Mt. Wrightson Ascent 5.2 mi. September 7, 2003 We had 19 trail runners start up Mt. Wrightson on this wonderful, cloudy, cool summer day. It had recently rained and the flowers were great and the spring was running. The view from the top was spectacular as usual, with the addition of numerous huge clouds, floating around in all directions. Geno said it looked like the view from Machu Pichu. Although there was an achilles injury, there appeared to be no blood shed, which I think is some kind of record. gj Sabino Basin 13.2 mi. Sept. 21, 2003 I wasn’t expecting a great turnout for Sabino Basin, as it conflicted
with a 10K several people had said they were doing. Even the run
director, Chris Fall did the 10K (It was a benefit in honor of his
friend’s son, Ben.). I told him I’d cover. I was wrong-we had a nice
little crowd. Gene in fact got folks signed up, although there was bit
of confusion regarding the starting location. We took off with Bill
Cuculic immediately pulling away. It was reasonably cool, and the angle
of the run up the canyon on Phone Line is such that one is in shade much
of the time. The upper reaches of Phone Line trail are pretty eroded
from the post-fire rains. In fact, it’s gone in several spots. A few
folks came down the road, but most returned on Phone Line. Bill cruised
to first overall. Pam Golden ran hard in the latter stages of the run to
lead the women (Well she was the only woman…). Jerry Riddick and Bob
Bachani had a serious competition in both running and humor categories.
There were a few new folks, who did well. Ross Z Bill Cuculic 2:20:11 A small but ambitious group of runners showed up at Sabino Canyon for the fall edition of the Bear Canyon Loop. A beautiful fall morning greeted the runners as most had not done the course since the summer fires or summer rains. The trail has become tricky in places because after the fires had made the land a moonscape, the summer rains have made many drainage areas appear as false trails. The trail was not as gnarly as usual but new ground growth on the trail made for rough going. There were trees that had fallen across or along the trail with also ocotillo that made staying focused very important. Fortunately no one go lost, but Tracy opted to do Phoneline after originally starting the Bear Canyon Loop. Hope to see you all again next year. Thanks, Bill Cuculic Romero Pass 14 mi. Oct. 19, 2003 Geno Foushee 3:29 A hearty bunch showed up at Catalina State Park for the run up to
Romero Pass. A 7am start seemed late as it has been unseasonably warm
lately, even for Tucson. The trail was trashed, Julie and I ran the
Friday before and put up a lot of cairns to help guide the pack. The
trail is totally washed out in places and the fire burned so hot near
the top that everything is gone. The switchbacks at the very top were
only contours on the side of the hill. Geno lit the trail Agua Caliente Ascent 15 mi. Nov. 2, 2003 Gene Joseph 3:08:48 12 hardy souls turned out for this year’s Agua Caliente Loop. An
overcast sky held in the warmth, so the start wasn’t chilly like some
years past. On the other side, some found it a bit too hot by the end of
the run. There were several new faces, so I spent quite a bit of time
talking about the route, which is a bit harder to follow than some. You
run from our house (2920 ft.) to Agua Caliente Trail, climb across a
couple of canyons to a saddle, then take a steep ridge line to Agua
Caliente “Hill” (5369 ft.). Then you back track to the saddle, and
continue north across Agua Caliente and La Milagrosa Canyons. You emerge
on the roads and come back to our house for breakfast. This is an
extraordinarily rocky, rugged, and scenic route. Since I’m in bicycle
mode right now and a bit tired from the Soul Ride, I got people started
and rode a bike up Mt. Lemmon Highway a ways, timing it to be back
before the runners. I went to look for runners and found Tonja on the
road-she was one of several people who did the 11 mile version of the
course, where you don’t take the side trip to the top of the Agua
Caliente hill. Gene Joseph wasn’t too far behind. I scurried home and
laid out breakfast and refreshments. Runners started to appear. Gene
reported that the trail in Agua Caliente Canyon was getting hard to
