August’s big event was a backpacking trip up the Arizona Trail along the Stagecoach course out to the Coconino Rim. During the race, I had gone through a lot of this area in the dark, and when sunrise came toward the end of it, it was so beautiful to me that I wanted to come back out to see a sunrise there again.
So I got some friends together for the trip, and they came along to check it out with me.
In June, I went back to the Prescott Circle Trail with the intent of doing a through hike of it over three days and two nights. I have fallen in love with both backpacking and the Arizona Trail, and one of my long term goals is to eventually hike the whole distance via section hikes, in whatever way I can make that work. The Prescott Circle Trail seemed like a good place for me to give both me and Kris a little sample of what that would be like.
The Monument Valley 50k was the race I was training for. Kris and I made a weekend trip of it, going to stay at The View Hotel in Monument Valley itself, and it was amazing. Just staggeringly beautiful.
One of the awesome things about the race is that runners get to go through some areas that normally either require a guide to access, or they are completely off-limits to non-tribe members altogether.