between 8,800 feet and 10,800 feet.
A week ago, I went backpacking for five days in the High Uintas in Utah. While there, I discovered a nice challenging trail on the North Slope that runs west to east, up and over the ridges, and across the canyons. This trail is named “Bear River – Smiths Fork” trail because it runs from Bear River on the west all the way to Smiths Fork on the east, probably about 35 miles or so. On our last day of the backpack, we ran 11 miles of it between East and West Blacks Fork Forks.
I wanted to get in one more long training run before the Wasatch 100 in two weeks. I wanted my run to have lots of climbs at altitude, so I decided to try running this trail starting at Bear River, up three major ridges, and then summit Mount Tokewanna, the 11th highest peak in Utah. I would then return the way I came, for an adventure of more than 40 miles. I fully realized that this would be tough, especially since much of the trail would travel through an area destroyed by forest fire in 2002.
The Uinta mountain range in Utah is one of the few ranges in North America that runs east to west. This mountain range contains all of the Utah peaks higher than 13,000 feet and it is the most remote mountain range in the state. The highest continuous established trail in the Uintas is the Highline Trail (#025) that runs the length of the mountain range. This very remote trail is one of the most remarkable trails in the nation. In its entirety, the trail is more than 100 miles long. A 78-mile stretch from Leidy Peak on the east to Hayden Pass on the west is generally recognized as the end-to-end expanse of the trail. The rest of the trail is through mostly forest outside the wilderness area.
My great joy in running isn’t experienced in the races, but rather in doing adventure runs. At times, these adventures can be amazing experiences when there is a perfect balance of challenge, solitude, and scenery. I was thrilled to again experience this feeling while running through the Paria Canyon near the Utah/Arizona border.