The Zion Traverse

Tony Dunnigan April 30, 2019

Zion National Park is absolutely beautiful. The land radiates with history — 10 thousand years human and 10 million geological. You can just feel it as you pass through trails that Anasazi, Paiute and Mormon settlers traveled along. Some of the history is sad, Mukuntuweap (Straight Canyon), part of the larger Markagunt (Highland of Trees) Plateau, saw its share of hardship and unfairness. Much of Zion’s history is inspiring. All of it places the rugged terrain within a uniquely American context.

For now, anyway… These canyons were around eons before us and will be around eons after.

Five friends and I spent the day running through Zion National Park. The weather was fantastic and the views were amazing. One section of trail, from the Grotto to the East Rim was closed due to rockfall. Other than that, the trails are opened and in great shape. We were able to complete the 42 mile traverse from Lee Pass to the lodge located in the Zion Canyon Grotto. We had wanted to complete the east rim climb, but closed trails are closed for a reason. The National Park Service has enough to worry about without a bunch of runners doing something stupid.

The next morning two of us returned to the park for a hike to Angel’s landing. The views from the top of that hike are spectacular. Getting to that view was, by far, the scariest thing I did in the park.

We started running at right around sunrise. We were treated to a beautiful view of the moon hanging over a canyon wall in the morning sky.

During the traverse, we ventured about a half mile off the main trail in order to see the Kolob Arch. To see it better, we had to scramble up a small hill. We were rewarded with an amazing view of one of the longest natural arches in the world.

The scenery along the trail changed constantly. Pine trees would give way to high desert. Fine sand would give way to river crossings.

The trail was a bit hard to follow in Hop Valley. Fortunately you pretty much go in one side — and then exit out the other. With a bit of zig-zagging between the canyon walls, we managed to stay on course. The water in this area isn’t safe to drink due to cattle grazing.

Another spectacular view. Photos really don’t capture the vastness of this park.

More strange and beautiful rock formations that surround visitors in much of the park.

This was an amazing adventure in a beautiful place with a great group of people.

Some advice: Managing water is critical. You must have a way to purify water from natural sources. There are a few long stretches where there is no water available. Food is another issue. You’re running at altitude, so eating can be difficult. I carry a variety of high calorie foods. As much variety as possible, anyway. You don’t want to get caught with a pack of food that you can’t stomach.

In addition to food and water, you should bring all of the obvious back country gear. We came across a couple of very tired hikers who were just about to descend into the Grotto without any lights. We gave them a light, and they made it down safely. We were moving much faster, so running out of daylight wasn’t an issue for us. Anyway, it’s easy to get caught out. The more prepared you are, the safer you are.

There are several river crossings, shoes that drain and dry quickly are a must. We didn’t encounter any cold weather. However, a hot day can become very cold very quickly in higher elevations. You should have some way to stay warm.

Tagonoura Bay to the Top of Mount Fuji In One Day

Tony Dunnigan August 28, 2018

The corporate headquarters for FujiXerox

I work for FXPAL, a Silicon Valley research lab that’s owned by FujiXerox, a large Japanese company. Recently, I spent a week working with my colleagues in Yokohama. I was able to add enough time to the end of the trip to attempt the roughly 55 kilometer run from a seaside park to the top of Mount Fuji and then back down the mountain to a bus stop. As far as ultra-running goes, 55K isn’t a huge distance. This course is unique in that there is almost nothing flat or downhill until the 45k mark at the top of the mountain. As luck would have it, the only day I had to attempt the run was during the remnants of a typhoon.

On the train to Fuji no Kuni Tagonoura Minato Park.

Summiting Mt. Fuji is yet another one of those ‘bucket list” things people of a certain age feel compelled to do. Apparently I’m of a certain age, because I’ve ticked off two of these “life experiences” this year. At least this nonsense is cheaper than a Corvette.

I wanted to find a route to and up Mt. Fuji that would let me experience as much of the area as possible. I followed the "The Mt. Fuji Tourism Climbing Route 3776" from a seaside park to the top of Mount Fuji. It’s about 30 (unrelentingly uphill) miles from the start to the top, with another 5 or 6 miles back down the mountain to a bus stop. This is meant to be a four day trek, but my goal was to finish the course, and get back to my hotel, in under one day.

A ham, cheese, egg, noodle, fried chicken on white bread sandwich.

I arrived at the Shin-Fuji Train station at about four o'clock in the afternoon. After a hearty lunch I caught a cab to Fujinokuni Tagonoura Minato Park, the start of my run. The rain made it hard to see, but this is a pretty park with nice views of Tagonoura bay and a cool old boat.

One of the attendants at the park gave me the best possible send off.

