A few months ago John and I hiked Bald Mountain and I kept commenting to him what a great running trail it was. I have been secretly trying to teach him to recognize good running trails for me since he hikes a lot. Susan and I finally got a chance to run it, and I have to say I think I impressed her.
The first 1.4 miles of the trail is a fairly gradual sometimes sandy climb, around mile 1.2 you cross over the Sandy River on a seasonal bridge. Head north on the PCT, before you start the 2.2 mile climb up to Bald Mountain you have to scramble over two fallen trees to cross the river. The climb can be steep at times, but I kept telling myself and Susan it is only 2.2 miles and then the rest is a lovely gradual down hill.
Once you reach Bald Mountain the forest opens up into fabulous alpine meadows, glacial streams and an unbelievable view of Mt. Hood. You can also see several stunning waterfalls coming down the slopes of Mt. Hood. The trail continues down to the Muddy Fork of the Sandy River, which you have to cross not once but twice without a bridge, so be prepared. The water wasn't raging when we crossed it, but it wasn't a little stream crossing either. The first crossing we found a stick that helped us cross over the slippery rocks, but our shoes were completely soaked. The second crossing was much easier, there were rocks that we were able to "hop" across.
The trail continues down past the Yocum Ridge junction, to Ramona Falls. If you haven't seen Ramona Falls before, you are in for a treat. Then you follow the trail back to your car, crossing the Sandy River one more time (on a bridge).
The route from William L. Sullivan's "100 Hikes in Northwest Oregon and Southwest Washington"
Susan cross the "tree bridge"
wild blueberries
Susan taking a picture on Mt. Hood from Bald Mountain
Our family hiking trip this year was to the Dolomites, more specifically Alta Via 1. John and I have done several hut to hut hiking trips in the Alps and planned them all ourselves, we never had any problems. As I started to plan our trip to the Dolomites, it became clear to me that it might be easier if we used a local company to help us book our accommodations and transportation. That way when questions came up from family members there was someone we could ask. Also letting the ultrarunner of the group plan the daily hiking itinerary probably isn't the best idea.
I ended up contacting Dolomite Mountains, I sent them my itinerary, the places I had already booked and a few other specifications and Monica created an agenda pretty similar to the one I already had in mind. As much as I like to plan things myself, it was nice to have someone local and not feel responsible for 5 other people's vacation. Plus if they thought the hike was too hard they couldn't blame me.
Susan wanted to start Mother's Day off with a run so Cedar and I gave her a new 22 mile route for Mother's Day. We wanted to make it a memorable route so we made sure to give her a nice climb all the way up Saltzman, which actually was quite pleasant since it was at the beginning of the route.
The nice thing about running on Mother's Day is there isn't a lot of people out, since most people are probably having brunch celebrating, but us trail runners are a different breed.
After our nice long run, I got to go celebrate Mother's Day with my 2 moms. Moms are the best!
Ann's story (the planning)
Ever since I did my first multi-day
backpacking trip 10 years ago, I have wanted to circumnavigate Mt. Hood. We
actually planned a backpacking trip to do in 2007, but after doing some
research realized part of the trail had been washed out and was closed. So the Mt.
Hood circumnavigation was put on the back burner until I started running long
distances.
I mentioned to Susan last summer that we should do it, but it wasn’t
until early this year when we were trying to find a race during the summer that
was 40 – 50 miles and fit both of our schedules that I mentioned we should just do Mt. Hood. It worked out great, since we could do it during
the week when there is less traffic on the trail and we wouldn’t have to give up a
weekend day with our families.
I really love planning hiking, backpacking, and running routes / trips. I loved being able to pull out all my maps and books, and comb through them for training runs and the circumnavigation, but single
mo…
Yes, and I'm still impressed!
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