follow, although Pam Golden didn’t think it had changed much. Pam was Sabino Fat Ass 12 Hour Nov. 16, 2003 Chase Duarte 62.2mi. I’ve found another alternative to paying the $5 parking fee at Sabino Canyon. Get there before the kiosk opens and stay there until after it closes. While waiting, run your fatass off for 12 hours. Three hearty souls with less than hearty asses ran the whole 12 hours from 5am to 5pm. Joe Dana, Roger Wrublik and myself hung out for the entire day while Bob Bachani also joined in for the 5am start. It turns out Bob just celebrated his 50th, err I mean 48th birthday the day before the Sabino Fatass 12 hour Fun Run. It really turned out to be an amazing day for runners of the Tucson area to come out to Sabino Canyon area and enjoy the weather and greenery from the recent rainfall. As John Litteer commented, “It feels like running in San Diego today.” Actually the most interesting thing about the day was the number of runners who got caught up in the event before they knew what was going on like John. He encountered Bob on the trail experiencing dizziness from the multiple loop format and signed up the next time he came to the parking lot. After one Phoneline out’n'back Charlie Hangartner called Tom Gormley and said “Dude, where are you? You’re missing out on all the fun.” Uncontrollably, Tom called two friends and then Gary Norris called his friends and by the end of the day 24 people attended. Due to the format of choosing whatever routes and directions appealed to you, we were able to cross paths and run with one another a lot more than I would have expected. It was fun and motivating to continually see each other while one is coming down the road from a Bear Canyon loop while the other is running up Fatass hill at the end of the road and then see each other again on the Phoneline Trail. Here are a few statistics for those of you (Ross and Gene) that like that kind of stuff: 24 runners signed in, 17 people ran multiples of some sort, 20 ran over 2 hours, 11 ran over 20 miles, and 5 ran past the marathon distance. The breakdown on route selection is as follows: Eight different routes were selected for a grand total of 56 avenues. The most popular route was up and down the TRAM Road at 17 times and 6 partials. Trish, Mahendra and Angie were responsible for 8 and a half of those. Coming in second was the counter-clockwise Phoneline loop up the trail and down the road at 13 times. John Litteer and Jorg Hader had 2 each. Jorg, also known as “Bavarian Creme” and Chris Fall (Eskimo Pie Diver) were reported to have hashed an additional 10k later that afternoon. Other remarkable performances were made by Roger Wrublik running two Bear Canyon loops and then sitting on his ass for 25 minutes before completing a Phoneline. Also, Joe Dana ran 35 hard miles by going to Sabino Basin twice and then a Phoneline. I managed to reach the 100k mark by running two TRAM outn’backs, three clockwise Phonelines (up the road, down the trail), one counterclockwise Phoneline and one outn’back Phoneline for an actual distance of 62.4 miles. Check this, the three runners who ran over the whole 12 hours total running time were within a minute of each other equaling each other for rest taken. Roger ran 10:57, Joe ran 10:57, and I ran 10:56. Wayne Coates didn’t run the whole 12 hours but put in a solid 7:14 running time at 32.5 miles. It was good to see a couple of 100 mile performers from last weekend’s Javelina Jundred in the form of Jerry Riddick-9.2 miles, John Mark-22.1 miles and Ken Greco-24.4 miles. I didn’t plan it this way but the highest mileage female and male runners were Trish Duarte at 22.9 miles and Chase Duarte (me) at 62.4 miles. If you are a fan of age-graded results then Joe Dana actually ran 102 miles (35 miles + 67 years old). Much thanks goes out to Joel O’Bryan for letting us use his house and hot tub afterwards for a great BBQ. Joel came up one tenth of a mile short of the marathon distance due to an injured or sprained ass. I think this event turned out to be a great success in place of the traditional Mt. Lemmon Ascent. Hopefully next year we’ll be back on Mt. Lemmon and also keep this event although I may be inclined to change it to 10 hours to avoid starting in the dark and allow more time to sit on our fat asses afterward and drink beer. On On,Chase? Sabino 50ishK Nov. 30, 2003 Female Ghost Runner 43 6:27:42 Down road, then lower Bear Road, short Well, the uncertainty regarding the true distance of this run led to a
diversity of choices for the return trip. As most of you know, I send
people up Phone Line to Sabino Basin, then east on the Arizona trail to
the saddle just east of Molino Basin. The return gets ambiguous. When
the Forest Service was laying out the trail segments east of top out
above Sycamore Reservoir, they quoted me one or two wildly inaccurate
distances. Since I was uncertain and didn’t want tired people to have to
come back down Phone Line if they don’t want to, I say on the return
trip come down the road unless you’re really concerned about the getting
an honest 50K out of this. As always, people are welcome to do whatever
fraction of the course works for them that day.