Finding the park was easy enough, actually finding the starting point for the 3776 route was harder. After explaining myself with the help of Google Translate and a picture of the 3776 logo, this park attendant helped me find the starting point. After sizing up my gear he also gave me a cloth to blot sweat and rain from my head. Running long distances alone is a strange thing to do... it's hard to express how meaningful that gesture became late at night when I was tired, wet and just a little bit lost.

I should probably spend a moment on the weather. It was generally pretty bad. The start was hot and humid with sporadic rain showers. That gave way to rain and very strong winds. Below 5-6 thousand feet it was pretty standard bad weather. As I began to really climb the mountain, things took a noticeable turn. Besides being much colder, the wind was now capable of pulling small objects out of my hand. I ended up using my trekking poles for stability. Luckily, the worst of it came in waves, with periods of relative calm in between.

I don't have a lot of pictures from the first 10-15 miles of the run. Partly because I was making good time, partly because I took them with a GoPro that was lost (more on that later).

Once it got dark and I slowed down, I did take a few pictures with my phone—with the intention of sharing them on Instagram. I’m glad that I did. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have any pictures at all and people would just have to take my world for it that I made it to the top of Mt. Fuji.

I covered much of this run at night. My goal was to get to the top of the mountain by dawn. It's true that you miss a lot of the sights at night. However, there is a beauty in the way the world is revealed to you in shallow vignettes. You can peer as far as your lights will allow, and no farther. Everything else is a mystery. This was especially true on this trip because of the rain and fog. There were times that I could barely see my own feet on the trail.

I have no idea what this sign actually says. In my imagination it said "You aren't even close to the top". I was still about 19 KM from the summit at that point.

The first third or so of the 3776 course is very easy to follow because of these markers. They were a huge confidence boost. Nearly every turn was well marked. Until they weren't. At some point these signs just stopped appearing.

After seeing this sign, I heard a terrifying scream. Like legitimately scary. Later, I was told that a local deer makes this noise.

I filled up my hydration pack at the Green Camp Site. This turned out to be a really good idea. A few miles later, the road section ends very abruptly. The slow climb to the sixth station was on the steep and technical Mt. Fuji Natural Recreation Forest trail. I'm sure the rain made it worse, but I was surprised by how difficult this section actually was. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from this section. They were all taken with the GoPro that was lost. The wind and rain were intense. The camera was literally ripped from my hand by a particularly powerful gust. When I'm running I have a habit of picking up trash, I did it on this run too. Hopefully that goes some small way towards balancing the ecological scales. Mount Fuji is a beautiful place, I feel terrible that I've diminished it in a small way. Hopefully, some lucky hiker finds and keeps the camera.

I added an in-line filter to my hydration pack. Because of this, I was comfortable refilling my hydration pack with water from a rain catch at the sixth station. It was still dark when I arrived and the vending machines were turned off. I didn’t expect this. I had to make do with the food I was carrying for much longer than I had anticipated. After a hot and humid day, the air was getting noticeably colder. I wore my wool base layer from this point on.

It wasn't until after sunrise that I got a sense of how high I was. The view from the various stations above the sixth are amazing.

The intense winds from Typhoon Cimaron ripped this large wooden gate apart. Visitors push coins and military pins into gate like this. The ground was littered with these offerings. Near the summit, trail markings became extremely easy to follow. There were arrows every few feet and very few places to make a wrong turn.

The stations began to open as I reached the top of the summit. I was able to buy some breakfast at station 8. I was still the only person climbing when I reached the 200 meters to go sign.

The weather took another turn for the worse as I approached the summit. Visibility was so poor that I couldn't actually see my goal in the distance.

I was almost surprised when I actually reached the summit. I walked around a bit, but the visibility was so bad that I couldn't really see most of the sights.

I met a family that told me that they had been stranded at these mountain-top huts for three days because of the weather. It was pretty miserable & I'm not sure that I'd want to hike through a mountain top storm with my child. But still, three days? Later, I found out that the busses and shuttles that casual hikers use weren’t running during the storm. Maybe that’s why they were stuck waiting? Anyway, they were very nice, as was the guy who was chain smoking and taking our pictures.

As luck would have it, the weather got finally better just as my journey came to an end. The fog rose and revealed the beautiful Japanese landscape.

Hundreds of hikers making their way up Fuji-san.

Apparently, hundreds of people were waiting at station five for the weather to improve. Once it did, they all began to hike up the trail at once. It's hard to see in this picture, but there is hardly a section of trail without crowds of people hiking.

The remnants of the storm clinging to the summit.

As the trail became easier the weather became nicer. It was blue skies and sunshine by the time I approached station five, and the bus that would take me to the train that would take me my hotel.

Mount Fuji wasn't done with me yet! I took a comfortable bullet train from my hotel directly to the start of my run. That train wasn't running for my return trip. Instead I had to change trains several times. Some of these trains were local enough to have absolutely no English spoken or written. Luckily Japanese trains are so punctual that I could use the schedule to know when a stop was approaching. Still, that was way more work than I was expecting to do.

