Perry, UT

Perry Canyon Trail

Run Time: 63:22 + 2-minute kick

A return to Utah, to elevation, to desert sunshine. Felt great to be in the arid heights. I miss seeing the Wasatch Mountains from the back yard, although we enjoy stunning sunsets regularly on our Michigan deck. Utah is probably a better place to visit than to live. They have a shitload of great trails, though.

I had an uncharacteristically messed-up travel day the day before this run. I have been very lucky with all of my work travel. Only one flight cancelled, and very rare delays. This one made up for it. A 6-hour delay for my first flight, from Grand Rapids to Chicago. That made me reschedule my second flight, so I spent 7 hours at O’Hare waiting for my flight to SLC. I got a lot of work done. I got ahead on work. I caught up on non-work projects, and got a little ahead on those.

So I had planned to arrive in SLC around 11:30 am. Instead, I landed there around 11:15 pm. I had to cut out a leg of travel. I had planned to drive all the way down to St. George and back, and I just cut out everything south of Sandy. Actually made the rest of the week more manageable, but 12+ hours in airports is no bueno.

I never made it to the top of Perry Trail. Threemile Creek was too high to cross comfortably about 2/3 of the way up, where the trail probably had a footbridge that needs to be replaced every spring. It really was not a runnable trail in many spots, narrow and inconsistent, crossing slides and sloping sideways. I did my best, and that incline at that elevation was great for clearing gunk out of the lungs. The scenery was the best part, of course. That, and the isolation. I saw one other person on the trail the whole time.

It was a mild weather day for Utah. Warm and sunny, light wind, but not hot. It rained that night, which is always a welcome rinse cycle in the dusty desert. Of the 3 places we have lived since I started running, Utah is my favorite for running. It likely will remain so, until I get bit by a rattlesnake or stung by a scorpion on some remote trail and never get to post about it.

The barefoot shoes held up really well on this tough terrain. It was all rocky, and very uneven. On the way back down, I diverted across a footbridge and found the best section of trail, nearly flat. It took me onto Geneva Rock property, where I was likely trespassing, but there were plenty of other tracks, including ATV and motorcycle tracks. I was glad to not encounter anything motorized. People in Utah love their petroleum-based recreation.

The Phoenix Coyotes just moved to Salt Lake City, and they are changing mascot names, although I do not know why. The Coyote has got to be as indigenous to Utah as it is to Arizona. And Coyotes are bad-ass. The coyote is low-key, low-impact, high-performing, and long-enduring. That’s a hell of a combination. Coyotes are lovable outlaws, kind of like Butch and Sundance.

The best thing about looking up at the Wasatch Mountains is you’re not looking down at the valley below, where all the cement has been poured. It’s a lot of cement. There is insufficient reason for a city that large to be where it is. The rivers aren’t really navigable. The Salt Lake isn’t great for commerce or recreation. The land is not the best for agriculture or livestock. It was where the Mormons went to get to safety, and few who cared enough to harm them cared to go there. And from that grew a city.

How beautiful would this place be if our ancestors never came here? How unspoiled would it be if the First Nation had been the only Nation? How pristine would it be if no bovine had ever crapped on it? How quiet would these side canyons be with no ATVs?

We will never know. We will also never know how many loads the Geneva Rock company will take down to the cement plant, or to the crusher, before climate change makes leaving your air-conditioned house virtually impossible from May to October in this region. It will sneak up on us, like a coyote, and pick off the weakest of the herd.

We all wonder how something like the Trump presidency could happen. Just look around. The evidence is everywhere.