Jeez, ladies, y'all are pretty quick! I didn't time my run this evening. Good thing, as what started out as a routine recovery trail run turned into an adventure. In a good way.

After about 2 miles my buddy had to call it (she had fallen on our run Tuesday and banged up her knee and it was hurting her) but she instructed me to keep going. So I did, and I turned on a trail that I had never been on before. Up and up it went. And up. And eventually another fork in the trail, and I decided to take the path less traveled. It's very open up where I was running so I wasn't too concerned about getting turned around (I mean, you could see the city down below...not hard to figure out where you are). The trail stayed faint, and it took me up an incredibly steep hillside with the beginnings of spring wildflowers--mules ears, yellow globe lilies, and balsamroot just popping up. I ended up on a rocky ridge spine, where there were about a dozen deer hanging out...and there's the city below me. It was breathtaking. I continued cross country to another trail I could see, and that trail eventually took me back down into one of the side canyons that I am familiar with.

All together I have no idea how much I climbed. But I started at about 4900' and peaked at about 6200', with lots of up and down inbetween. I did walk some of the very steep and/or sketchy pitches, but wow! What a run! And right in my backyard.