POCATELLO — Matt Zabriskie, a Salt Lake City area resident, competed in the 100-mile Scout Mountain Ultra Trail race and came in first place this past weekend.

Zabriskie finished the trail in 21 and a half hours and ran the race entirely on foot.

His run began Friday morning and ended the next morning, with Zabriskie pushing through the night all the way until the finish line.

The race began at Lead Draw and finished at the Mink Creek campgrounds, with the trail leading the runners to summit Old Tom and Scout Mountain.

Thirty-nine people attempted the race, and only 26 of those starters completed the 100 miles.

They all had a total 36 hours to complete the race.

It was Zabriskie’s first time in the area and he said, “It was absolutely beautiful,” but that “it was really tough, though.”

He said that the race featured a lot of steep climbs and was rocky in sections, and that made the trails more difficult. However, he said that it was amazing to see the view from the summits.

Zabriskie said that he ran for about 80 percent and hiked about 20 percent of the trail. When the hills became too steep, he would hike, but otherwise, he would run.

“It’s just kind of a balance to figure what effort you can maintain for the whole 100 miles,” he said. 

Luke Nelson, the race director for the Scout Mountain Ultras, said that this 100-mile run is a difficult one compared to others because of the elevation.

“It’s a tough one, and it eats people up,” Nelson said.

The Scout Mountain 100-mile run has 23,900 feet of elevation climbed, and 23,900 feet descended.

“It’s nearly going up Mount Everest from sea level,” Nelson said.

Nelson, who’s a professional ultramarathon runner, said that what sets this trail apart from others is that 97 percent of the race is on trail.

“You have to be moving if not running for over 20 hours where the trail surfaces are rocky and loose and kinda nasty,” Nelson said.

He continued, “You have to be a lot tougher mentally than you are physically tough because if you can’t keep your head together, you won’t be able to finish it,” Nelson said.

Zabriskie has been running ultramarathons since 2012 and said that he’s had to improve his mental and physical game over that time.

When Zabriskie isn’t doing hundred-mile runs, he trains by running 90-plus miles per week and climbing in his spare time.

“I think a lot of it comes down to training,” Zabriskie said. “Just kind of figuring out your body and conditioning it to be able to do it.”

He continued, “So you don’t want to go too overboard and max yourself out and not be able to continue, and then at the same time you don’t want to put too little effort in and then finish way slower.”

Zabriskie said this was his first 100-mile run that has gone well. He’s done four total.

Zabriskie’s first 100-mile was in 2014, and he said the difference in his mental preservation from then until now was “night and day.”

Zabriskie said he’s been low on calories, had heat exhaustion, depleted electroytes, and that something has gone wrong every time except the race this past weekend. 

The closest thing he said to something going wrong was the 50 mph winds on top of Old Tom.

“When you get into these events you kind of learn to just dismiss it,” he said. “You just accept whatever’s coming your way and just kind of brush it off.”

Zabriskie said it’s a huge step to go from a 50-mile run, one of the other divisions the Scout Mountain Ultras offer, to a 100-mile and that it is primarily a mental game even though it’s important to stay in shape as well.

“The drive to persevere is the biggest thing,” Zabriskie said.

He continued, “If you aren’t 100 percent dedicated to finishing, it would be easy to come up with excuses to stop.”

Zabriskie estimated it would take him two weeks to recover from the run and resume his normal training schedule.

IDAHO FALLS — An additional 60 geese have been found dead after being struck by lighting in Idaho Falls on Saturday.

Initial reports indicated that only 51 geese had been killed at approximately 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Those birds were found at a conjoined parking lot near the Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls.

But now, the Associated Press confirmed that 60 additional dead geese were recovered from the roof of a nearby warehouse.

In total, more than 100 geese were struck by lightning and fell dead, all landing within a 200-yard radius of each other.

The geese that were killed were snow geese and Ross’s geese.

“Several of them had ruptured stomachs,” Jacob Berl, a conservation officer for Idaho Falls Fish and Game, told the Journal earlier this week. “Their internal organs had ruptured. … So that more than likely happened from the lightning itself or potentially from the impact of the crash. These geese are migrating at several thousand feet in the air, so if they’re falling out of the sky and hitting pavement, you can imagine what that does to a goose’s body.”

Berl said that any other cause of death is unlikely and that if it were the hail that killed them or influenza, they would’ve landed more spread out.

“It is common for diseases like influenza or other sorts of bird-borne diseases to cause mass die-offs of birds, but not for them to just fall out of the sky and land within a hundred yards of each other like that,” Berl said.

According to the Associated Press, some of the geese carcasses have been taken to a wildlife health lab in Caldwell for a necropsy.

Chuck Trost, a retired Idaho State University professor who taught ornithology and animal behavior, called this incident “bizarre.”

There was a lightning storm in the region the night the geese fell, with winds of 50 to 60 miles per hour and a small tornado that touched down three miles southeast of Atomic City.

