Got a couple of non-trail running buddies to go hike up Baer Canyon in Fruit Heights. Due to the snow, I recommended that we hit up a more traveled trail (like Malans peak), but both of them were all rip roaring to do this trail.
It was really nice for about the first mile and a half--a little snow, but the trail was clear and not too cold. After that the snow got deeper and we lost the trail for a little while, taking a pretty big detour that added some mileage to our journey. Snow got deeper, and a really thick fog made it hard to see where we were and where we were headed (it's usually really cool to see your progress up to Francis peak). Had to stop and wait a few times for the other two, and as we got nearer to the top we dropped our slower guy and made our trek up the steep face of about the last half mile or so (probably less). The snow was slippery and deep and it was SLOW going. My buddy kept saying "Dude I think this is good", but I kept leading him up - the hard part was that you couldn't actually see where the top was, it just looked like it kept going up and up, which I think is what made it so discouraging. I finally gave in even though I kept telling him the top was just up ahead (turned out we were maybe 30 yards from the top! :)), and we turned around and headed back down. That steep part was a lot of slip sliding skiing, but it was pretty fun after all of the climbing we'd been doing. We moved down pretty fast, I ran a decent part of it, which was hard because my feet were sliding around in my boots and my toes kept jamming into the front. I stopped a few times to wait for guy #2, and ended up waiting a half hour at the bottom for the last guy...bad part was he was the one with the keys to the car! Got a little chilly and wet there at the top, but still made for a great hike. I'm glad we got it in, though we'll probably wait for spring to take this one to the top again!
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