About to Go

Blowing snow and icy roads had me staying in Crested Butte, and wimping out of the bike ride back from Gunnison today. My body is a bit tired from the trip yesterday, and besides, why not wait until a nicer day to enjoy the trip?

So...I'm at the apartment packing for my trip this weekend. Around noon tomorrow I'm going to drive the 3 hrs west to Dominguez Canyon Wilderness. Dominguez is well-known (well, not that popular), for its petroglyphs and amazing canyon scenery. The area was designated a 'Wilderness Study Area' since 1972 I believe..and was finally approved as a Wilderness Area less than a month ago, protecting it forever.

I've put together a ~35 mile loop that should take me through both Big and Little Dominguez Canyons. To connect the two canyons I'm going to have to hope that I can figure out the forest road situation out there. Hopefully they aren't as horrible as logging roads on the Pacific Northwest Trail that had me cursing and backtracking so many times that it makes me laugh when I think about it. To prepare, I'm going to stop by the BLM office in Montrose before I get there to take a look at a detailed map of the area to figure it all out.

If my foot is finally healed, which I don't think it is, I hope to do some trail running on dry ground during all 3 days that I'm there. Running in the desert is really fun and man I need some more of it right now. I'm getting so antsy to trail run again that I may decide to throw caution out the tent door, and just keep running through my foot pain. I'll be packing lots of ibuprofin indeed...

More pics to come when I get back Monday night, and then the final steps of bike tour planning will be hashed out.

Send me good vibes Monday, 1:30 MDT, when I get my wrist cast cut off so the bone will be fully healed and I won't need surgery. Fingers and toes are crossed here...