Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Ran intervals on my favorite stretch of dirt. On Friday, I noticed that a sign warning of prescribed burns in progress had been posted on the Happy Jack Rd. As I was running, I came across at least one of the areas being worked on. First, I saw isolated clumps of bush in the prairie that had been spot burned. I assumed those were probably clumps of ground juniper, but when I took a look, I saw they were nearly all bitterbrush. That seemed weird to me because bitterbrush is one of the high value browse species for mule deer and the like--or at least so I thought. Then I came across spot burns around the bases of pine saplings. Finally I could look ahead and see some larger areas burned inside some pine forest areas, including places with still visible flames.

That really surprised me. It's pretty dry out, and it's been windy the last two days. You presume the personnel planning and managing these things know what they are doing, but leaving patches of still burning forest unattended on dry, windy days? Must be one of those "don't try this at home" things.

Completed the arduous and dangerous circumnavigation of the legendary Green Mountain with Tyler. It felt a lot like orienteering, minus the lizards.

My mind wasn't focused on this epic feat, however. I guess I was still in a shock at the apparent demise of the Cowboy's hopes for a decent Bottom 25 finish in football.

O' at Twin Boulders, ran the red course from the O' Fest. It probably would have been easier if there had been lots of people to follow into the controls, never mind it being easier had there been controls at the controls. But the orienteering itself wasn't hard anyway. What was not so easy was running in almost any westward direction, with the sun so low in the sky already by mid-afternoon--some very fine glare conditions! Nice strong winds were out and about, so plenty of fresh air. And another day without seeing a single hunter or hearing a single gunshot.

Ran trails; checked out a number of trails that had had trees go down across them since spring, and they've mostly been cleaned up. There are still patches of snow scattered around in the forest, mostly in little glades (which always trap more snow) and shadow areas protected by dense firs and such, which keep the sun at bay.

Linked up with Tyler for some mountain biking on the school section of land just east of town. I had the vague notion some new trail had been added this summer, but had no idea the true extent of it. There is now a substantial amount of mountain biking trail there, and the new stuff incorporates a lot of steeply banked turns, bumps, jumps, and other trickier things which are potentially good places for me to do some walking. Just another sign of how mountain biking in the area continues to gain steam.

Ran down Crow Creek late in the day, and saw absolutely no animals. I think the elk have this hunting thing all figured out.

The skein of nice weather continues. At this time of the year, once it gets dark, it cools down quickly, especially up in the hills. It used to be that regularly by now you could see rim ice forming up in any pools of water late in the day, but it hasn't gotten to that point here yet--another indication of how the climate has changed locally.

I haven't seen updated Bottom 25 rankings yet, but Wyoming (#16 last week) seemingly has a decent chance to move up a place or a couple or three, after losing to Utah State last weekend. But it wasn't an especially impressive loss. Somehow Wyoming held Utah State's prolific offense mostly in check, and made the Utah State quarterback--who had been playing exceptionally well this season so far--look pretty bad. In fact, if the Wyoming and Utah State starting quarterbacks had switched places, it's not clear if anyone would have noticed. And at this point of the season--two thirds done--it gets tougher and tougher to move up when you're talking about the Bottom 15 or so. If you're in the Bottom 25 after 8 games, you're no longer talking about mere luck. You're talking about teams who can find ways to lose even when a win looks to be certain.

It should have been a routine loss as the Wyoming offense had an absolutely anemic amount of production in the first half. But for some odd reason, the coaches decided to pull the starting quarterback and put in a true freshman. Maybe they just wanted to see what he could do. What he could do was quite promising: on his very first play in college football, he fumbled. The coaching staff was obviously cheered by this and had the new guy take over when the 2nd half started. But things quickly went from okay to not so okay to bad as the new guy took the team down the field on three straight scoring drives. Wyoming was still behind by 8 points after all that, as Utah State refused to do anything with the ball. But when Wyoming got the ball back one more time, with about 2 minutes left, the coaches refused to take anymore chances, and put the starting quarterback in again, who went 4 and out. On the 4th down, with a comfortably 10 or so yards to go for a first down, the quarterback had a receiver wide open who was easily deep enough for a first down and...he was gold, throwing a ball that even a Jerry Rice would have had no chance at in his best dream ever. Whew!

Kansas lost, and now at 2-6 would seem to at last be in a place where they could get a few Bottom 25 votes. Maybe they will even sneak in at #24 or #25 or something like that.

Some easy running at Happy Jack, following some pleasant riding around town. Somewhere, off hidden in the distance, some more winter is lurking. I know it is. But for now, yet another fine day here in the valley.

O' was on the menu today, and since it wasn't going to be before mid-afternoon, I picked Granite Planite as a safe enough place to be out in the woods. And, as I guessed, there was not a hunter (or a hunter's truck) anywhere in the area so that worked out well.

The weather was looking like it was going to work out a little less well. Forecasted for total sun all day, by the time I left home it was sprinkling and there were dark clouds abounding in various directions. About halfway up to the Summit the sprinkles stopped, but I was guessing that I had merely driven past the advancing edge of the rain. That was better than nothing, and, unless it's going to be raining hard, I usually figure that if I can get started before rains arrive, I can get finished with whatever I had planned.

As it worked out, the rain never made it to Granite Planite, and so what if it remained very cloudy.

I ran a course of about 11.4 kms, and elected to take in a decent number of controls, which turned out to be 60 today. I also ran by two stray cows, but didn't include them in the control count. Maybe I didn't warm up long enough, because for about the first half of the course it felt like I just wasn't moving very well--it felt like I was a running a little clunky and sluggishly. But gradually the running felt like it was going more and more smoothly. Maybe I was energized by the sight of the stray cows.

Between the time I finished surveying Granite Planite and the Rocky Mountain O' Festival, the Forest Service began expanding the gravel parking area right as you turn off the Happy Jack Rd, and by a considerable amount--enough so that I went back in and edited the map to show the new parking area to size and shape. We weren't going to run there, so it didn't really matter, but it was easy enough to do and it would also hopefully prevent people from thinking "wow, he can't even map a parking area properly." Which is probably true, but why make it so unnecessarily obvious?

At any rate, when I drove in, workers were there again, and now they were finishing off the installation of a Texas style iron pipe fence around the whole new parking area. It looked nice. At the same time, I couldn't help wonder why? Nothing wrong with it, but why go to the trouble and expense to make the parking area and enclose it in a super sturdy fence? It's not a trailhead. And there's nothing to prevent someone from driving on through the parking area and just pulling off wherever they like, just as before. Baffling.

A similar parking area is under construction at the Blair-Wallis turnoff, which is on the Plains of Despair map. But nothing similar at any of the turnoffs on the other side of the Happy Jack Rd.