#OneMoreClimb - Elden Lookout

Soooo, last night got away from us. We went out for a flight of beers, and ended up adding another flight, two or three or five whiskeys, Cornish Pastys and a very unnecessary bottle of wine. Pete is a superhero so getting up and going to work at 6am was no problem for him. After a very late breakfast, we finally got out the door and found a mountain to hike. Mount Elden.

Pete, for once in his life, was upfront about the hike stats and what we were getting ourselves into. Roughly 6.5 miles and 2500ft of climbing. He told the truth! It wasn’t one of his famous “8 more miles” runs. It was a hike on the way up, and a run/ shuffle on the way down. The trail is pretty rocky and only had short segments that allowed me to open up the stride for a few seconds at a time. Pete accidentally coined a newer version of “8 more miles” on the way to the peak. He was trying to be positive about the hills we had left and said it was just “one more climb” until we got to the top. Pfffft. The entire 3 miles up was just one climb to begin with! Now I’m going to need a new hat printed with this bullshit phrase.

Run stats: We parked in a lot for Fatman’s Loop Trail/ Mt Elden, ran the Mt Elden Access, Fatman’s Loop to Elden Lookout Trail, and took that to the summit. From there, we went back down to Fatman’s Loop and went the opposite direction from which we came. That led us back to the parking lot. 6.5 miles, 2,546ft gained, 1hr 55min.

Now it’s time to be lazy for the rest of the day and get ready to run some of the Grand Canyon and head to Las Vegas tomorrow.

Tyler