One Giant Brown Slurpee Please

Got my September ascent up Table Mtn in this afternoon. This is what the mountains looked like after this week's storms blew through.



I knew it'd be slower going (which is good since I've got a 100 miler coming up in a week) and most likely a slushy sloppy mess.

I was right. This was at 8,000ft.

9,000ft


10,000ft

11,000ft

I don't know that I've ever seen more people on the trail to Table as there was today. And they were almost all college-age looking kids, my guess from BYU-Idaho out in Rexburg. There had to be at least 50 people up there in various places on the trail, not all together, but in a number of groups of 2, 3, 5, 8, or whatever. It sure wasn't an easy day to go up there with all the snow, but everyone seemed to be in really great spirits so it made for a really fun afternoon. I hit the top in about 1:27, spent maybe 15 minutes up there, and then bolted off the top after being chilled to the core by a biting cold wind.

Looking south over Hurricane Pass and the now buried Teton Crest Trail. Will warmer weather over the next month melt this off? Probably not all of it, but maybe most of it will go away to allow for one last TCT crossing in October? Maybe I'm delusional?

And then this is how the next hour was spent. Sloshing through a giant ribbon of brown, Slurpee-like mud and snow. I haven't run in trail conditions like this since the Pocatello 50 back in May!

The wet, heavy, early-season snowfall did a number on the plant growth down lower.