Archive for the ‘Run’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

O’Malley Peak

Monday, August 11th, 2008

Every day when I drive home up O’Malley Road, I look up and see False Peak, with the higher O’Malley Peak hiding behind it. Well, not for this summer, because its been hidden in clouds every day. But in years past I’ve seen it regularly.

O’Malley Peak is a great day hike from Glen Alps, and I’ve hiked and skied on both sides of many times, but never got around to hike it. So when I woke up Sunday morning to unexpected clear(ish) skies, and I had a few hours to spare, I figured it was a good time to give O’Malley a go.

I hiked from Glen Alps up through the Ballfield, took a short detour to look down over Black Lake, then started up the scree gully to get to the ridge. The ridge had some fog on it, so when I got to the top, it took me a few minutes to figure out that I couldn’t go any higher.
Looking east on the ridge from O\'Malley Peak
Looking east on the ridge from O\’Malley Peak

Yes, that is fresh snow (and some hail) in the photo above. Is it still called ‘Termination Dust’ if its been falling all summer? Is there really a summer to terminate? I digress. My goal was to continue back along the ridge to Hidden Peak. I stayed just below the ridgeline on the south side, since the north side drops vertically for a couple thousand feet. It was good traveling (at least by Chugach ridgeline standards), until I reached the point where I started ascending to Hidden Peak. There was some fog, and I couldn’t see a safe route to the top. I traversed around at about the 4500 contour line, hoping to find a gully to take me up. But I kept getting pushed downward by small cliffs, and eventually I had gone by the peak without seeing a good route up. By then I was running out of time, so I decided to head straight down the scree and snow to Hidden Lake, then run the trail back to Glen Alps. The trip took three and a half hours of hiking and jogging.

Hidden Lake and the scree field I descended below Hidden Peak.
Hidden Lake and the scree field I descended below Hidden Peak.


O’Malley ridgeline, viewed from the south. Click for panorama

Chugach State Park is so close to home that I often take it for granted and forget what a spectacular playground it can be. This was a great hike. Many people travel thousands of miles to hike through rugged Alaskan scenery like this. And I was home in time for lunch.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Anchorage, Chugach, Hike, Run | No Comments »

Smokin’ the ‘Pipe

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

I was up near Rabbit Lake this past weekend, and I happened to notice that the creek was still covered in snow in some places. Rabbit Creek is really cool because the first few miles of it are in a U-shaped gully. When the conditions are right, it makes a sweet halfpipe. Was it possible that with our cold summer, the halfpipe could still exist in late July? I had to find out.

Tuesday evening, I ran up the trail about forty minutes and endured plenty of snickers when other hikers caught sight of my skis. But when I dropped down to the creek, I was the one laughing. I was amazed to find the creek completely covered in a solid layer of snow for as far as I could see in both directions! The halfpipe lives!

I quickly put on my skis and skied uphill to the end of the snowfield. Then I turned downhill and ripped up the pipe. It took me about 5 minutes to ski from top to bottom, so I’d guess that the snowfield was somewhere between one kilometer and one mile long.

Incredibly, the skiing was not terrible. It was extremely slow because of the embedded dirt, but it was relatively smooth and solid. Check out the photos.
 

Skiing Rabbit Creek Gully

 

Tags: ,
Posted in Chugach, Run, Ski | No Comments »

My butt is a little sore…

Sunday, July 13th, 2008

…from the ass-kicking I took on Saturday. I did the Knoya Ridge/Dome uphill running race. It is a simple, no frills race up a great single-track trail into the foothills of the Chugach Mountains. It is just over three miles long, and just under 3000 of climbing (according to my watch). Trond Flagstad, fresh off his Mount Marathon victory last weekend, was the winner in 39:27. He was a whopping seven minutes ahead of me. In truth, I am not disappointed with my performance, even though I barely squeaked into the top ten. It was a very tough workout, which is all I was looking for. I can’t say it was fun, but I am very glad I did it because intensity has been sorely lacking from my exercise recently.

Knoya Ridge / The Dome Results 2008

While I’m linking to race results… I haven’t posted any orienteering results in a while, so let’s catch up. Our traditional meet season has finished, and now we are into the “fun” events for the rest of the summer. I think I probably finished third in traditional meet season points, behind Ian Moore and Bill Spencer. That’s pretty good for me. Here are the race results since the last time I posted:
May 28th – 1st place RouteGadget
June 11 – 3rd place
June 18 – I missed this one RouteGadget
June 25 – 3rd place RouteGadget
July 9 Score – O – 1st place

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Anchorage, Chugach, Orienteering, Run | No Comments »

‘Welcome to Summer’ Adventure Race

Sunday, June 8th, 2008

On Sunday, the local adventure racing club was having a low-key 8 hour adventure race.  Since the weather wasn’t great and some of my desired summer trips are on hold because of lots of snow in the mountains, it seemed like a great way to spend the day and beat myself up a little bit.

Ian and I paired up to compete against 5 other teams.  Darren’s course consisted of various controls around town, with each control worth a certain number of points depending on the difficultly/time involved in reaching it.  The object was to get as many points as possible. The course involved mountain biking, hiking in the Chugach front range, ‘ reverse orienteering’, and paddling Campbell Creek.

It was a lot of fun. I managed to flip my packraft in Campbell Creek (with my bike attached to it), which was quite stupid and embarrassing.  Mental note: Do not try to step, feet first, into a packraft in moving water. The hiking part (in the Williwaw-Wolverine-Long Lake area) was a bit trippy because the mountains were completely enshrouded in low clouds. We ended up coming in late (and losing some points) because we chose to get the high-value control at Long Lake.  But no matter, we still did well in the points and we were glad we pushed out to the Lake.  You can view the results here. The point values aren’t quite right, but they are close enough. Our team name was ‘Ask Cory’ because when Darren asked Ian what the team name was he said – yep – “Ask Cory.”

