Sawtooth Ridge 50M/50K: Runner update #2 (6/28/22)
Runners,
11 days until the start of the Sawtooth Ridge 50M/50K! We hope your training is dialed in and you have the finish line fully visualized. Good things to come.
Runner update #1
If you’ve registered since June 13th, please read our first runner update email here.
Multi-use trails
The event takes place on popular, multi-use trails. We can guarantee that you will see hikers, mountain bikers, moto riders, horseback riders, and other trail runners on race day. (Motorcycle riders are overwhelmingly responsible for maintaining this trail system, including the removal of literally hundreds of downed trees every spring.) Please read the National Park Service’s article on hiking etiquette and keep this in mind: irrespective of who you encounter, yield the trail and follow the “three-S” model:
Stop
Smile
Say hello
The snow is melting…
With temperatures creeping into the 80s, snow on the course is melting fast. But there is still plenty above 7,000’ – and a lot of the course is above 7,000’. To get a sense of where you might hit snow on race day, we added “potential snowpack” layers to the 50M and 50K course maps. We also attached a satellite image of the region’s snowpack from 6/26/22.
…but we’re not out of the woods
If the snow doesn't melt fast enough, we may alter the course to avoid three things:
High, fast water: There are several creek crossings in both races. Two crossings, normally navigable on foot, could be impassable on race day because of high water.
Unstable snow: We don’t mind y’all running on snow. It’s a ton of fun. We do mind, however, y’all running on unstable snow – cornices, slides, crevices, etc.
Fragile alpine: Some higher sections of the course travel through a fragile alpine landscape. We follow "leave no trace" at our events, and that means staying on the trail. If the trail is buried or boggy, we won’t use it because we do not want y’all to accidentally go off trail.
Wednesday – stay tuned!
We are waiting as long as possible to make a reroute decision. We want to give the snow plenty of time to melt. We will, however, decide by 9:00pm on Wednesday, July 6 and send another update email. If we change part of the course, we will send an updated GPX file. This update will include our final logistical information as well.
Denis
Snowpack on the Sawtooth Ridge courses as of 6/26/2022. Image courtesy of science.