Epic day on foot summiting the three most prominent peaks in the Prescott area. My friend Sam and I started at 2AM at the Spruce mountain parking lot. We pushed hard up the 1500 feet in 3 miles and summited our first peak of the day before running the Spruce ridge and descent back to the trailhead. After some road running on the Senator Highway and through the friendly pines neighborhood we took Schoolhouse Gulch trail 67 down to White Spar road. Trail 67 is a nice smooth double track that provides some nice downhill running. As the sun rose we hopped on the Prescott circle trail and ran some float singletrack before dropping into the historic mountain club neighborhood. We took some city trails over to hassayampa road and then ran thumb butte road to the second climb of the day. Sam’s foot was bothering him on this climb. We are some donuts and coffee and pushed up to the second summit of the day, thumb butte. This climb is steep (600+ feet in less the mile). After topping out we descended back to the trailhead. Sam decided to call it a day at this point due to the foot injury. Amazing time running some miles with him! I ran some solo miles on some gorgeous singletrack before picking up my friend Brandon for the last climb and summit of the day, Granite Mountain! It was getting a bit hot but it was windy so not unbearable. After some road running on granite basin road we started climbing up granite mountain. This is an exposed, steep, rocky and technical trail so we power hiked for the most part. After blasting up and meandering along the ridge line the trail finally topped out. We just had the rowdy descent back to granite basin lake and the finish. We ran most of the fairly technical descent and finished feeling strong. A great day on feet and an amazing adventure on Prescotts pristine trails.
A few notes - resupplies were decent but the water wasn’t working at thumb butte. I ran this supported so it wasn’t an issue, but some to think about. Also, when you get in the roads after white spar and are running into the mountain club, you turn left onto Bryce canyon drive, it’s a sharp left turn and kind of looks like it’s a driveway to a house, there’s also a sign that says private road (picture included). It’s not and you can pass and run the road, just don’t miss the turn off. There’s reliable water at white spar and granite basin before the last climb, I would not rely on thumb butte water though.