For many of the controls, we had to take a picture to prove that we made it there.  Thus, I have a few photos from the event. And because I’m a geek, I also drew up a map of the controls and plotted our route.  Check it out:

Thanks to Darren for a fun, challenging course, and thanks to Ian for hauling my ass around town.
 

Darren's Anchorage Adventure

 

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Anchorage, Bike, Chugach, Hike, Orienteering, Packraft, Run | No Comments »

Racing To Train – this week’s races

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

I don’t like racing when I am out of shape.  After years of training being priority #1, its is hard to come to terms with no longer being at that level of fitness.  It is frustrating to ‘push the button’ only to find out that the button is broken.  Or even worse, to lose the button completely.    So I haven’t done much racing the past few years, except for the really fun stuff (orienteering, Tuesday Night Races).  I keep saying “Once I start getting back in shape, I’ll start doing some races.”

Well, I’m starting to realize that racing needs to be part of journey to get back in shape, not the destination.  Races provide the motivation to get out and train, even in the face of all the other life responsibilities. And nothing is better training than hammering on yourself for an hour or two, which I rarely do unless I have a bib on.

So to that end, I entered my first running race of the season – the Turnagain Arm Trail Run – on Tuesday night.  The race starts with about 12 minutes of uphill, and I was pleasantly surprised to be feeling pretty good at the top.  Then the wheels fell off.   The downhill pounding, the fancy footwork to avoid rocks and roots, the mental battle to keep pushing even though I was careening slightly out of control – it was exhausting.  It was also embarrassing.  This stuff used to be second-nature to me, yet I felt like a road runner on his first trail run.  Am I out of shape?  Yep. Getting old?  Yep.  Not much running off pavement this spring?  Yep.  Mentally, I packed it in and decided to just enjoy the run.  Towards the end, when the trail got smoother and went back uphill, I picked up the pace just enough to avoid getting passed by the first couple of women.  yeehaw.  congratulations.

After all that, I was surprised to find out that my time (1:03:34) was only a minute and a half slower than last year.   I guess I was out of shape last year too.  No matter, it was a good workout and it provided plenty of motivation to improve.

2008 Turnagain Arm Trail Run Results

I bounced back with a pretty good showing in this week’s orienteering meet on Wednesday.  It was a fun course with more controls and shorter legs.  I finished second, only 1:18 beind Ian.  Of course, Ian raced without a compass, just to keep things interesting.

Dan and Anne’s O Meet

Tags: ,
Posted in Anchorage, Chugach, Orienteering, Run | No Comments »

Its Orienteering Season!

Friday, May 16th, 2008

In the past few years, I’ve really gotten into orienteering. I love the challenge of trying to think critically about navigation and route choice with an oxygen-deprived brain, while at he same time running full-steam dodging Devil’s Club and deadfall. Hmmm, when I describe it that way, it sounds more like torture. But I assure you, it is a blast. Except for those times when I make a mistake, then it is incredibly frustrating. But most of the time it is fun. Really.

Another reason I enjoy orienteering is that I am still improving, unlike skiing and most other sports where I am already several years past my prime. My navigational mistakes seem to be getting fewer, which makes up for my lack of fitness. But on the other hand, each mistake I do make is now even more costly and aggravating. For instance, in the first meet of the season, I ran really well, and was almost keeping pace with Ian (easily the fastest guy at our meets). But near the end I made one mistake that cost me about 15 minutes. Ouch.

Another great aspect of orienteering is analyzing route choices after the fact. To that end, a few of us use RouteGadget to compare our races virtually.  We keep track of our split times during the races, then draw our route into RouteGadget after the meet.  Since we never see each other during the meet, this is the only way we can ‘race’ head to head.  It’s a little bit geeky, but it’s also pretty cool.

Here’s how you can watch our race from this week:

  1. Click this link for Wednesday’s meet
  2. Select the “Red” course from the “Select class/course” dropdown menu
  3. Select all the names, using Ctrl-Click
  4. Check the “Names on/off” checkbox
  5. Click “View Animation”
  6. Click “Start”

View all recent RouteGadget courses here.

View all Orienteering results here.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Anchorage, Orienteering, Run | No Comments »

South Suicide Peak

Sunday, August 5th, 2007
 

South Suicide

 

These days I don’t have as much time for big adventures, so I have to ration them. But that doesn’t mean I’m not getting outside. I’ve been doing more runs in the mountains right near home. Here’s a great one I just did: up the Falls Creek trail to South Suicide peak, then drop down the ridge behind McHugh Lake, then run out the Rabbit Lake trail. Its amazing that all of this is less than 20 minutes from home!

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Chugach, Hike, Run | No Comments »

Winner Creek/Twentymile With Erik

Friday, July 20th, 2007
 

Winner Creek/Twentymile With Erik

 

Erik, my ski buddy from the Park City days, and his wife Emily were in town recently. Erik really wanted to try this packrafting thing that I’m always raving about. And you know me – I’m always up for a run-n-float!

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Chugach, Hike, Packraft, Run | No Comments »

Knik Glacier Run & Raft

Sunday, October 22nd, 2006
 

Knik Glacier Run & Raft

 

October 22: Another weekend of good weather, so Tim Kelley and I ran to the Knik Glacier and floated back. Photos by Tim Kelley.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Chugach, Packraft, Run | No Comments »

Packrafting Eagle River

Friday, October 13th, 2006
 

Packrafting Eagle River

 

October 13: It was probably our last weekend of nice weather before winter sets in, so I really wanted to go packrafting. So what if the water is already freezing?

Tags: , ,
Posted in Chugach, Hike, Packraft, Run | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »
Highslide for Wordpress Plugin