I’m thankful for many things in life, and high up on the list is my health and the wonderful outdoors. As I sit here writing this, I’m hearing reports of mild violence and frenzied shoppers during the beginning of the holiday shopping season. You will be hard pressed to find me doing any “Black Friday” shopping, especially when there are trails to run, hike and bike!
On Thanksgiving morning, while Ann, Rachel and Valerie were getting started on the fabulous meal that we had later that day, I was out getting a 10K trail run in. Originally I was going to do a mountain bike ride, but couldn’t find someone to ride with, and so I opted for a run. Beautiful crisp morning and I saw lots of other runners, walkers and bikers – including my buddy, Mark Pyper, who was out for a ride and took these photos for me.
Running the Veteran’s Trail in Eagle.
Thanksgiving 10K run – Taking a break on the trail. The Idaho State Veterans’ Cemetery flag is in the background.
Friday morning Ann and I headed up to the Corrals trail for a nice little 10K hike (and about 1,000 ft of elevation gain). The valley was a bit hazy with a mild inversion, but on the climb we topped out well above the haze and took in the views of the Boise foothills instead of noise and chaos that is “Black Friday”.
This is our idea of how to spend “Black Friday”.
Saturday morning I hooked up with Garrett Kerr and we hit some of the trails from the Camelsback parking lot. We climbed up Red Cliffs, Sidewinder and Fat Tire to Trail 5. Garrett hadn’t ever been on Trail 5, so we did the top 1/3 and then climbed back up to the junction with Fat Tire and headed back down to Hulls Gulch via Trail 4. Trail 4 was fun, but a bit exciting on a mountain bike. The trail had several solid ice sections and we chose to just hit them straight on and fast – no braking allowed! We did a little playing around on the rock features in Hulls and then headed out.
Garrett hits the staircase in Hulls with confidence.
Garrett finishes the “staircase” and heads down Hulls.
This short video clip shows me getting a little forward on the roll-over, but hey I came away unscathed!
GPS Data of the weekend activities:
