Into Thick Air: Bill Williams Mountain and the Effects of Blowing Smoke

(The following post was a collective effort by unnamed NATRA runners who may have inhaled too much smoke atop Bill Williams Mountain)
 
Disasters can have their dramatic moments. Such has been the case this week in northern Arizona. And while we can all breath a little easier figuratively, it was much harder to do so literally on Saturday when the intrepid NATRA crew took on Billy Willy for our annual craziness.

Seven runners headed west into an ever-deepening pall of smoke. There would have been eight of us, however, it was too early and dry for our erstwhile leader to have any excuse for stopping before mile marker two; hence he found another important event to attend on Saturday.

 
Not to worry; we just decided to talk about him instead of nuclear physics or nihilism. (I'm guessing the anonymous authors think they are punnier than their usual fearful leader, and they actually meant "Neilism," aka the following running philosophy.) This naturally brought up his usually very optimistic estimates of run distances. This "run", which gains about 2400' over the course of 3.5 miles was actually determined to be more like 5.5 neil's* in one direction, or about 9 neils, total.  Part of this was due to the thick smoke at the start of the run, although it got much better as we ascended out of the inversion layer. We all anticipated an awesome view from the top, as advertised, and yes, indeed it was!

Well, it might have been a little smokey. So here is an artist's conception of the summit:

Afterward, we headed into Williams Cafe 326, and smack dab into the start of the Williams parade.  Now that was fun!

  

 

Seeing Smokey always makes one's day, but especially on this one.

All-in-all, it was an adventuresome day!

Posted by: Anonymous**

* - 1 neil is approximately equal to 1 "feels-like" mile, plus some Kentucky windage, based upon the previous run in the same place.
** - No personally identifiable individuals wish to take credit for this dubious post.