Friday, May 31, 2019

Spring Mountain Adventure: 2019 MURCA Virtual 50K

I love Las Vegas, but not for all the reasons most people love Las Vegas. Surrounded by amazing places to climb and run, a 30 to 45 minute drive in any direction can have you hiking Lava Fields, climbing up red rocks, running in a bowl of “fire”, checking out views above Lake Mead, peak bagging desert mountains, or laboring at high altitude. It’s that last option that always seems to call to me. NW of famous Red Rock canyon is an amazing “sky Island” of snow-capped peaks and epic adventures. Charleston Peak, the 8th most prominent mountain in the U.S., tops out at 11,918 feet and gets all the attention but the Spring mountains have nine summits that break 10,000 feet with class 1 & 2 trails as well as some seriously technical climbing available. Always cooler than the scorching desert below, the area can hold snow well into May. When MURCA announced a 2nd annual MURCA V50K with a time frame that happened to line up with a planned business trip to Sin City, I knew right away where my V50K would be!   

MURCA, or the Marine Ultra Runners Club of America is an awesome group started by a motivated Marine named Mike Harris. MURCA is populated with bad ass Marines and former Marines who all share a love of the long run. I mean…really bad ass. These gyrenes have laminated bad ass cards. If I start to get cocky about the epic shit I do, all it takes is five minutes reading posts on the MURCA page and I’m back down to earth. More than a Facebook group, MURCAns across the country (and around the world, actually) reach out and support each other, it’s tangible. It’s a positive and motivating environment and I've found that it provides me with the connection to Marines that I'd been missing since leaving active duty nine years ago.  The group also has amazing fundraising efforts for Veteran causes. The 2019MURCA Virtual 50K was held to benefit The Warriors Keep. So, now that you have some background and a little context, here is my V50K run report… 

The original plan was to repeat a route I had soloed in November of 2017.  I would run the North loop trail bagging Fletcher Peak, Mummy Mountain, Charleston Peak, Griffith Peak, and Cathedral Rock while descending on the South loop trail. In 2017 it was snow free and bone dry with only a little bit of ice on each summit and I was able to knock it out in eight hours. It was one of my most epic days in the mountains and I was thrilled at the chance to do it again on March 25th! However, the closer to departure day it got, the more evident it became that the route wasn’t going to be feasible.  The 2018-19 winter had seen a record amount of snow fall on the spring mountains and snow storms were still occurring as late as the week before I flew in. Most of the trail heads above 8,000 feet were inaccessible. Avalanche danger was extremely high and the south loop trail would require a couple of hours in a notorious avalanche chute. With heavy snow, the north loop approach below Charleston's summit becomes a severely exposed 60-70 degree snow slope that requires crampons and an Ice Axe. Being on a business trip, I wasn’t planning on packing that kind of gear and frankly, I wanted the V50K to be a run…not a 12-hour deep snow & technical climb. About five days out I came up with a back-up plan. Hayford Peak in the Sheep range north of Vegas should be snow free and close to where I’d be staying. Not quite as epic but run-able and, more importantly, it offered less chance of getting “avalanched”.  Still, I held out a little hope that once I got there, I could find a doable route in the Spring Mountains.
Spring Mountains a month before the trip. Looking Epic!

My plane hit Vegas at 9am on March 24th and from the small round window it was easy to spot the Spring mountains. So much for the little hope; “My god, so much snow…it looks like Nanga Parbat!”. I grabbed a rental car and made my way north, resigned to scout out the approach to Hayford peak across the Desert National Wildlife Refuge (DNWR) from my beloved Spring Mountains. Or so I thought…when I hit DNWR, it became clear that the little rental sedan was not going to get me anywhere near the trail head. I didn’t have a plan C and was feeling a little dejected. Since I was staying at the Mount Charleston resort, I decided I’d go ahead and make my way to the Spring mountains and scout out some trails to run for fun the next day. Assuming that the V50K was off, I would simply enjoy being in the mountains and could just come up with a V50K route back home in May or June.   

