Inspired by the usual giants of our sport, I figured we could have our own, perhaps less grandiose, thread to document and discuss running/stumbling/scrambling up and down mountains.  More detailed than the "on my run today I saw..." thread but less distracted than the dailies.  A place to get advice, post reports, see what works and what doesn't when the goal is getting up and down a mountain "quickly."

I'll start.

I've recently relocated to a place that has mountains (Flagstaff AZ) from a place that had hills (Southeastern PA and Belarus before that) so getting onto the top of them and looking around has been a goal since I got here.  I've been running around 5-7k feet a lot and felt like it was time to push a bit higher, actually higher than I've ever been under my own power.

The Peak:  Kendrick Mountain with a peak elevation of 10,422 ft is an old volcano with three different routes up.  Here the peak is to the left showing the remnants of the basin inside.

The climb is roughly 2,700 ft over ~4.5 miles from the trailhead to peak on the most common route, which I used for the ascent.  All was going well until about mile three when the altitude started to hit me and both my heels started blistering.

Pics from the way up:

So I slowed to a walk which didn't help the blisters any but did give me time to look around and enjoy more of the views.

At the top I took a long break in the sun, threw on an extra shirt to keep warm, and nibbled away at a clif bar.  Made it to the top at around 1 hr 10 minutes but I'm sure with more acclimation that can be reduced.  I wanted to hang out at the top for a bit to get used to the higher elevation so I sat down and watched as a chipmunk and butterfly decided to join me.

I decided to descend on another trail and then skirt around the base of the mountain on a fire road that led to both trailheads...I would both enjoy and regret this decision.  About 200 ft down from the peak I lost the trail in a maze of deadfall pines, scree rock, and leftover snow.  After stumbling around for a bit, I gave up and started heading back up to the peak to follow the other trail down when I inadvertently found the trail I was looking for...sweet, let's get movin again!

I soon discovered the cause of the deadfall and carnage on this side of the mountain.  A massive fire had burnt huge swaths of the forest back in 2000 and the evidence is still quite clear.  Thanks to what I can only assume was a monumental effort by trail maintenance crews, the trail is open and really enjoyable.

I couldn't stop stopping to take more photos as it was rather surreal.  More, including some panoramas can be found in the link in my sig.

I finally made it down to the trailhead around the 2 hour mark, ate another clif bar, and started the ~6 mile fire road run back to the trailhead the car was at.  Much to my dismay, the road was a gradual climb the whole way with a stout wind blowing dust in my face.  I almost resorted to a shuffle but then I saw a sign that the trailhead was 3 miles further and I looked at my watch which showed 2:33 so I vowed to bring it home with a 27 minute 5k.  Rolled into the lot at 2:59...woot.

What I learned:  Climbing mountains is fun, study the topo maps better, my shoes suck for extended ascending, clif bars work.

I've been through a lot of different burned areas (NM to MT) and they are surreal- they can also be quite dangerous when the wind comes up if there is much for standing timber around, not mention very hard to get through when there is lots of downed timber!  It's natures way of rejuvenating her forests, but still find fires saddening nonetheless

few shots from the Bridger Ridge run- it's touted as the toughest 20 mile race and I'm not going to argue w/ them  lots (and lots) of exposed rock, more than a fair bit of rock scrambling- there is probably only about 10 miles of "trail", the rest is simply running the knife edge ridge of the Bridgers- not a run you'd want to do if you had vertigo

coming from ~ 2500', the 7000-10000' elevation definitely impacted my stamina, wasn't really expecting that, but will next go round

above Fairy Lake

saddle below Sacajawea

looking south w/ a long ways to go