MY FRIEND, ANDREW, recently got in touch with me and our friend, Ed.
Andrew has been increasingly interested in endurance days and wanted to put together a trail run/ bushwhack/ endurance adventure day. Ed is a freak and regularly does this kind of stuff. I'm also a freak (though a much less competent freak than Ed) and get super excited about committing to epic-style adventures.
So. Andrew and Ed did some research and came up with a plan: Start in Salt Lake City's Avenues neighborhood, ascend to the shoreline trail system and up to Black Mountain, at which point the trail ends. Follow along the ridgeline to Lookout Peak off-trail. Link up with the Great Western Trail on the other side of Lookout Peak, and circumnavigate a big ol' basin to eventually reach Big Mountain. Descend into East Canyon. Drink one delicous beer.
The day went exactly as planned... except: in spite of ourselves and our legitimate aggregate experience, we had vastly underestimated the up-and-down-ness of the ridgeline. The topo maps and their nice, friendly-looking contour lines made the ridge look like a gently rolling freaking grassy knowl.
So anyway. "Four or five" hours turned into "almost nine".
Turns out the ridge went UP and DOWN and UP and DOWN... a lotttt. The five-ish hour run we imagined got stretched into a nearly nine-hour affair. There's something silly about three (quasi-)adults stumbling around deleriously on a mountain top, laying occasionally in the dirt, out of food and melting dirty snow for water-- especially when they're often in clear view of Salt Lake City, and totally within cell service.
Anyway. The day (9:30 am to almost 6:30 pm) finished-- and we were all glad to have not bailed (though we had a few chances to)... We ate a delicious pizza and parted ways.
Thanks, Andrew, for the great idear! It was a memorable day for sure. 
