Hello,
This is Erik Harmuth reporting I completed the Anniversary Narrows and Peak loop in a time of 2hours and 44 secs on Sept 24th.
This route changes character a lot. It’s smooth and fast to the narrows, the narrows are what you would expect in a slot canyon around Vegas. After the narrows the wash is surprising packed was nice to run on, so nice to run on I missed my turn and had to back track a small ways. It’s really really easy to miss that turn. The wash from there is a bit rough to move fast through. The climb to the ridge is pretty rough terrain mixed with boulders and scree. At some point on the climb the route broke off a bit to the left and I missed that. I’m pretty sure I climbed a steeper and more loose part of the hill. It’s wasn’t super fun getting to the top, short lived but it’s steep and straight up. After that the ridge and peak are pretty fun and scrambly. The top has a beautiful view of Lake Mead. From the top down there is no trail basically all the way back to the truck. Follow a small, tight steep wash down that had some scrambly parts. Then down a very steep section, this section has some nice exposed rocks that were grippy and many solid rocks and went pretty fast and safely. Once on the floor, your just running through the sandy loose desert around large red rocks etc, to find another wash. This wash you stay in until you reach the dirt road near the parking area. The wash is rugged and it’s hard to move quickly in. All and all it’s a fun route with navigational challenges throughout. I think any competitive runner will beat my time but navigating off trail may slow the super fast down a bit.
For some reason Gaia said the route was 8.59 miles and Strava app said it was 9.57 miles. I have never had a distance discrepancy this broad. It may have been the narrows or just being in a small canyon but the times and maps line up. Then the FKT site says it’s 6 miles. So really have no idea how far I ran. Felt like 7 or 8 miles to me. I wish I would have had my inReach tracking as well. I didn’t use it in this run because it was a pretty short run or I thought it was going to be.
Thanx for reading and I hope you have a good.
I also hope other do this loop, it’s pretty fun and would love to hear what others have to say about it. I sure this fall someone will beat my time by 30 minutes, I’m betting.
I hope the photos uploaded correctly, if not they are in Strava
Thanx again.
strava - Erik Harmuth
IG is _oso__negro_ Two underscores in the middle.