One step forward - half a step back View Benchmark with Jun by way of Potato Hill to Anns from the Red Rock trailhead. Right from the start the trail was crap - a few inches of fresh snow covering a muddy mess beneath. It was pretty slow going up. Jun put a little gap on me, but I tried to not let it get bigger, and I did pretty good. The steep connector trail off Anns was deeper snow and still slippery mud underneath. At the switchbacks we (Jun) was blazing a new trail in the fresh snow. Slow going. Once we got to the wider road towards the peak we were hoping for more tracked out trails...nope. You'd fall a couple of inches with every step, then as we got further up, that few inches became several inches to a foot. It was nearly impossible to run in some spots. Once we hit the ridge up to the peak, the wind was blasting bitter cold, where below it had been sauna hot. Hit the peak and spent just a minute up there and then blasted our way back down. It was super fun, but super sketchy at the same time. You never knew what each footfall will give you - you might find immediate purchase, or find your foot sinking knee deep in snow. We were moving fast and at least gravity helped pull us down. When we got down towards Anns and to warmer weather, the trail just got worse and worse - we were just slip, sliding everywhere. The weirdest part was that your eyes see snow, but your feet feel mud. When we connected up with the BST we decided we'd had enough of ripping the trail apart, so we jumped off the trail and onto the road and ran the last little bit back to the car. 9.6 miles but my legs were saying more like 16...Thats what we call brutally fun...:) 9.6 miles - 1:52:00 - 11:32 AP - 1730 vert | 