Old Man Still running

Sounds awesome. I really want to check that side out. I bet it's beautiful.

Did you take your Garmin? I'd like to see the stats/map of the run.

Nope, forgot the Garmin. The road starts from Soldiers Pass Road, right before the sweeping left turn to the top of the pass. You just stay right on the road that heads north, it will make a big switch back to get up on the first ridge and then keep climbing from there. Eventually it makes it to the towers. Then I just connected with the main road heading down. Once out of the canyon, in the foothills, I chose an ATV road and motorcycle trail to get back to where my car was. I took my sweet time because I only had one water bottle with me and ran out.

Here's the route I took on Mapmyrun: http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/36970974

Wow, that does look cool. Interesting how you found that ATV trail on the east side. Very cool. There is definitely a lot of exploring to be done on that mountain. I wish there was more water available because they you could just wander around aimlessly for miles.

Yep, I was going to refill using the snow banks that you can still see up there, but decided to cut it short.

The views up there are incredible. I have seen some pretty cool sunrises on top of Lake this year.

What is nice about that ridge line trail is you see those amazing views across the lake very often along the way in different directions. The snow capped mountains right now make it particularly spectacular. I still can't believe how much snow there is on Timp.

In your experience, considering the current date and deep snowpack, do you think we'll have any chance of getting on the summit before Aug? I'm thinking late July, at best.

Depends on what experience you want. A couple years ago, I had great fun in June doing a bunch of summits with solid snow from the basin to the saddle. Very fast runs with huge short cuts. However it was dry from there to the summit. Right now you can see heavy snow from the saddle to the summit. I expect that to mostly melt off in a couple weeks or by the end of the month. The deep snow in the trees below the basin are usually the factor. That could be there a long time. Other routes would require ice axe, and something on the shoes.

Luckily, I have all those things. I'll have to try it some time after Laramie. Big Horn in a couple weeks, huh? There should be a solid Utah contingent out there. Enjoy.

Hyperphil would know the best routes up Timp in the snow.

If he can remember these days. He's become a Ben Lomond junkie. He's probably purged his mind of his 400+ Timp summits. Haha.

Yep, he's mostly retired from Timp, same with me. We both discovered that doing a bunch of training on that trail really doesn't help get faster in ultras. We've both gotten significantly faster in 100s in the last couple years by doing smarter training.