Varvel Family: September Adventures

Wolf Flats:

I kicked off September with an early morning, 11 miler in the dark on Wolf Flats with Jenn. I don't love getting up super early, but I never regret when I do. It was a nice peaceful run with a beautiful sunrise.

Kelly Canyon:

We did a 15 miler in Kelly Canyon, and none of us were feeling great. Jenn headed back early, and Mark and I kept going a little farther, but still cut it short from what our original plan was. I don't have a lot of days where I feel blah, so when I do, I try to listen to my body and not push it.

We saw bear tracks!

Gnarly Climb to Cranky Cowboy:

Since school has started back up, my early morning runs with these ladies are now in the evenings. I try to make it work to run with them as often as I can, because we are very similar paces. Ashlee likes to get in a lot of vert too, and I never shy away from a good hill climb.

Ashlee-Tessa-Ashley-Tricia-Becky

We had a pretty sunset right at the end.

Circles of Love:

Our trail running group put on an awesome event called, 'Circles of Love' to honor Abigail Thornley. She is the daughter of a good friend of ours from our running group. She died tragically in a car accident the month before at the age of 19. It was so heartbreaking! 💔 This event was a way for the community to gather and walk/run in honor, remembrance, and celebration of the lives of anyone they know and lost at a young age. Donations were accepted, and given to the Blackfoot High School drama program in Abby's name. I think $5000 was raised. People could come anytime during the twenty hour event and walk/run as many laps as they wanted. Mark and I did just over 32 miles. Bailey was on her way to town, so she got dropped off on her way to our house and did a bunch of miles through the night with us. The turn out was amazing!

John (Abby's dad) said a few words before we started our laps, and had us in tears right from the start.

A maple tree was planted at Jensen's Grove with a plaque in Abby's memory.

Each time we finished a lap, we put a heart rock in the jar. It was amazing to watch the jar fill up as the hours ticked by.

Such a fitting sunset for the event.

I loved that Bailey could join us for lots of miles.

Cress Creek Area:

Jenn and I did an early morning 6 miles in the Cress Creek Area.

Teton Crest:

This trail has been on my bucket list for a while, so I was super excited to be doing it! We had a gorgeous day! Perfect weather, blue sky with puffy white clouds, gorgeous views, and amazing fall colors. The trail conditions were not so great though. After the first 10 miles the mud and snow made it slow going. We got to Lake Solitude hours after we expected, and heard lots of reports of the deep, sketchy snow conditions on the Paintbrush Divide. We opted to come down Cascade Canyon instead, which was a hard pill for me to swallow, but definitely the right choice. I still got the 40 miles I wanted, and over 8000 ft of vert, but I can't officially say that I've completed the whole Teton Crest Trail. I guess it'll stay on my list and I'll have to do it again. I felt so good on this run! The climbs hardly phased me, and I still had lots of run left in my legs at the end. This is what I needed to boost my confidence a little about our upcoming 100 miler.

Our first couple hours were in the dark.

We would switch off who would lead every mile of so, and when it was my turn, I was just hoping I wouldn't run into a bear or moose on the trail. 😅

We had never run this section of trail, so it was nice to see it when the sun finally started coming up.

The crew:
Ashley-Ashlee-Michelle-Tricia-Mark

We saw this mama deer with her babies right as we were getting to Marion Lake.

Looking back at Marion Lake.

This was my first time on the Death Canyon Shelf trail, and I absolutely loved it!

The girls

Mark

There were great views of the Tetons along this section.

Bear tracks!

We followed these tracks for quite a while.

We hit the snow right before we dropped into Alaska Basin.

Sunset Lake

We have so many selfies at this lake over the years.

Climbing towards Hurricane Pass, and looking back to where we had just come from.

Hurricane Pass!

Hurricane Pass is my favorite view of the Tetons.

This section would normally be a good place to make up some time on the fun downhill, but we had lots of snow.

We saw a young bull moose on the way up Cascade Canyon.

Lake Solitude!

This is where we made the choice to finish down Cascade Canyon instead of climbing up and over the Paintbrush Divide.

The Teton view on the way back down Cascade Canyon.

The fall colors were amazing!

Final stretch along Jenny Lake

Mount Breitenbach:

Idaho 12er #3!

This one was absolutely my favorite so far! I loved it! The route was straight forward, the climb was challenging, but awesome, and the ridge line and peak were amazing! We were giddy with how cool it was. It was an all around great day!

The canyon we started up.

The climb to the saddle was a dozy!

There was a fossil field section we went through.

More fossils.

Looking back at how far we had already climbed.

Climbing up from the saddle.

Standing on the false summit.

The views from the ridge line were so good!

Almost there!

We made it!

My favorite summit so far!

Wolf Flats:

I've been feeling really good about my uphill training, and my training at elevation, but I felt like I was lacking in the flat, steady, long runs. That's what I need to be focusing on now for my race, so we did 22.5 miles of all running on Wolf Flats. I actually felt pretty good. I fell really hard on the way back, so I'm pretty sure the whole right side of my body is gonna be bruised. Other than that, it was a great run. I'm gonna work on this kind of running until my race, because I want to be able to run pretty consistently with minimal walking for the first 50-60 miles.