Baer Gruntsman 2011

"Midnight Pain and Torture"

There is a race near my parents house where people run up a mountain.  The race is called the Baer Gutsman.  Well, we all thinking we are really cool decide that we want to do it (after my dad suggested it and really talked it up).  We looked online at the race and it was $55 to enter.  So us being so smart, decide that we will just make our own race in the same place and not pay the $55 per person.

So sitting around as a family a few months ago, we came up with the "Bear Gruntsman" (had a few names).  Since we want the race to be a little different we decided that we would start it at midnight and hike by headlamps to make it cooler:).

So last night we get all decked out, put on our shirts and headed off for our adventure.  

Great way for Alec to spend his 30th b.day.  

Happy B.day Love!

So my dad is crazy.  He was like this is no biggie.  We will have no problems.  I guess that normally the race goes up the canyon and then you run down farmington canyon for 6 miles on a dirt road.  Well, Farmington canyon is not open due to landslide issues, so we had to 

run back down the same way we came up.  Which actually turned out to be crazy difficult because the trail was incredibly steep!

My Dad had us start at the church by our house because that is where the real race starts. 

Total Distance (a few side trips due to loss of the trail) = 12.69 miles

Total Elevation Gain = 7816 feet

Total Elevation Loss = 7811 feet (pure torture)

So we started walking up the road to get to the trail head.  No biggie so far.  Then we started on the trail. It was just like a normal hike at first.  We were crossing rivers and having a great time.  Then it got steep, and when I say steep, it was crazy.  One of the hardest things that most of us say that we have ever done.

About 3/4 up the trail you get into a fern grove.  Crazy fern grove.  You could not tell where the heck the trail was.  We made a few wrong turns, but luckily we found our way.  Then you go up to this rock path.  It was crazy windy and cold.  At this point we were wondering what in the heck we were doing.  The last hill before the top was insanely hard.  That is all I can say to describe it.  

We finally made it to the top where you could see into Davis county, Salt Lake county, and Morgan.  It was awesome, but can I say cold!  We sat down at the observation tower at the top for a few minutes to get our legs back under us, eat some food, and in Alec's case, sleep.  We were not there long, due to the freezing temps and the bats!:)

Then we were off for our downhill ADVENTURE.  I am pretty sure all of us ended up on our butts a few times, at least:).

It was crazy, crazy hard for a few of us with our weak wussy knees.

Well, we finally made it down and boy can I say it did not come soon enough.  We were dying!  When we finally got to my parents house we could barely walk!  My mom had a great breakfast for us waiting and then we all hit the couches, beds, well where ever we could find to sleep.  

So we were hiking last night for 8 hours, instead of sleeping.... what in the world we were thinking!:)

So we did it, done, and so happy to be done.  Now we are all trying to figure out how to walk again!:)