I woke at 3:30 am, stumbled out of bed, grabbed some food and jumped into my car - and I was off around 4:00am (luckily I had packed the night before, so I would not forget anything). Fortunately, Woody Gap in Suches, Georgia is only around 50 minutes from house (I had to stop for coffee), so I made the hopeful 5:00am arrival. When I arrived at the trail head, it was dark & cold & windy and cold. It took us some time to get going. We all bundled up, turned on our headlamps and we were off around 5:45. We were off for 10 hours of moving, um, pushing through the snow.
We started at Woody Gap, caught the Duncan Ridge Trail, and proceeded into Vogel State Park to the Coosa trail. (For anyone who has not done the Coosa trail - it is awesome! They say it is over 4000 feet of elevation gain. Approximately 13 or so miles of up and down and up and down. There is walking and recovering down hill, and some mellow -a challenge and different terrain).
Here are the GUTS guys at the top of Coosa Bald.
There was a significant amount of snow. On Woody Gap, we were breaking trail. When we first started on Coosa, some people had preceded us, and we were able to gain a little bit of speed until - the snow was deeper again... And, then on Coosa, we slowed down, again. The adventure slowed more as it started snowing, and the temperature dropped. But, we proceeded on and returned to the Duncan Ridge Trail. But, more adventure - one of the group members stopped for a quick break, and we went on - only to take a wrong trail and get lost, but we though the other member was lost. After back tracking to find our "lost" friend, who was not really lost, we found the correct trail (note the AT is ALWAYS a white blaze - ha), and tried to catch our friend, but, of course, he had taken the correct trail and beat all of us by about 30 minutes.
Overall, it was one of the best runs I have done. Good company, tough terrain & conditions & my first distance past a marathon. I thank all those who were in attendance!!!!
End picture - happy & delirious!!
1 comment:
Sara, What a fun time in snowy North GA! I was part of a little team that did a 30 hour adventure race in that area in 2003-I think we plodded on the same trails as you!
...In response to your blog comment-the Saucony ulti mitts are nice for mild winter...for cold and snow-I use 2 or 3 layers: tiny liners (patagonia or smartwool), fleece mittens and my snowboard overmitts (outdoor research)or cycling wind mitt. When I ran the Bandera 100k this year in Texas with 12 degrees at course start-I started out with 3 layers and whittled my way between 1-2 layers all day.
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