By the time I got to finally take my shoes off, my skin had been wet for nearly 24 hours. This takes it's toll. I didn't have any significant blisters, but the wet skin was painful, especially as the adrenaline wore off.

I spent the night at a 9 hours capsule hotel. This was perfect. I showered and went straight to sleep.

And then I flew home. I'm glad that I went on this journey. The Mt. Fuji Tourism Climbing Route 3776 is meant to be a four day undertaking. Doing it in less than one day is a physical challenge, but maybe not the best way to experience Fuji. The entire area is beautiful. The bus I took covered much of the course I ran. I missed many beautiful sights by running so much of the course at night.

Arigatō, Fujisan!

UPDATE:

At the start of my attempt, I submitted a “challenge plan”. I was a little worried because my plan was a bit different than the trek the “Fujisan Tourism & Communication Bureau” had in mind. I also submitted my proof of completion. Again, I wasn’t sure if my version of the trek would be counted as an official finish or not. It was! A few weeks after I got home this certificate and finisher’s pin arrived in the mail. This really is a fantastic course! Go and enjoy all or some of it at whatever pace works for you.

Mount Fuji, is a beautiful place. All the more so, because of the mountain’s rich history and cultural significance. Temples and shrines surround and dot the mountain. These are integrated into the experience of climbing Mt. Fuji.

From this shot you can see the entire route we followed: Bright Angel to North Kiabab and then North Kiabab to South Kiabab.

Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim

Tony Dunnigan April 6, 2018

The Grand Canyon R2R2R (or R3) is a bucket list run for most trail runners. The idea is to start at one rim, run across the canyon to the other rim and then to run back without camping. The milage, however you do it, is around 50 miles. The effort required is much greater than the milage would indicate. Our group of runners can usually finish a 50 mile trail run in 10 or less hours. We expected to spend around 12 or 15 hours completing the R2R2R. It took us 17.5 hours.

So, what happened? Weather.

Our rental car at the Bright Angel Trailhead

It's a little hard to tell from the picture, but with headlamps glaring off the falling snow, visibility was only a few feet. The temperature was in the mid 20's Fahrenheit.

We picked one of the last heavy snow falls of the season for the day for our run. On the South Rim, above 3000 feet, there was about 3 inches of snow over a layer of ice. Bright Angle Trail was reasonably passable, even in these conditions. Our biggest issue was ice buildup on the micro-spikes we were wearing over our shoes. No amout of scraping and scuffing would prevent it.

As we descended the conditions improved dramatically. Which was great, but it meant shedding layers of cold & wet gear and stuffing them into lightweight backpacks. That process ate up a ton of time. I'm not sure how much we could have improved things on an unsupported run. Shedding layers is a pain, death from exposure is worse. I assume.

Breaking through the snow line was beautiful

The flat sections on either side of Phantom Ranch were very runnable. We made fairly good time there. It's hard to overstate how beautiful this place is. Indian Garden, basically at the base of the south rim climb, would be a great place to camp—if you're planning a multi-day trip. We only spent a few minutes there. From Indian Garden it's about five miles to Phantom Ranch and Bright Angel Camp Ground.

Kent Dozier, Tony Dunnigan (me) and Samir Shah

It's worth remembering that Phantom Ranch is the best water spot and the only possible resupply spot on the entire trek. This is even more true on the off-season, as many of the water spigots are shut off for the winter. It's around 13.5 miles to the North kabob trailhead (the turn around). So you might have about a marathon's worth of out-and-back trail to cover with only the gear you're carrying. Cary water, bring a way to purify river water and pack lots of food. We got lucky and found water at potable Manzanita. That was ONLY because a work crew was there. Otherwise the spigot is off until late spring/early summer.

A few miles outside of Phantom Ranch we encountered a family of Big Horn sheep.

At some point the North Kaibab trail begins to reveal the North Rim destination in the far distance. It's all very Lord of the Rings

Gaining elevation again also brings back snow. This side had about a foot of it. The deep snow provided good traction. I'm a pretty cautious runner, but even I didn't bother with spikes here. There were a few icy patches, but poles provided more than enough extra grip. To be sure, falling would completely suck. Maybe for the last time. So, do whatever makes you comfortable.

Like repair manuals always say: "reassembly is the reverse process". By the time we reached the South Kaibab trail, and our final seven mile climb out of the deep canyon, it was pretty dark.

This last photo is from our breakfast the next morning.

