Aerie-Cockscomb in Sedona

14 runners did the Aerie-Cockscomb loop trail from the Fay Canyon parking lot. All ran strongly heading up the long rise to Doe Mountain. Then we felt great on the downhill beyond the pass. Shortly thereafter the trail threw some nasty rollers at us which brought many to a grinding halt. Usually runners hit the wall at 20 miles. This trail took its toll by mile 4.5!!! However, at that point the stunning panoramic views eased the pain. It is hard to believe this run was only 5.7 miles. It really felt far more like 10!

This was a magnificent run highlighted by Sabrina's announcement that she and Terrance will tie the knot at Soulstice on October 13th! Cheers Sabrina and Terrance!

Thanks to David Blanchard for suggesting this epic run and for creating the map below! Sedona Marathon next Saturday!

Buffalo Park GPS Mapping

Buffalo Park - 1.92 miles as mapped on GPS

Decided to test out my GPS receiver in an area free of obstructions. No better place than the 2.0 mile marked loop in Buffalo Park! The first 1/4 mile seemed spot on. The further I went however, it appeared the GPS started showing the typical shortness error. By the end of the run the I-touch app told me 1.92 miles. Far more accurate than the readings I received in Mountain View Park though!



The two mile loop measured accurately in Google Earth (above) as compared to the downloaded. Obviously, a pretty minor error and it should be expected that the GPS show shorter distances since it is calculates the shortest distance between two points, as opposed to calculating the longer arcs of the curves in the park. Next test will be the Flagstaff High Track.

Chicken Point: Rampaging Rogue Elk and going Back to the Future

If none of us were awake when we left Fort Tuthill at 8 AM, we sure were a few minutes later when a gauntlet of 50 elk along the edge of Highway 89 got our attention. Once at Schnebly Hill, 12 NATRA runners and two dogs headed into the chilly shadows of Marg's Draw. David and Susan B. fortuitously parked at Broken Arrow (later, Neil and David B. would decide to take a motorized short cut back to the trailhead). Once at Chicken Point there was some discussion about the return of the Purple Tights - see the video above for David McKee's "Back to the Future" telephone call!

After the run, we returned to our favorite outdoor seating area at New Frontiers and enjoyed double dipping chips in an assortment of guacamole and Greek yogurt. Just as we had settled in, a mountain biker from California began backing into one of the carports. It looked like the poor bike atop his Subaru was going to get crunched, but the bike was amazingly spared by less than 1 cm.

With temperatures in the 60s, David B. left us with a forecast with a glimmer of a few inches of much needed snow...cross your fingers for next week's Kahtoola snow traction run to Mark Thurston's cabin in Hart Prairie!

Woods Canyon - Rogue Javelinas on the Rampage

It was a beautiful Saturday for seven NATRA runners to head down to Sedona. Today we added a fantastic trail that is sure to become part of our repertoire - Woods Canyon. The trail takes off right out of the south end of the Sedona Ranger District compound. After crossing over a couple of irrigation ditches we made our way east.

The Woods Canyon trail follows the course of a not so Dry Beaver Creek. Yup, we were treated to the raging waters melting off the Mogollon Rim. Due to the above normal temperatures, Dry Beaver Creek looked as though it should during the spring melt. We could pretty much hear the creek the entire run, but it wasn't until about three miles in where we encountered the raging emerald green waters.

At some point, a pack of rampaging javelinas nearly took out our lead runners - David and Bruce. After about 3.5 miles we stopped and enjoyed listening to the rushing waters before heading back to the District Ranger station. On the way home we drove across the head waters of Woods Canyon near Fox Ranch Road and thought about sometime running the entire 22 mile course of the canyon - perhaps doing a key exchange with an adventurous group - but not today!

For more information and maps visit arizonahiking.com.

Testing my Dual GPS receiver and I-touch

On the afternoon of January 2nd, I set out to have some fun with my new Dual GPS receiver synced to my I-touch. When paired with the Dual receiver (using the MapMyRun app), I have found that on street runs lacking vegetation, the Dual well tracks distances. But today my curiosity had the best of me so I decided to walk 5 laps in Mountain View Park. I had always figured that the loop was about 1/8th of a mile, but what would my GPS show? Mapping the run with the receiver consistently showed that I covered 0.12 miles on each lap and that the 5 lap workout covered 0.62 miles. In the screen capture above, the errors are obvious as each lap mapped differently (this is pretty close to the expected accuracy limitations of the Dual receiver). The tree canopy surrounding the path in Mountain View Park is probably the cause of the inaccuracy of the signals - this can be seen where the line is shown on the interior of the path, especially on the east end of the park.



I then hand digitized the same route on the satellite image in MapMyRun.com (It also draws from the Google Earth images (see photo above). The hand digitized outline of the park showed that I ran 792 feet or 0.15 miles. This error of 0.03 mile per lap extrapolates to a 0.2 mile error short per mile of lap in Mountain View Park.

My next and most likely more accurate test will be taking the receiver to an open track, clear of vegetation. This exercise however does provide a good example of the errors that these units display during any of our heavily forested trail races. Despite the discrepancies, the Dual receiver works quite well and has made my I-touch more functional than I ever dreamed. Not to mention the fun of experimenting with error!

New Year's Day 2012

12 runners rang in the New Year running from Coconino Estates north through Cheshire before returning...the perfect start to a New Year!

Return of the Purple Tights

On New Years eve Neil showed off his new purple tights....we'll see how many decades these survive. Seven runners headed up a very icy urban trail and did the Railroad Springs loop, about 5 miles in the warmest New Year's Eve in many, many years.