Had an early morning run with Scott and Matt VH, got up at 3:30, and since I live only a couple of miles from the Wasatch100 start, we met up at my place. We decided we'd do the first 14 or so of the W100 course, but rather than go back the way we came, or continue on to Farmington Canyon (would add another 10+ miles, and found later that its closed anyway), we would make a near complete loop by dropping down Baer Canyon - a steep, quick way to get from the top of the mountain to the bottom. So we dropped a car at the canyon trailhead, and then drove the mile or two over to the East Wilderness Park, where the race starts. 
Scott and Matt headed towards Chinscraper This is my 'home trail' so I led us off and played tour guide for the first 5 or 6 miles as we ran on the BoSho, then connecting up to the Great Western. I had never been more than 6 miles on this trail, so it was cool to go past that and start to see some new stuff. I was actually quite surprised at how scenic the trail was. The higher you went, the better it got! And, though it was fairly steep, the trial was much more mild than I had anticipated. There was a nice spring at about mile 8 as you came up on Chinscaper, and after a brief detour (glad we didn't keep following THAT trail!), we made our way up Chinscraper, where Scott promptly scraped his knee (I guess he didn't want to fully commit with a chin scrape). We spent 20 or so minutes watching Scott try and see how many band-aids he could stack on top of each other while still allowing the blood to flow, then finally decided we might as well just keep on moving (I did offer to call for a life-flight, but Scott turned it down). 
Last little push up to Chinscraper...Scotts knee has no idea whats coming 
VH on top of Chinscraper 
Scott's patch job...yes, he's wiping blood off his leg with a rock From Chinscraper there was still some climbing to do, but there were also some longer stretches of overgrown, but mostly runnable trail, which was nice after all the climbing. We skirted the base of Thurston Peak (and only 500 or so feet from the top, was killing us not to summit, but time was getting long), climbed up over a couple hills, hit a very short snow patch that took WAY too long (but I'm glad I had my poles, my shoes were in no shape to be dealing with snow). We summited one more, unnamed peak (I think it might have been unnamed peak number 9491) which topped us out at our highest elevation of 9506 feet, then continued mostly downhill to our junction with the Baer Canyon trail at about mile 13.75. 
Great views  Trail? What Trail? Yes VH is actually running on the trail 
Still a bit 'o snow up there I had told these guys that it was a steep, gnarly, overgrown trail, but I don't know that they believed me until we actually got on it. The first half mile or so is literally straight down a run- off trail - the switchbacks that once cut across the face of the hill are clearly visible from afar, but mostly useless to follow once you're there. You cut back across the face and then descend a bare, rocky ridgeline before getting swallowed up by the foliage, where you will pretty much stay until you are spit out at the bottom. We all stayed fairly close at the start, I stopped at a few critical spots to make sure that they made the turn, and then I just kind of took off. I was glad to see that the trail had actually be cleared a little of some of the overhanging trees, and the logs that blocked the trail further down in anticipation of the Bairgutsman coming up next weekend. I was also in a bit of a hurry because I had a conference call I needed to attend, and the cell service in the canyon is spotty. At some of the easy to miss turns, I stopped to put rocks to block the wrong way, and put arrows with twigs - don't know if they actually saw them, but its the thought that counts, right? As I got further down I was starting to get really hot and tired, we had been going for quite a while now, and the sun was in full force. I dipped my hat at the stream crossings, which helped keep cool. Once I got through the last stream crossing and pulled up away from the stream, I dialed into my call and just walked the last half mile or so to the end while I was on the phone (I had to talk every now and then so I didn't want to be running!) Found a nice place to sit in the shade at the finish and waited for them to come in, about 10 minutes later. This was a fantastic, tough run that provided some calf crushing uphills, quad busting downhills, mingled with some fantastic views and a drop or two of blood. :) I'll try and post some pictures. As a side note, VH had been telling me that Farmington Canyon was closed due to mudslides, which got me wondering what they were going to do for the Bairgutsman, since you run down part of it (and people have to come pick you up). So when I got home I looked it up, and sure enough they had to change the course for the race, which I'm kind of excited about. Now the race will go up to the top, run to Francis Peak, do a small loop and then head back down the trail! So, why am I excited? Well for one, the race will now finish where it started (a block from my house), so no one has to pick me up. But also, I'm guessing that a lot of the people that would normally be faster than me on a road probably don't do a lot of technical downhill running, so that could make it interesting! I just wish the Altra Lone Peaks were already out - my Instincts are starting to get a little slippery on the really steep stuff.
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