There was minimal damage reported from the tornado, but golf ball-sized hail did some damage to Idaho Falls structures.

IDAHO FALLS — More than 50 geese fell to the ground dead on Saturday due to lightning.

Jacob Berl, a conservation officer for Idaho Falls Fish and Game, received a report of large numbers of dead geese in a parking lot near the Idaho National Laboratory building in Idaho Falls at approximately 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

When Berl arrived at the scene, he found 51 geese lying dead in a conjoined parking lot. Forty-eight were snow geese and three of them were Ross’s Geese.

That night, a storm had developed between Atomic City and the American Falls Reservoir and strengthened as it moved toward Idaho Falls. A tornado briefly touched the ground three miles southeast of Atomic City with winds of 50 to 60 miles an hour. Minimal damage was reported.

“As the storm moved into the Idaho Falls area, it really started ramping up,” said John Keyes, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Pocatello.

There were multiple reports of hail that was as large as golf balls.

“We saw numerous reports of damage to windows,” Keyes said. “There were reports of siding that was damaged by hail, being driven into it by the strong wind and even vinyl fences. I even saw some pictures of some playground equipment that was damaged by hail falling through the plastic playground equipment.”

Keyes said that this storm wasn’t as destructive as some storms in the past. He also said it wasn’t necessarily an uncommon occurrence.

However, Keyes said the storm did produce “a lot of lightning,” some of which killed the geese in Idaho Falls.

Berl said the geese died within a 100- to 200-yard radius in the parking lot.

“Several of them had ruptured stomachs,” he said. “Their internal organs had ruptured. … So that more than likely happened from the lightning itself or potentially from the impact of the crash. These geese are migrating at several thousand feet in the air, so if they’re falling out of the sky and hitting pavement, you can imagine what that does to a goose’s body.”

Berl also said that any other cause of death besides lightning in this case is unlikely.

“It is common for diseases like influenza or other sorts of bird-borne diseases to cause mass die-offs of birds, but not for them to just fall out of the sky and land within a hundred yards of each other like that,” Berl said.

Though Berl said he couldn’t speak to national trends, he did say that this is a rare occurrence.

Chuck Trost, a retired Idaho State University professor who taught ornithology and animal behavior, said that he had never heard about something like this occurring in his 32-year career.

Trost said that the incident was “bizarre.”

ISLAND PARK — Since the beginning of the year, there have been multiple snowmobile fatalities in Fremont County, and officials are stressing safety measures for anybody traveling into the backcountry. 

These fatalities include Idaho Falls resident Adam Wayne Andersen on Jan. 10, Raymond John Moe of Missoula, Montana, on Jan. 20, and Wayne R. Halverson, a Wishek, North Dakota, resident who died on Saturday.

There’s also been a fourth fatality in East Idaho, Troy Leishman of Idaho Falls, which occurred in eastern Bonneville County near the Palisades Reservoir last week.

Anderson, Moe, and Leishman’s cause of death were all avalanches, while Halverson died of his injuries after crashing into a tree on his way from Last Chance to Ponds Lodge in Island Park.

Members of Halverson’s party performed CPR until Fremont County’s EMT arrived, but efforts to revive him failed. He was pronounced dead at 8:27 p.m. Saturday.

“Some years we don’t have any (fatalities),” Fremont County Sheriff Len Humphries said. “This year with three is a high. I don’t think we’ve ever had that many before.”

Justin Liebert, head of Fremont County Search and Rescue, said that this year has been the worst that he’s seen in seven years in terms of snow conditions, and it’s been one of the worst in his career for fatalities.

When questioned about what’s caused so many fatalities this year, Liebert said that early on in the winter season, snowmobilers had safe snow. But rain and hail have created different layers in the snow, making it more unstable.

“As the snowflakes fall on top of each other, they’re like puzzle pieces where they lock into each other, and they settle on top of each other,” Liebert said. “That’s what makes its strength, but when you’ve got a snowflake that’s a round ball, like a BB, there’s no way of locking that in.”

Unfortunately, the conditions haven’t been improving.

“And then when you get a ton of snow on top of that already unstable snow, they just don’t sew themselves together,” Liebert said.

Liebert said that backcountry travelers are always at risk of triggering an avalanche and that the best way to avoid it is to stay on the trails. 

“Know the country you’re going into,” he said. “There’s a lot of trails up in Fremont County. I know that’s not what they want, but when conditions are bad, stick to the trails. Ride the flat country. Ride the meadows. Stay off the hillside.”

There will likely be far fewer obstacles on the trails as well, making it much safer than the backcountry.

Another possible cause of the rise in fatalities that Humphries mentioned was that more people are riding in the area due to a lack of snowfall in other states and other counties in Idaho.

“I would say that a lot of areas did not have much snow this year for snowmobile riding and so we’ve seen an influx of people coming to ride here that normally wouldn’t,” Humphries said.