Luckily, I didn't work today. I've been wanting to go to Mt. Tammany all week. I headed there a little after lunchtime. I didn't know what to expect, but I was hoping that enough people had hiked through to make a decent trail through the snow.
At first, I had a lightweight long sleeve shirt with my fleece vest over it and long pants on the bottom. It was in the low 20s and a bit windy though, so I elected for my ColdGear top. That was a good choice, because at times I was cold. Other times, I was hot. That's pretty typical of this time of year. The sun was actually shinning during a lot of the run.I'm not sure I should really call this a run. I headed up running the Red Dot Trail early. However, that didn't last very long. Early on, there's a steep and normally rocky section. The rocks were buried, but it was still a lot of work to actually run uphill. I ended up hiking.
I ran here and there, but it was mostly just hiking. A few people had hiked through, but not as many as I had hoped. It also seemed like there were less tracks as I got higher up. That was no surprise. Even hiking up this steep trail was tough.
Thankfully, there was a lot of snow on the ground. At least it wasn't icy, like the last time I was there. It was still super slow though. I looked forward to the downhill.
I had to hike through a few snowdrifts at the top. That was tough. It was chilly too. Finally, I made it to the top. It was windy up there too. I took some photos from the overlook, but I didn't stay long.
I looked forward to getting on to the Blue Trail. I figured that this would be smooth and I'd fly downhill. As I got on that trail, I noticed only one or at most two sets of footprints. It was even hard to run this part along the ridge. I noticed that my GPS got messed up too. It added a good half mile or more out of nowhere.
What made running through the snow tough was the ice layer on top. If there's a clear path, there's no problem. However, whenever you hit the edge of the footprints, you can bang your shins on the ice. I knew I'd do this a lot on the descent of the Blue Trail. After that happened a couple times, I turned back up the hill.
I'd now head down the Red Dot. That trail is steeper and normally more technical, but at least it had more of a trail. I hiked the ridge to get there.
Finally, I was on the Red Dot. I had to hike a lot of the descent, especially the rocky part. I tried running some of it and I'd get frustrated. I was losing my footing or sinking into the snowdrifts. Then, I fell on the snow. It didn't hurt, but the whole experience had me very mad. I thought I could at least run downhill.
Finally, I got through the technical rocky section and was able to run. It was actually a blast as I danced, slipped and sort of skied down the hill. I got down it in no time. Here and there, I hiked some of the technical stuff. I didn't go all the way to the bottom, but I did go most of the way.
I decided that I wanted some more elevation gain. I had been happy that at least I could run some downhill. The plan was to hike back up to the rocky section at least. I did that.
I was enjoying the fact that I kept gaining elevation, so I continued on, even through the technical stuff. I was nearly to the top when I finally turned around. I had climbed another 1,000 feet.
I actually ran down more the technical stuff this time. The trail was a little smoother and perhaps more importantly, I was more confident. I was over 2500 feet of gain now. I flew past a woman who looked like she was trying to run up the hill. I wish I could've run with her. Company would've been nice.
I had such a blast descending. I feel like more people would enjoy trail running in these conditions, if they just tried it. I passed a hiker coming up too. He must've thought I was crazy. Before long, I was cruising down the last steep part, quickly sliding all over the place.
I was around 2 hours into the hike/run at this point. I decided that I would try to take the AT out for a bit. This is more gradual. It was sort of well worn, except I don't think anyone had taken that route in a few days. It did look like some snowshoes or something like that had gone through there.
I couldn't run much of it, so I hiked here too. I knew I'd run downhill. I got about another 300 feet of gain and then turned around. I was getting tired, so I couldn't even run the flat parts any more. I did run downhill though. It was good to get back to the car.
Now that I was close to 3000 feet of gain, I wanted to climb some more and get over that. I headed back up Mt. Tammany again. It didn't take too long to get over 3000 feet. I kept going after that. I was getting very tired and even hiking was tough. My back really hurt going up the first two climbs, but oddly, it wasn't too bad now. Maybe it was stretched out or something. I hiked for quite a bit. I probably got around 700 feet of gain in this segment. I started up the technical part, but once my watch was over 3500 feet of gain, I turned around. I was exhausted. I had been using Tailwind, but not enough. I was starting to bonk at this point.
Running downhill was still fun. I wasn't as steady on my feet as earlier. Still, I ran down to the bottom. I got there in no time. I was well over 9 miles now. It took me over 3 hours. Although I had gone so slow, the snow made it very tough. I was so exhausted by the end that I sat right down in my car. It was an awesome workout.
I was hoping for 12,000 feet of gain this week. With the extra day off, I'm not sure I'll hit that. I'd need another big day tomorrow. One day this weekend, I'm hoping to head to Susquehanna State Park in Maryland. That is where the HAT 50K takes place. I want to preview it. They don't have snow down there, so that would be nice. It's also supposed to be very warm down there. I hope I can meet up with Destire too, for the run. I don't know exactly what I'll be doing, but it should be two good runs at least.
9.51 miles - 3:07:44 (19:45 pace) 3420 feet of elevation gain
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