Trails Before Dawn

Wow! This one was worth the early wake up and longer drive up Right Fork Hobble Creek. The views were absolutely breathtaking, but we had to work for them.  The hills on this run made for a tough workout.  Dennis sat this one out to take care of a sore achilles.   Total distance from Packard to Kirkman was 7 miles.  We did a shuttle, leaving one vehicle at the Kirkman trailhead.  Packard Trailhead is 3.4 miles up the road, so the full loop would be 10.4 miles.   

Having lived in Utah all but two years of my life, and after having coached cross country in Utah County for seven years, I thought I knew most of the great running trails in this area.  It wasn't until a couple of years after I had left my coaching career and took a job at Brigham Young University that I realized I had only scratched the very surface. Ironically, my increased exposure to some great running trails came about through a finance professor who had moved to Utah and was interested in exploring the area.  Brian Boyer was a converted trail runner, and was just getting into his running career when he approached me and asked if I would show him some trails.  I was thrilled at the opportunity to have a running partner and to get to run some of the trails I missed after being away from coaching.  Little did I know, this relationship would lead us to finding and exploring many new trails together. One of the challenges Brian and I faced was time.  We bo...