Thursday, September 10, 2009

My Journey to run in all 30 Arizona State Parks

My quest to run in all 30 state parks started this week. I will update this page each time I run in one of our beatiful parks. This time I got to run in Dead Horse Ranch State Park and I started a run at the Jerome State Historic Park.

You can read about each park by clicking on the link. Read about my run on this page.

Western Region
Alamo Lake State Park
Buckskin Mountain State Park
Cattail Cove State Park
Lake Havasu State Park
River Island
Yuma Quartermaster Depot State Historic Park
Yuma Territorial Prison State Historic Park

Northern Region
Dead Horse Ranch State Park -September 7, 2009. This park has three lagoons all in a row. I ran from the park cabins to the first lagoon and did one loop. Then I did a 1 and a half loop around lagoon number 2. One loop around the largest lagoon (3) brought me back to do a half loop around the second lagoon. Then back to the cabins. There are also numerous short trails to run. Then, if you follow Flycatcher Road north you can run for a long time on the trail heading towards Tuzigoot National Monument. I didn't get to run this last trail, but it might be ideal for a long run.
Fort Verde State Historic Park
Homolovi Ruins State Park
Jerome State Historic Park (Park Closed)-September 6, 2009. Some parks are just too small to run. I could have done a 1/10 mile run in the parking lot, except for this park is temporarily closed. Budget cuts. So, with small state parks my plan is to use the park as my start or end point. The Arizona RoadRacers helped me with this. They have the Jerome Hill Climb 4.6 mile race start at this park. This year it was 4.5 miles because the park is gated closed. It goes thru Jerome and up, up and up. About 1000 feet of elevation gain. It's a great experience, even if you can't run it on the day of the race. The fastest runner this year did the 4.5 miles in around 28 minutes. Unbelievable. I was winded after a half mile and 200 feet in elevation gain. This park is not runner friendly. There's no place to run, except for the city streets or past the firehouse up Perkinville Road.
Red Rock State Park
Riordan Mansion State Historic Park
Slide Rock State Park
Verde River Greenway State Natural Area

Eastern Region
Boyce Thompson Arboretum State Park
Catalina State Park
Fool Hollow Lake Recreation Area
Lost Dutchman State ParkLyman Lake State Park
McFarland State Historic Park (Park Closed)
Oracle State Park
Tonto Natural Bridge State Park (Open Select Weekends Only)

Southern Region
Kartchner Caverns State Park
Patagonia Lake State Park
Picacho Peak State Park
Roper Lake State Park
Sonoita Creek State Natural Area
Tombstone Courthouse State Historic Park
Tubac Presidio State Historic Park
San Rafael State Natural Area

1 comment:

The Boring Runner said...

This is a really great idea. Much easier on the wallet than my 50 states marathon goal.

Do you still have the goal to run in all 50 states?