At this point things started to really fall in place. I hit the North loop trail head and ran six miles in my Kahtoola’s. Hmmm, it would be slow going in the snow but it looked like Charleston’s little sister, Fletcher Peak, could be do-able. It wouldn’t be anywhere near 50K distance from the NL trail head. However, driving back down Deer Creek Road to the resort, I happened to spot a trail coming out of the woods with no markings or trail head. It was about two miles down from the North loop trail head and looked to head South East away from the mountains. Chatting with the locals at the resort I learned there are MTB trails all over the SE side of the Spring mountains that extend all the way down to below 5,000 ft. In fact, the trail I had spotted was called either “tin can alley” or “cowboy” according to the Resort’s cartoon trail map. Theoretically, I could start down in the desert around 5,000 feet and connect the various MTB trails to deer creek road, run the two miles up the road to the NL trail head, bag Fletcher Peak and retrace my steps! I’d be short of a 50K but could refuel and do a shorter out-n-back to make it up. Now equipped with a plan C and feeling tired from the flight, the time zone change, and the altitude adjustment; I put my gear together, set the alarm for 0500, and crashed.

Deciding to forego my usual alpine start since I’d be navigating a spiderweb of unknown MTB trails, I woke a little before dawn. Some toast, honey, and an apple later I was in the rental car heading back down Kyle Canyon road to a trail head near the Harris Springs road turnoff. A cold morning, it was hovering in the low 30’s as the first sliver of sun hit the desert. Looking SE, I could make out the dark outline of La Madre Mountain. To the West were the snowy Spring Mountains and my destination. Looking up I could see an impressive planetarium of stars beginning to fade. Just a perfect morning. I crossed Kyle Canyon road and hit the first MTB trail.

The first few miles were pretty uneventful as I tried to get into an easy slow rhythm to wake up the legs. Going out too fast was not a problem as I could already feel the uphill tack. Starting at just over 5,000 ft, I would be going up all morning to a 10,500 foot summit so I made sure to put in some hiking breaks early to save my legs. Did I say uneventful? There’s just no such thing in the Mountains. Every direction I looked provided a fantastic view. Around mile three the eastern edge of the Spring Mountains came into full view and I knew there’d be no speed records today. Forget the snow and altitude gain slowing me down, I was going to have to stop often to take pictures!

Moving from the desert to the Spring mountains. To the left is Kyle Canyon.

A little after three miles I veered north away from Kyle Canyon Road as the terrain changed significantly from high desert to mountain foothills. At Mile 4 or 5 I hit the first snow. Much deeper at 6,000 ft than expected, I walked right over the top of it without snow shoes since it was still early enough to be frozen pretty solid. Navigating the MTB trails became a little tougher since the trail was invisible beneath the snow. At mile 5 the trail moved closer to deer creek road and my map showed that it basically ran parallel with the road for a few miles. Nevertheless, I was pretty relieved when the trail spit me out onto the road at the unmarked point I had seen yesterday. “Damn, I just might pull this route off” I said to the road kill in front of me. It was then two miles up the hardball to the North Loop TH.

At around 8,000 ft., the North Loop trail head became “crampon point” as I strapped on the Kahtoola’s and took in some calories. The temperature had increased so I knew there would be some post holing before the day was over. I set off at a decent pace for Fletcher Peak.  Route finding became very difficult as there really was no trail to see with all of the snow. I tried to follow the map by imagining the terrain snow-free. I also had to slow down since my feet started to punch through for some intermittent post-holing.
Sign near "crampon point". 

Around mile 10 at 9,400 feet or so, I was underneath a big snow slope that was just glittering in the sun. It was awesome but my internal alarm was starting to tingle. I just didn’t like the angle of the slope, the amount of snow up towards what I could see of the top of the slope, and the weirdly angled tree tops sticking out below me from an earlier-in-the-season avalanche that had obviously occurred. I decided to follow my tracks back out of the slope. According to my map, it looked like I had veered off of the North loop trail and was underneath Bristlecone Peak (Officially UN 10,089). Not wanting to risk the slope to get to the Fletcher approach I made the decision to go for Bristlecone’s summit instead.

After backtracking out of the slope I started up the North ridge of Bristlecone. Sooo much snow. It became really deep and soft. Post-holing for about 300 feet, I was moving slowly but sweating my ass off. At the same time, my right toes were really aching from the cold. Back in 2011 I had suffered some serious frostbite on my right big toe during a50 mile winter night race and ever since, my right foot has been a little sensitive. A few weeks before this trip I had gotten mild frostbite again on that toe running through ice water at the Psycho Wyco 50K. I just kept wiggling my toes and tried to keep moving as fast as I could (which was not very fast).  

Finally, there was nothing above me and I was on the summit of Bristlecone Peak! Looking back east was Angel Peak and the desert beyond where I could even see Hayford Peak way out on the horizon. To the south was Fletcher Peak. I could see mummy mountain right across from me to the NW. Just to the west of Fletcher across Kyle Canyon was Harris Mountain and Griffith Peak. I had an outstanding view of the ridge line from Griffith Peak to Charleston Peak and lost myself for a moment in the memory of running that ridge in 2017. What an amazing place! I felt blessed to be standing there and so grateful that I had managed to find a do-able route in the Spring mountains after all.