I haven't run the R3 in heat. I would guess that runners are more likely to finish the double crossing in the off season, but the pace will be slower. Snow and ice and all the related gear make maintaining a quick pace difficult. Without the right gear, hypothermia (it was 17º F when we finished) and slipping are pretty likely. With it, we spent a great 17.5 hours in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

While running, hiking or sightseeing at the Grand Canyon it’s worth remembering that these adventures were integrated into the way of life of many Native American cultures. The Havasupai, Hualapai, Navajo and Hopi people all lived in and around this national park. Many of the formations and vistas that we still enjoy have a deeper meaning in their cultures. I feel that it’s important to remember that our visits are only a small part of the long history of this beautiful place. It was here before any of us, and it will be around long after we’ve gone.

Another bumpersticker that nobody understands

Heel Spurs: Learn From My Fail!

Tony Dunnigan February 18, 2016

Heel spurs suck. In my case, the pain is actually from plantar fasciitis and Achilles Tendinitis. The spurs are small bony growths where all these tendons attach to my heal bone. The spurs irritate the tendons, the tendons tighten, causing the spurs to grow, irritating the tendons more...

I put off dealing with this for nearly three years. It took a very slow and painful Tahoe Rim Trail 100 finish to get me to really take this seriously. Over the years I had gotten used to running with some amount of pain and at a slower pace. I jokingly called it "getting older". TRT took everything to a new level.

As it turns out, my heel spurs were also aggravating a groin pull that just wouldn't heal (no pun intended) completely. My doctor described my stride as "pogoing" off the good foot, putting an awkward strain on my hips and groin muscles. Anyway, by the time I lined up for this years running of the SF New Years Eve 24 Hour Run I had already seen a doctor with the intention of scheduling surgery. That run was a disaster, I dropped out after about 30 miles.

The shockwave therapy machine, the part that actually does the shocking looks like a microphone

I was eventually referred to a podiatrist in Stanford's sports medicine department. He recommended Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy. I had a few treatments. They ranged from not bad to fairly painful. It's non-invasive and the recovery time after each session is pretty short.

Did it work? I'm honestly not sure. I never felt "instantly cured" as some claim. I am definitely much better. While undergoing the treatment, I stopped running and increased my cycling and weight lifting. What you might call "active rest". I roll out my calf muscles and my heel a few times a day. I use a frozen water bottle as the roller. I'm not sure which percent of what thing has contributed to my recovery.

Ultra running takes up a lot of time. Time I had to fill with something. I chose mixed drinks. Even slightly buzzed the truth is pretty obvious. Putting off dealing with this injury cost me a few years of quality running and a few months of recovery time. Learn from my fail: When you hurt, go to the doctor.

Tahoe Rim Trail 100 Mile Endurance Run

Tony Dunnigan July 20, 2015

"A glimpse of heaven, a taste of hell." The race's motto says it all. This is the race that made me admit that I needed to get my heel looked at by a doctor. Over the course of a few years I'd gone from a sub-24 to a 30 plus hour 100 mile runner. I got a buckle that day, but only just.

Leadville Run 100

Tony Dunnigan August 19, 2014

"The race across the sky." I live at sea level so the altitude was a huge factor in this race. The highest point is 12,600 feet. The average elevation is 10,200. All that climbing may have been tough, but the views were amazing. This is a race, IMO, where all the usual pacing advice is wrong. You have to haul ass for the first 50 miles & then hang on until the finish.

The actual town of Leadville is really cool, with an interesting history. The surrounding mountains are fantastic. This is definitely a destination race.

Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run

Tony Dunnigan June 30, 2013

"The world's oldest and most prestigious 100-mile trail race." This was one of the toughest runs that I've ever done. The temperature was over 100 degrees for most of the day. It was even warm at night. By the end of the run my stomach and feet were a mess. I did come away with a shiny new belt buckle & an even greater respect for Gordy Ainsleigh.

I intend to run this race again. I want to finish stronger, not necessarily faster (that would be nice), but more "under my own steam". I'd also like 50% less blisters and 100% less vomiting.

Razorback 100 Mile Endurance Race

Tony Dunnigan March 11, 2013

The course was a 2-mile loop on an asphalt path. Running on a looping course for 100 miles is fairly difficult mental challenge. This course includes a small hill, making it tougher than I expected. Still, I did managed to come in fourth overall (third men's) with a time that was under 24 hours.

San Francisco New Year's One Day

Tony Dunnigan January 2, 2013

The course is only 1.061 miles long. The goal is to complete as many laps as possible within 24 hours. The views of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco's New Years Eve fireworks display are pretty amazing. These images were taken during my best finish: 108.2 miles.

North Downs Way 100

Tony Dunnigan August 18, 2012

This was a very difficult 100 mile race. I don't have any pictures from along the course but it's as beautiful as it was challenging. The finish rate was only 59%. This was my first international ultra and my first run in the English countryside. I was able to raise nearly $1000.00 for the Prostate Cancer Foundation

Headlands Hundred

Tony Dunnigan August 20, 2011

I completed every Headlands Hundred from 2007 to 2011. Every iteration of this course has been surprisingly challenging. My best best finish was 22:59 and fifth overall.