In the spirit of the WURL and all the other watershed traverses, this one starts and ends at the edge of civilization. I did this back in 2019 a few weeks after summiting Mount Everest. While I was working my way along the south side, I ran into Carston Oliver who I believe was randomly doing the same thing but in reverse, so this is by no means a first. You could pretty easily make this into a loop if you wanted to starting in Memory Grove, however like I said before, none of the other watershed traverses are loops, so I figured this should be the same.
I started at the top of I-street where the prominent ridge line takes off, working my way up on nice single track toward Black Mountain. After topping out, I headed back along the ridgeline, passing smuggler's notch and the last main trail that heads down into city creek.
After smugglers notch, it turns into a bit of bushwhacking until you reach Lookout Peak. Just after dropping off the backside, you hit a trail main trail that will take you around the backside all the way to Grandview. When I did it there was no trail after Grandview until you hit Dude Benchmark, just above Rudy's Flats, however I believe there is somewhat of a beat in trail now, which should make that section quite a bit faster.
From Rudy's flats, you end up on a rolling two-track that ends up being pretty hot if you hit it at the wrong time of day. take that all the way to the towers and then follow the obvious ridgeline back down into the neighborhood just east of This is the Place monument.
If you were trying to do all the watershed traverses, I'd do this one 2nd, as it's not that much vert and the schwacking is only slightly more than Emigration, but less than all the others. There isn't any water along thew way, so you could either stash some at Lookout, or carry enough for the whole thing. It took me just under 9 1/2 hours.
