Luke Nelson: What's so special about the WURL? - #50

Luke has FKTs on the Idaho 12ers (9 summits over 12,000'), and the Utah 13ers (17 over 13,000'). A few weeks ago he did the Wasatch Ultimate Ridge Linkup, a gnarly but entirely logical Jared Campbell route ringing Little Cottonwood Canyon, starting directly above Salt Lake City. "The WURL is a fascinating route; it took several years for me to feel ready to even try it. I wanted to be able to move not only quickly through this terrain, but safely at the same time." Luke is very conscious of the “Kilian Effect”: "I’ve been very careful how I’ve talked about this - I don’t consider it a running route - it’s a mountain route. If you’re an experienced trail runner, you might not have the skillset that’s appropriate to do this route."