Varvel Family: Summer Trail Running

We had a GREAT summer of trail running! We had to do a lot of it because Mark was training for his PUTS marathon. We explored lots of new trails, and enjoyed our usual favorites. The great thing about about trail running is that we get to see some AMAZING places that we would never be able to see otherwise. The bad thing about it is that now we never want to run on the road again!

We get a late start in Idaho because the mountains still have lots of snow. We decided to start more locally in Kelly Canyon, thinking that was a safer bet weather wise. Wrong! We only made it a couple miles up the trail before the snow got pretty deep. Welcome to Idaho! We ended up doing tons of Kelly Canyon runs this summer though!

Our first weekend of 'summer' trail running!

Kelly Canyon

We ran in the foothills a lot at the beginning of the season. They are pretty ugly that time of year, but at least they are trails without snow, and they are super close. They also provide a lot of good hills.

Foothills by Bone

Hills, hills, and more hills!

Palisades is our 'go to' trail! It's one of our favorites, and between Mark, Bailey, and I, we must have run it 10 times this season! It's always beautiful, no matter what time of year.

Upper Palisades Lake

Here's a great story that happened on a Palisades run! There was an Idaho Falls man hiking in the Palisades area with his wife's one year old golden retriever. The dog got lost and the family was devastated. They had gone back and hiked the trail almost everyday for the next week trying to find their dog. At one point, they even saw the dog, but she ran from them. They posted the story on social media and it had been shared about 3000 times! We saw the story on the trail running Facebook site we belong to, and a few friends of ours that knew the family also shared it. Mark and Bailey planned an early morning run to Upper Palisades Lake on a rainy Saturday morning. They were aware that a dog had been lost up there, so they planned to be on the lookout. It was still dark when they were driving up the dirt road to the trailhead. It was also pouring rain. They saw something in the road and soon realized it was the dog. She was soaking wet, cold, and scared. Mark got out of the car, and the dog ran away. They followed her to the trailhead, and Bailey got out. She ran from her too. Eventually Mark rolled down his window and Shelby came up to the car and started licking his hand. Bailey opened the back door, and she jumped right in. The poor little sweetheart was hungry, cold, wet, scared, and couldn't even lay down because her belly was covered in stickers and thorns. While Mark went to work calling me and trying to get in touch with the owners, Bailey went to work drying Shelby off, and picking stickers out of her. The little pup and been through quite a week, and they could tell she was exhausted, but happy be be getting loved on. I jumped in my car and headed up to Swan Valley with a leash and some dog food. Bailey and I were going to bring the dog back to Idaho Falls while Mark did his run. On our way home, we got in contact with the very happy and emotional owner of Shelby. She was going to meet us at our house to get her puppy back. Her husband was up hiking in the area again with their older dog, and she had no way of letting him know that Shelby had been found. Mark was almost to the upper lake running, when he saw a man walking a dog you could tell was older. He had a feeling to ask him if he was up there looking for a lost dog. The man said yes, and Mark had the pleasure of telling him that Shelby was found, and probably back home with his wife by that point. The man bear hugged Mark and got really emotional. So sweet! The poor puppy and her family had been through quite a week, and we were happy to be apart of their good fortune and happy reunion.

This is sweet Shelby getting pampered by Bailey in the backseat of the car. People from all over the country were following the story, so there were lots of happy tears when everyone found out Shelby was back with her family.

Indian Creek is a beautiful canyon we discovered for trail running this year. It was part of the PUTS course, so we decided to run it to get a feel for what Mark was in for. It is so so so beautiful! Very overgrown and technical, so I'm glad we went up and practiced on it before his race. We also did it early in the season, so the streams were still running pretty deep and fast. A bit scary to cross when you're only 5' tall, but we survived!

Indian Creek trail

So beautiful! It's views like this that make us love trail running so much!

We got 3/4 of the way up the snow covered Garden Gnome section before we called it quits and headed back down. That added an interesting aspect to our run! Luckily it was mostly melted before PUTS, so they could actually follow a trail.

I fell down a lot!

Good times!

Mark also ran the first 19 miles of the PUTS course for one of his training runs. He ran from Big Elk Creek, over to Indian Creek where I was waiting with the car. Then I ran up Indian Creek canyon with him to finish his run. We run over the Idaho/Wyoming state line on this run.

The state line!

Mark and Bailey both had their longest training runs for their different races on the same weekend. So they decided to do a 20 miler up Big Elk Creek. I went up there with them, but I was having back trouble again, so I just did a 13 mile hike while they were on their run.

Big Elk Creek

It was a wild flower paradise!

One of the water crossings was really deep and rushing pretty good. The water was up pretty high on Bailey, and she was trying to keep her phone above water. The water took her down, and she landed pretty hard because she was still holding her phone up. She started floating away, but Mark was eventually able to get to her and help her back up. She kept her phone dry, but lost her cute roo pouch down the creek. She was so sad (mostly because her snack was in it). Glad I wasn't there to see all that!