On Saturday, Peter, Brian and myself did trail work up on the flank of Lone Peak. I have to say that, compared to last year I had a great time. For those that don't know both the Wasatch 100 and Bear 100 require 8 hours of trail service in order to toe the starting line. What's that? You pay $XXX.XX amount for the chance to run and then you have to volunteer for 8 hours of back busting-hand blistering work, all so you can suffer for 20 to 36 hours in September? However it might sound to you, it's the right thing to do. We run on these and other trails all year long, we should help rehabilitate and build these same trails, it just makes sense.
Peter informed me that we would be hiking for a while to get to the trail work section and I was pretty excited about that. Turns out we hiked for nearly 2.5 hours, picked up tools, then started working.
The best part was that we weren't just clearing overgrowth and widening existing trails, we were actually building new trail. The old trail in this area is called Eagle Creek, and it ascended straight up the mountain, which isn't exactly a problem unless you're a tad bit concerned about straight-up-trail's friend, erosion. Seems the old trail had become a ditch and almost impassable. Long story short, we put in about a half dozen switchbacks, diverted a drainage, built a crossing and blazed about a 1/2 mile of new trail. The best part was that we were able to run on it after we were finished.
Jeff LaMora, Peter, Brian Hamos, Ryan Lauck and myself decided to run down after we were finished and get a bit of a workout in. Turns out we were 4,000' and 2,000 switchbacks above our starting point. We started at a pretty brisk pace and after about 10 minutes ran in to this guy. We had startled this 4' rattler off the trail and into the bush, he didn't seem to happy to see us.
On Sunday Greg joined Peter, Brian and myself for a run from the bottom of Big Mtn. to Lambs canyon. I have run this section many times, but I have to say that today was the most visually spectacular I have ever seen. Every mountain flower that exists was blooming today. I had a hard time concentrating on the trail, not just from the over growth but mostly from all the color we were running through. The pictures really don't do it justice.
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