Hit King's Peak on saturday with a friend. Without a doubt this should be on any long-distance runner's life list. The landscape is spectacular and at 28.8 miles (according to SummitPost) just squeaks in as an ultra.
The weather was unbeatable, high around 60 and not a single cloud in the entire sky. Seriously, not even a single hint of a cloud. Finished in around 8:25 car-to-car. We made frequent brief stops to snap pics and take in the grandeur of the scene, and spent about 45 minutes hanging out on the peak (dead calm at 13.5k? Yep.). My only regret is not bringing an audio recorder to capture the comments from backpackers.
Starts with 5.5 nearly flat miles through conifer forest succumbing to bark beetle
A couple miles in you get your first glimpse of the peak
Things start to open up
Still a long ways off
Terrible scenery
Nearing Gunsight Pass
Dropping into Painter Basin
Above Anderson Pass looking west into Yellowstone drainage
There is some scree scrambling for about the last mile
View west from the peak, it goes on like this for 30 miles
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