Adventures in Onionism

It's been almost two months now, but I stopped in Phoenix on my way home from DC in February and ran the Black Canyon double. The Black Canyon 100K has become a competitive early season race (it's a Western States Golden Ticket race). It's a net downhill course, and it seems like a relatively reliable way to get decent race weather in February, since it's at lower elevations not too far north of Phoenix. I flew to Phoenix after work on Friday the 17th. I am a cheapskate and airfare and race entry fees were already expensive enough, so I rented a Prius so I could crash in the back and not pay for a hotel room. Due to the battery configuration in a Prius, the rear seats fold down perfectly flat. This seems more common in SUVs, but SUVs are bad . For fellow hikers who don't want to kill pedestrians, here's a good discussion of other vehicles that may fit the fold-flat-seats bill. You can use Turo to rent the exact model of car you're looking for. Another perk ...

I finally got revenge against the Mogollon Monster.  I tried running the race in 2014, but it was cancelled mid-race due to rain. If you prefer I suppose you could call it a thunderstorm, but I'll stick with "rain." You can see my report from that year here . The race is under new management, and both the management and the aid station tents seem much sturdier, so I was confident the race would go off without a hitch. Gf and the dogs and I drove to Pine, AZ the day before the race. We were mostly on HWY 60, which I don't think I'd seen before, and was gorgeous though, duh, really hot. Saguaros everywhere. I bought a hat. As is my wont, we camped near the start on any old dirt road pullout we could find. There was a little more traffic than ideal because hunting season just started (elk archery, I think). Plus we couldn't get very far off the pavement because damn, when a Prius says it has 5 inches of clearance, it's 5 inches tops . We made it through the s...

I finished thru-hiking the Hayduke Trail two weeks ago. It was an incredible experience. Overview:   The Hayduke Trail isn’t a trail, it’s a route. It’s a mix of trailless canyons, washes, gullies, jeep roads, some trail, and a tiny amount of pavement. The route connects many of the highlights of the Colorado Plateau in Utah and Arizona. It takes you through Arches, Bears Ears, Canyonlands, Glen Canyon NRA, Capitol Reef, Grand Staircase, Bryce, Grand Canyon, and Zion. The route is approximately 800 miles long, and it took us 5.5 weeks, September 8 to October 15. We hiked westbound from Moab to Zion, and everything written here is from that perspective. I would rate this hike as very difficult, somewhat on par on a per-mile basis with my previous trips to Alaska or the Sierra High Route. The route includes significant class 3 scrambling. The weather was very hot, resupplies are far apart, and there was not a lot of water, so we had to carry heavy packs, and doing this scrambling w...

Well, not quite yet. We're in a draw just outside town. A little too close to the noisy highway to be truly pleasant, but in or close to the Cottonwood Point Wilderness. The timing was such that we could have camped in the nothing-but-sagebrush before the highway that we've been in all day and had more to walk tomorrow, or in slightly nicer junipers closer to town, except the highway is indeed really loud. (My fault, I of course always push for more mileage.) Neither of us wanted to go get a hotel room in town, as it was a further walk plus we don't know if smelly hikers will be received well. Anyway, we walked roads all day, and there was plenty of water, but often nothing but sagebrush and tumbleweed as far as the eye could see. I quite liked, except for one sandy bit and a small headache.  One of the checkdams early on had some cow water. Then Yellowstone Spring had basically a swimming pool of water. Then Maroney Well was running, though it tasted of iron.  As soon as Y...

Chugged a protein shake, coffee, and water this morning in order to be well hydrated before potentially never seeing water again. Then took off, and the miles came much easier than yesterday. The walls of Kanab Creek were still impressive, but rapidly came down in height as we moved along. We passed a junction with Jumpup canyon and then started finding trails that occasionally cut the corners off bends in the now-dry creek. The trail was occasionally sandy, but a heavy red sand that wasn't that bad to walk on.  The creek did reappear once, cold and clear just north of Chamberlain Canyon, so I drank more there, but was still carrying 7.5L or so, which was quite heavy on my shoulders. We finally turned out of Kanab Creek into Hack Canyon, and the trail got better, with big cowboy cairns. Obviously just a use trail for cows, but it made following it easy. We only saw around 5 cows total all day though. There was one more spring, Willow Spring, that had a nice flow and a nice concrete...

I ran the Zane Grey 50-miler in Arizona on Saturday. It was rough, and having a conference at UC Davis, a flight delay, and under five hours of sleep the night before didn't really help. But it was very pretty, so I still had fun. Except for miles 33-46. Those sort of sucked. It was my slowest 50-miler tim in a decade or so, but Zane Grey is maybe top 3 or top 5 hardest 50's. I didn't carry my camera, so these photos are from the Mazatzal Wilderness, where I spent Sunday on a short backpacking trip before flying home early Monday. Monday Morning Couldn't get it to focus without using my flashlight Hey bear. What am I? I look like a stink bug in water. Someday, maybe Zane Grey Finisher Prize Look that relief on that terrain map. The Mogollon Rim.

I went to Arizona to run the Mogollon Monster 100. It's supposed to a be a very tough, scenic, 107+ mile long race, and despite only being in its third year, it's already on the short list of Hardrock Qualifiers.  I flew to Phoenix on Friday after not sleeping well Thursday night, and drove to Pine, AZ for packet pickup. I was hungry, but didn't really eat much, and got a rough night's sleep in my rental car on a forest service road near the start. The race started at 6AM Saturday. It started raining just a few minutes after the start, but only lasted for a few minutes. I fell in with some cool people; a guy who just ran the Tahoe 200, and a dude from SF who runs winter sled races in Alaska; I think he's scheduled to do a 1000 miler this winter. So I had enjoyable company, but I wasn't feeling that great--I hadn't gotten a lot of sleep, my neck was sore from sleeping funny and had to be bent down a little, I walked into a tree and hit my head, and I had mo...