Brandon Fuller

Run: Green Mountain x 2 (10.41 mi)

JV and I decided on two laps on Green today. Started up at 9 AM. I was in shorts, of course — while Jeff was decked out like he was going to the polar ice caps. He let me lead out and we took my new steady pace up to the lodge. From there, we continued on and ran into some fresh untracked powder which caused my to break my run a couple of times. As we approached the 4-way, we could tell that we were the first to ascend for the day as the trail was gone. Hit the summit and promptly bombed back down because we knew we would be back. I was opening it up a bit on the downhill with the fresh powder but Jeff was tentative because of his foot. Ended up pulling back the speed and just enjoying the downhill. By the time we got back to the powerlines, the weather was perfect and sunny. Finally, felt warm.

We retreated to our separate vehicles and refueled. JV did a wardrobe change while I went with the same gear. A bottle of Gatorade and a bag of GU Chomps down, we headed back up. Its always a mental battle on those first few steps when your legs revolt — why are we going up again? But I kept at it with a slightly slower pace than last time and ran much of the trail to the lodge. Took it easy on a few of the tougher spots and just broke my run. At the lodge, Jeff wanted to push it a bit so he glided uphill and out of sight. I moved on up after him. He summited and then came down and met me as I was part of the way up the stairs. We returned to the summit together and celebrated.

For grins, we went back down via Greenman. Very nice at the start but then got into deeper powder. The steps were wearing on our tired legs so we chatted it up and passed the time during the descent. Seemed like only minutes until we were back down at the trailhead with 2 loops in the bag. I was curious what 2 loops did to carefully tracked splits so here are the numbers:

Not my fastest day but I was at the end of my week so I am a bit tired.

Given I am still the undisputed Mayor of Green Mountain, which my wife says it totally stupid, I decided to officially nominate the names of various placemarks along the trail. Talking with JV today, there was too many “you know, by that tree by the thing?”. We need names people to communicate locations. Those wankers down south seemed to name every section of their cute manicured trail. So I decided to put down my first round of names. You may suggest others and we can have a final list published soon.

So here goes! You can click through for the bigger readable version but I put placemarks on all the spots. Here is a direct link to the original big one.

The list:

• Bridge
• Trailhead
• Y
• Bridge #1
• Rockland Rock Garden
• Bridge #2
• Powerlines
• Rock Face
• Alley
• Reprieve Point
• Creek
• Boulevard
• Lodge
• Junction
• Steeps
• Crest
• Ridge
• Switchbacks
• 4-Way
• Stairs/Stairway to Heaven
• Summit

Sort of boring now that I look at it. I went with descriptive but I am thinking there needs to be more double entendres in there. Or maybe we name the bridges after some legends/ghosts/patrons of the trail. Also, are there spots I missed? Give me input.

I went 10.41 miles with an elevation gain of 5,029 feet in 02:46:33, which is an average pace of 16:00. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.