The Nuwuvi, whose traditional lands included the Spring Mountains consider thesemountains sacred as their place of creation. Standing there, I understood this and thought of words from Anatoli Boukreev:

 Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambitions to achieve. They are cathedrals, grand and pure, the houses of my religion. I approach them as any human goes to worship. On their altars I strive to perfect myself physically and spiritually. In their presence I attempt to understand my life, to exorcise vanity, greed, and fear. From the vantage of their lofty summits, I view my past, dream of the future, and with unusual acuteness I experience the present moment. That struggle renews my strength and clears my vision. In the mountains I celebrate creation, for on each journey I am reborn
Bristlecone tree on the Summit of Bristlecone Peak. The Charleston ridge in the background with Griffith Peak to the left.

OK, it was time to wake up and get moving again as I was only at mile 10 or 11 and had a long day ahead of me. Looking over the SE side of Bristlecone’s long summit, it looked like I had made the right call earlier in the day as the steepness of the slope was even more apparent from up here. I would now simply have to follow my tracks back down, sliding down my earlier post-holes was a little taxing. Once out of post-hole country, I was able to really let it loose and bomb back down the trail making up some time riding my summit “high”.  Other than moving a little too fast, the run back down to the MTB trail head was pretty uneventful…but very scenic.

At mile 20.3 I was back at the car. After changing my t-shirt and refilling water and gels, I set off for another loop, this time planning to stay below 7,300 feet. At mile 22.5, I took a side trail up Telephone canyon moving through some thick brush and trees.  Well into the day, it was getting pretty warm in this canyon and there were unmapped side trails everywhere making navigation a little tough. I basically followed a dry creek bed until it met up with a trail called “showgirl” on my map. At that point I was back in the snow when the trail turned southwest to link up with a trail I’d been on earlier in the day.

During this second loop my eyes kept getting drawn to this small peak that looked really rocky (and snow free). My 2nd loop was basically a big oval surrounding the peak that according to the map, was UN 7,401. Finding what looked to be an unofficial small trail at around 7,300 feet, I decided to go for it and within a few minutes I was on the top of my second summit of the day at mile 26.5. Feeling really knackered, I only spent a couple of minutes on the summit before moving back down the unmarked trail. I linked back up to the “cowboy” trail and tried to run back to the trail head. Miles 27 – 30 should have been very run-able as it was all downhill, but I was feeling as knackered as I’ve ever been on a 50K. I managed to get a little trot going and made it back to the car at 30.9 miles with a time of 8:29:00. Not exactly the day I’d planned several months before but sometimes that’s for the best. An awesome challenge in creating my route on the fly and given the conditions, I was so happy to have been able to pull off a 50K and a couple of summits in the Spring Mountains. Just a great day. I will always jump at the chance for a trip to Vegas, I just may not spend much time in Vegas!




Huge thank-you to Mike Harris and MURCA for coming up with such a cool concept for an event. The first two V50k events were just a blast and I look forward to many more. I love self-supported ultras in the wilderness. Awesome event and awesome cause. Thank-you to the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, I am honored to be their Health Center Director and grateful that they often send me to mountainous places for business and allow me the time to run and climb while there. And always, special thanks and love to Jessica, Alyena, Ayden, & Tristyn. You guys are with me on every mile of every run!

Thanks so much for reading my “re-activated” blog. Below are some more pictures from this V50K. I’ve got a number of races coming up and a trip to Spokane in June to run and explore the Selkirk Mountains. I’ll either blog about it, or I’ll ignore the blog for four more years…who knows! Either way, see you on the trails!


Time to break some trail. This is where the post-hole began. 

Just started to hit the snow in the foothills. Some really gnarly singletrack!

On my way up! Looking back down towards Deer Creek Road.

Griffith Peak from the Summit. The lower east slope of Fletcher Peak is just to the left. 

Looking back east about a mile or so past the North Loop Trail Head.

Looking down the snow slope from the Summit of Bristlecone. I had been down under this earlier in the morning. Nice drop off to the left of the Bristlecone tree. I wish I would have taken a better picture but I didn't want to approach any closer. 



On the MTB trail called "Cowboy" just before hitting the foothills. 

Looking Back East. Hayford Peak is way out on the Horizon. 

Taken from somewhere on the 2 mile hard ball section. 









Lots of snow in the woods. A little bit of tree-well danger here and there. 



Awesome views everywhere. 

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