Soldier/ La Milagrosa Loop 15.2 mi. Dec. 14, 2003 Female Ghost Runner 3:05.47 We had an absolutely beautiful day for the run. There were 8 runners
who started up the road toward the trail head on Catalina Highway. Julie
Arter and Bill Cuculic came strolling in, not even breathing heavy in
just over three hours. They had a great run, and said the trail was easy
to follow, even though the flag that was put out the day before by Kim
Ferranti and Alli LaCroix had disappeared. Gene Joseph (3:14), Ken Greco
(3:21) and Wayne Coates (3:31) all came in with smiles, especially Ken,
who said it was “a good day, no falls”. We all hung around, basking in
the warm sun waiting for the rest of the crew to finish. Tom Gormley
finished in 4:05 after getting off trail for a bit near the end of the
trail. Other than that, he had no complaints. Ross Zimmerman and Joe
Dana finished (on the road) in 5:14. Ross was touring Joe along a
different route. A successful run for all! Romero Crossing 21 miles 21mi. Jan. 1, 2004 Geno Foushee 4:45:50 Geno and Steve were the two starters and finishers for this year’s edition of the Romero crossing. The morning was cool, not cold, and overcast. Rock cairns helped guide the runners through the canyon above Hutch’s pool and the trail intersection with Esperero. From this point to Romero pass, Geno said the trail was overgrown with grass and sopping wet and windy, so back came the jacket and gloves. Steve didn’t have this problem, probably because Geno had already gleaned the water off the plants. The finish was sunny and cool. gj Wasson Peak 15 mi. Jan. 4, 2004 Bill Cuculic 2:31 Short Loop:(8.3 miles) Sunday morning at this years installment of the Wasson Peak Run was
clear and crisp ( in other words darn cold). A handful of familiar faces
showed for a great run . Gene and Bill sauntered in barely breathing
hard. Tom Wiper did the same shortly thereafter. The rest filed in
looking no worse for wear. I think we need to add a few miles to the
course so people could work up a sweat. Winter Bear Canyon Loop 16.8 mi. Jan. 18, 2004 Bill Cuculic 2:57 Here are the data from the Bear run. Nice day, weather good, etc.
What more can be said – BTW – did someone leave a bicycle tube at the
finish??? In addition to these folks Male Ghost Runner, Pam Golden, Ken
Greco, Bob Bachani 2004 Cowhead Saddle 17 mi. Feb. 1, 2004 Bill Cuculic 44 2:42:30 We had a decent turnout for this year’s Cowhead Saddle. We had a
no-show on the run director, but I was kind of expecting that and
covered. Wayne brought the traveling munchies that have been with us
since Sabino 50ishK, and we successfully finished them off. The weather
was a bit cool, but otherwise pleasant. 19 folks started out, then Pete Tanque Verde Loop 28.5 mi. Feb. 22, 2004 Matt Chamberlain 5:45 road Mt. Kimball Ascent (Esperero Canyon Loop alternate) 5 mi. Mar. 14, 2004 Top Out Campers, Mica Mountain Marathon 26.8 mi. Mar. 28, 2004 Bill Cuculic 5:01:08 The Mica Mountain run of March 28th went off smoothly. The weather
was clear and just right at the start. That meant it was a bit warm
coming down from Douglas Springs. The Brittlebush and the Fairy Dusters
were in bloom along the lower trail with the Ocotillo just a few days
behind, nice eye candy! There was a report that one or more of the
runners missed a turn! Although they admitted at the finish that it was
well marked. It was such a nice day it was easy to get distracted.
Congratulations to all for a job well done. Joe Dana East Rincon Runs Apr. 18, 2004 Female Ghost Runner 7.3 miles Those of you who didn’t make it missed a great run this morning! It was cool at 6 am at the Miller Creek trail head but soon warmed up. Miller Creek was flowing briskly, the oaks had their new leaves and were starting to flower, the ash and cottonwoods were fully leafed out and the buds on the sycamores were bursting – beautiful. The drive in is, if anything, slower than before as there’s more water over the road – but it’s a beautiful spot for a hike and/or run and well worth the journey. Route: Turkey Creek trail head to park boundary. Sign on gate there says clearly “No Pets”, so Wynne & Julie turned around and headed back with our two dogs who covered far more than 7.3 miles. Hedley Female Ghost Runner 3 trips It was a wonderful day with seemingly everybody doing their own thing and having a good time. Ross and I had the opportunity to run into Dave Hansen and Sherry Wolf who were hiking up Baldy with the Hiking Club. Dave was a stalwart of the trail running crowd back in the early 80′s and his wife Sherry was (if I am not mistaken) a charter member of the Sun Chasers, a women’s trail running group that was quite active during that era. Several people had never been on the super trail so went down that way. The original route is up&back Old Baldy. RK & KG |
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