No snow at Snowbird: Cirque series
The memories were clearly burned into my brain of quads on fire, fear of heights, and snow slides down the mountain. These were the memories that made me scan the Cirque Series website for a race option other than Snowbird. I am all for doing hard things, but the last time I ran at Snowbird was really … hard.
After a lot of chats with the friends I would be running with, the Snowbird Cirque Series is the one that worked for all of us. Thankfully, we just barely made it into the race before it sold out. I happened to see their instagram story saying they only had a handful of spots left, so I texted the group chat and a few minutes later the confirmation emails were filling our inboxes.
The theme of this year seems to be the quote, “My training cycle for this was sub-par.” I’ve truthfully been struggling to get a grip on the 12 hour hospital shifts and summer weather hotter than I particularly enjoy. Excuses aside, I had a thought of a goal to run the Cirque Series course in sub two-hours. I didn’t execute the training for this goal so my sub-two hour goal quickly turned into running and finishing the race with a big smile on my face. I must say, sometimes that is a fun goal to have too, especially if you are in what seems to be a never ending rut. Your goals don’t always have to be competitive and that is a lesson I am learning this year.
Despite my sub-par training, I do have a dog with a lot of energy and separation anxiety. Luckily, this forced me to get out even when I didn’t want to! I spent a lot of mornings doing a 6 mile mountain bike ride or a 3-4 mile run. I did a couple 5 mile trail runs and a couple runs with more vert than the average day. However, I didn’t feel this would suffice well for the Cirque Series course.
The Snowbird Cirque Series took place on July 12th, 2025. It's an 8.7 mile course with 3,610 feet of elevation gain. The course starts where you get on the tram and climbs up the mountain eventually following a ridgeline to Hidden Peak. The climb was up a two track road for the majority of it, until you hit the ridgeline. It was filled with a lot of dust and loose rocks. We hit a steep single track trail that led to the ridgeline. The views were out of this world. Mountains shooting up from everywhere you look. From the top of Hidden peak, you follow a two track trail to the bottom of Mount Baldy. The climb up to Baldy wasn’t too intense. It started to get windy heading up to the Summit. The descent down from Baldy was probably the most intense part of the day. It would have been impressive to see the fastest runners run down this section. It was very steep with a lot of loose dirt. Every 10 steps you about slipped onto your butt! It caused a lot of laughs though, that is for sure. We ascended back to the tunnel, which was a nice reprieve from the heat, and rolled on down to the finish line!
Again, despite my “sub-par” training, this race created many more positive memories for me for running at Snowbird. So much so that I think someday, I will go do it again :) I highly suggest this race or a race in this series. I think it would be fun alone, but if you can rally some friends to do it with you, that’s even better. Get out there and have fun in nature!
