I have not posted anything here in a while due to a couple of factors. First, I joined the mighty Face book nation, so I've been busy watching cute cat videos and making snide comments on social and political issues that are so complex all I can do is poke fun at them. Also, this Autumn, the season of the Fall, I have not been doing anything I am proud of, or that might be considered remotely interesting. There are a couple exceptions, which I'll get to shortly, but most of my time in this season of dwindling sunshine has been spent reading and pondering how the hell I've gotten to be forty years old while still behaving like an idealistic, directionless college kid.
Some Fall highlights: I ran my second
Canyon De Chelly Ultra back on October 11th. MK also ran it for her second ultra ever. It is a special event that brings some interesting people. It certainly is not my kind of course. It is mostly flat, two track, dirt road. The views, however, are stunning, and the feeling, the emotions of running through that Canyon are what make it so unique.
I also got to run a really cool loop in the Grand Canyon with my friend Sean. We descended the Boucher trail, traversed the Tonto, and ascended the Hermit trail for a fantastic day of trail running. I highly recommend this loop (a lollipop, really) with the only drawback being the god damn helicopters buzzing back and forth. The area must be right on the edge of the no fly zone, because the whirlybirds cruised a consistent out and back path to our west. They were never close enough to be too loud, but I certainly entertained a few mental images of fireballs in the sky.
The next night I was fortunate to attend a lecture by Doug Peacock here in Durango. If anyone out there has not read any of his books, I would recommend doing so. Especially
GRIZZLY YEARS and WALKING IT OFF. His talk was entertaining, although, perhaps a bit confusing for those not familiar with his work. His short side rant about mounting trophy hunters to the wall with stupid expressions on their faces was worth the price of admission. Shaking his hand and telling him "thank you" at the book signing was priceless. The night following that Doug also attended the showing of the film WRENCHED, which documents the way that Ed Abbey's writing influenced the environmental movement. I purchased the DVD, so come on over and watch it with me some time.
As usual, I prefer the words of others to my own, so I sum up the feelings of my Autumn with this:
"A man was running, running for his life, across and up a naked dome of golden sandstone. Far off in silhouette against an evening sky, dark figure running across a field of gold, a flush of gashed vermillion, the flaring fanned-out rays of setting sun peering for one final moment, under a reef of purple clouds, into the slickrock desert, over the rippled sea of golden lifeless petrified dunes of sand...
He ran, ran, ran to live, up the rising skyline curve of rock, across the huge plasmic crimson bulge of sun, black running human animal caught forever, in perpetual motion, eternal in his fear, upon the red sun and background of the yellow sky... "
-Ed Abbey
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| Canyon del Muerto |
