W100: Our Own Brighton Marathon – Superior Looper

Date: July 21, 2018

Distance: 26 miles

Purpose: do our longest run since Squaw Peak 50 miler

Up until this time in my training I had not had any time on the trails with Wetzel, other than the Squaw Peak 50 miler.  With a goal of one long run per month, it was vital to do at least a 20 miler in the month of July. My proposal was to run up Ferguson and down Stairs, a fascinating and rugged drainage on the south side of Big Cottonwood, across from Storm Mountain, as described In the Super Triple Traverse entry. Scott’s proposal was to do a variation of the well-established Brighton Trail Marathon.  He convinced me to go with his plan, stating it was more “runnable” than mine. He certainly had a point.

We started out across from Donut Falls parking lot at a trailhead known as Mill D North. We worked our way up to the Desolation/Dog junction, veering right toward Desolation. Now we were finally on actual Wasatch 100 terrain! A couple of miles further up the road, a massive young bull moose was charging through the wildflower fields, luckily to get away from us rather than to approach us. It reminded me of the time I was in the same area 7 years earlier with Eliza and Colter (who was in my kid’s backpack and couldn’t even really walk yet, as I recall). We came across a mother moose who was apparently mourning the loss of her baby, who lay lifeless in a field for what looked like a very short amount of time. The baby had only recently passed away and we had no idea what from. So I foolishly tried to get closer to see the scene better. The mother moose was having none of it – she quickly pinned her ears back, widened her eyes into a stare, and began to snort at me. So the 3 of us got the hint, and promptly turned back as quickly as possible. Moose are not to be treated lightly.

We next came upon that great icon of the race, Desolation Lake. I looked at the spot where I knew this night time aid station would be located. I’ve been to this aid station during prior Wasatch 100 races and each time I am there, it is a mountain running party scene: a warm fire, people playing harmonica, mashed potatoes, enthusiastic and kind volunteers, and plenty of fluids and carbohydrates to go around. Some of these night time aid stations are so cozy that I can easily see why runners struggle to leave them and go back out on the cold, dark trail once again. But they know it is their duty to keep the body moving toward the ultimate goal, no matter what other distractions come along the 100 miles, including inadvertent distractions of too-comfortable aid stations that can suck you in!

Wetzel explained to me the famously steep section known as Red Lovers Ridge. It was red rock, very steep and jagged, not a place meant for lovers in my book. Anyways, we said goodbye to Corey’s brother at this point and worked our way up to Scott’s Peak. The Wasatch Crest through this section is amazingly beautiful and runnable. We almost got slammed by a couple of unsuspecting, crazy downhill mountain bikers, but luckily I jumped out of the trail fast enough to not get run over. We then crossed over Guardsman Pass access road, and worked our way up to Peak 10, 420’, an amazing powder stash for winter time skiing, on the back side of Brighton. We finally made it over to Clayton Peak, but not before seeing at least 5 lakes I had never before seen, east of Brighton. I actually have seen these on a map way back in high school when I first fell in love with hikes in my mountains, but hadn’t thought on them since Talk about exploring new beauty of the Central Wasatch – what  a surge of adrenaline! I later learned they were called: Shadow Lake,  Lake Brimhall, Bloods Lake, Lackawaxen Lake, and Silver Lake (the 3rd lake with this name in the Central Wasatch).

After way too much hiking and ridge scrambling, we were overdue for some downhill. And we finally got it after Clayton Peak. We took a gentle, shaded downhill trail all the way through the resort, past another Dog Lake, through the Lake Mary cutoff, and to the surprisingly large Twin Lakes Dam. Here, we began climbing again, giving our downhill muscles a break and getting back on our uphill ones. Trail running is so wonderful on the body in one key way: diversity. The trail is always changing, unlike road running where the grade and the terrain sometimes don’t change for dozens of miles. The propensity to monotony on roads is orders of magnitude greater than it is on trails. I’m hooked on trails for life!

We made it to Twin Lakes Pass and entered upper Grizzly Gulch on the Little Cottonwood Side at last. We skirted under one of our favorite wintertime powder treats: Black Bess, and ended up at the East Bowl of Silver Fork. There is some amazing mining remnants high on the entrance wall to East Bowl. I would definitely like to come back here with the kids some day and explore these abandoned silver mines. We worked our way past Davenport Hill, West Bowl Summit, False Flagstaff, and Toledo Chute, Toledo Bowl, Jaws. Our hearts ached as we looked at some of our favorite powder ski lines in the heat of the summer, as we wished we had skis on to descend much quicker and cooler than running down these technical trails.

We just couldn’t decide where we wanted to go down to BCC road: Honeycomb Road, Silver Fork, Days Fork, Cardiff Fork? They all looked so fun and technical. The answer would be none of the above.  The answer would be… On To Superior!

At Pole Line Pass, we met the point of decision with a sudden surge of energy as we looked west on the ridge line past the Met Peak, The Black Thumb, Little Superior and on to mighty Mt. Superior, my very favorite peak from which to ski in the winter. After calling our wives and asking for permission to extend our run for another 2-3 hours, we received the “green light” from them. Thank goodness for wonderful, beautiful, supportive wives! I know I couldn’t run this race and prepare the way I need to prepare without Becky’s constant support.

It was a bit further down the ridgeline from the Pole Line decision point that disaster struck – again. I say “again” because a recurring, painful injury bit Scott once again – the ankle sprain. I was running behind him, we were on our 5^th wind of energy and enjoying some Michael Jackson pop hits from my IPhone when I suddenly saw it. A mis-calculated planted step that immediately twisted- no, jerked – his entire lower leg to the inside. Scott yelled in pain and immediately hit the floor, grabbing his ankle. He has done this so many times before. We were both somber at the prospects of summiting Superior and finishing our trail marathon distance.  He gathered his wits, drank water, had some nutrition and was moving again within 5 minutes – although it was very gentle and timid indeed.

To Scott’s credit, we indeed summited Mount Superior, along with about 10 other people. We couldn’t believe what a traffic jam it was on the summit. We didn’t stay long and descended – very carefully on that throbbing ankle – down that Main Colouir into Upper Cardiff Fork, a.k.a. Cardiac Attack Bowl in winter time. This is truly iconic Wasatch Backcountry skiing county, with many heli-trips landing in Cardiac Bowl and the Keyhole Area.

We finally found a trail, and soon afterwards some beautiful, sweet running water. We were both nearly out of water at this point so it was a gift from Above! We were back at the car a few miles later. This was probably the most gorgeous of all my looper trail runs, with 6 summits and 7 beautiful lakes in total!