High Country Running: The people in the hard hats are the real heroes

There’s a moment every Flagstaff trail runner knows. You come around a bend on Upper Oldham or Brookbank and there they are: eight folks in hard hats, knee-deep in a hole, levering a rock the size of a beer fridge with a bar, a rope, and some medieval-looking hoe.

I do the same thing every time, and so do you. Shorten the stride. Tiptoe past with the guilty downward gaze of a guy who has done nothing all morning but enjoy himself. Then, out loud, “Thank you so much!”