Run, Koper, run

Once again I'm writing with a 2 month delay, so, as my memory isn't too good, this post will be heavy on the photos and light on the words... at least, relatively speaking. In August I was going for a week to Cambridge, MA for a work summit. My first thoughts were not about how to prepare for this trip work-wise. My very first thought was: I'm going to U.S., I need to visit one of the national parks! The summit was starting on Monday, so I could go on the weekend and have 1 or 2 days somewhere in the wilderness. And so the planning begun. I could not find any famous/interesting park in the direct vicinity of Boston. But then I came across Telegraph's list of America's 20 best national parks (I love top-X lists) with Acadia National Park on the list. 5h drive away it wasn't exactly close but I decided to go for it anyway. After a direct flight from London I landed in Boston around 1pm, quickly got myself to the car rental and by 2pm was on my way. There wa...

Once again I was away from the blog for a long, long time. Let me try to pick up where I left off and finish writing about the last day in Lassen. After the second active day I was really tired and thought I'd sleep like a baby. Not so. Actually I had a really terrible night, mostly because of my stuffy nose. When I woke up in the morning I felt really tired. Still, I quickly finished up packing and started driving towards Butte Lake where I was planning to the last hike to the Cinder Cone . The last part of the drive took me via a dirt road that was posing a mild challenge for my car. When I got there I started running and almost immediately stumbled on a rock. At first I thought everything was fine but later on it'd be giving me some serious trouble, as I strained my AT band. It seemed a popular destination probably because the cone was mere 3k away from the campgrounds. The cone, which you can see on the photos to the left and below, was fairly interesting. It is surr...

I already wrote about Day 0 and the eventful Day 1, so let's take it from there. Getting up on Sunday was pretty tough as I had a hard Saturday, didn't get too much sleep and my cold still wasn't completely under wraps. I didn't have much appetite at breakfast but I suspect it had less to do with my cold and more to do with the fact that it wasn't very tasty. Then driving to the park as yesterday and on the way I was still hesitating what to do. The previous day I saw most of the interesting places in the South part of the park. I could tick off remaining trails there to have it completely covered. Or I could drive to the Northern Part. In the end I decide to go to Warner Valley, partly because it's shorter drive but mostly because I hope it'll be slightly different than the central part of the park. Also on the first day I had a short chat with a ranger and when I asked for best long trails she mentioned Mount Harkness as being the most beautiful hike ...

Finally end of the quarter craziness at work is over and I can start catching up with the blog and Week 35. What happened with week 34, you ask? Well, nothing much. Sadly, for various reasons running-wise that week is nothing to speak of. Not so with this week. Two weeks ago I crossed off Pinnacles from my to-see list and now, thanks to Monday being off (Labor Day), I was planning to do the same with another place that was high on that list: Lassen Volcanic National Park . I did three runs on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday but I made them relatively easy, gathering strength for the weekend. And then I started developing a cold. On Thursday no running but I went to the gym. On Friday my cold was worse and my hamstrings were really sore (from deadlifts, I guess). All in all I was wondering: should I go? However, holidays are rare in the U.S. and vacations are precious so I decided I cannot miss this chance jumped in my car and left around 4pm hoping to beat the worst traffic, which of...

As with every adventure, mine was also coming to an end. This was my last day in Death Valley and in the afternoon I'll have to start heading back, hopefully making it home around midnight, so that the following day I would be able to go to work. Corkscrew peak ( Workout details ) Butte peak that I climbed the previous evening. ... instead of the Corkscrew peak, which was left for today :). I go for my usual breakfast at Subway and then drive to the Hell's Gate. I have a bit of a dilemma there. Yesterday I climbed Butte peak instead of the Corkscrew peak. Today is my last day -- should I try to correct my mistake and mount the real Corkscrew peak? Or rather do the Wildrose peak as I was planning before? I settle for Corkscrew. I am wondering whether later on I'll be angry for having trusted a yodeling ranger :). I start going up but I don't see any trail, so I just head in the general direction of the peak. After a short running stretch I'm reduced to a ...

Getting up was tough. I did sleep somewhat better than the previous night, but was still tired in the morning and really didn't feel like getting out of bed. The breakfast situation didn't seem too promising and I didn't have time nor energy to look hard for anything else so I again ended up in Subway. By the amount of activity there I'm guessing it's possible it was the only place in town open for breakfast ;) Rhyolite After breakfast I hopped into the car and headed towards the ghost town of Rhyolite , which I decided to see before doing any running of the day. The town came to live around 1905 and within 15 years went from zero population to somewhere around 5,000 and back to zero again, owing mostly to the gold rush. Now it's just a ghost city and something of a tourist attraction. The ghost city of Rhyolite. While seeing the town I was also looking at the park map and planning ahead and I realized that if I stuck to my plan of running there was no w...

It wasn't a great night. For some reason, even though I was very tired after all the driving and it was 2:30am when I went to bed, it took me a long time to fall asleep. Then I was sleeping like a stone... until 7am when the noises from the outside woke me up. I was far too tired at that point to function properly so I stayed in bed until 10am, but hardly got any more proper sleep. It was time for breakfast. I could not find the breakfast place that I found on Yelp and it was already late so I ended up in Subway. The way the view that greeted me after leaving the hotel, my first peak at the surroundings at daylight, was not bad at all. Judge for yourself. The view from my motel room :) After breakfast I jumped in the car and went towards the park. My first stop was Hell's Gate where I took a couple of photos, paid the entrance fee and was on my way to the main Visitor's Center of Death Valley, at the Furnace Creek . So called Hell's gate and my gate to the Dea...