In my mind, this weekend marked the beginning of summer. Mostly because I began the first of many weekends on Mt. LeConte, where I work as a park ranger. The job itself is wonderful, but trying to bring your day to day routine up the mountain with you can be an interesting proposition. For example, how do you get your run in when you live on a place such as LeConte? Well, you run on LeConte of course.
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Out and Back on the Boulevard Trail
I managed to squeeze in around 20 wet, rooty, and rocky miles over the weekend. While most of the running occurred in the clouds and drizzle, the weather wasn't terrible the whole time I was up top.
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| A fat bellied Blue Ridge Spring Salamander |
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| Near my turnaround point on the Boulevard |
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| The first sunset of the season |
Mountain time also means that I have no access to TV, internet, and little to no cell phone reception for much of the week. So as you may guess, the blog updates will be minimal (one to two a week) throughout the summer. The upside to this schedule is that I'll have three days off each week, ample time to get in some more insanely long runs and other interesting "projects" that I have had on my list for a while, which I hope will make for some interesting reading.
If you find yourself on LeConte this summer make sure you say hello to the guy in the funny looking hat!
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| And that's why they call the woods, the woods... |
...these things behind me are known as.."Mountains"
ReplyDeleteI was at Voyageurs Nat'l Park last weekend and just to ease your minds the rangers there put up with the same lame-ass questions. I was looking through an info sheet about animals in the park and commented, "I didn't know beavers were vegetarians."
ReplyDeleteand the park ranger lady said, "What did you *think* they ate?" real snotty like. But thanks to you guys, I didn't hate her for being bitchy. I understood. Then she showed two old ladies the newest line of park t-shirts.
Way to smash that record, Dave! You are definitely the shit. Keep pushing it. Looking forward to telling my kids someday "yeah I knew the guy that finished the smokies-through-the-AT-beer-every-mile in less than a day."