Girls Gone Wildwood

Cedar enjoying the air after our run We have been slacking off on blog post and we have let ourselves get a little lazy with our routes. We have been keeping our milage up, but if we select a route that has a hill like all of Saltzman we tend to change it midrun and do something easier. Well today was the last day we are going to be able to do that for the next 12 weeks. We are officially signed up for the Backcountry Rise 50 miler . It's time to get uncomfortable and shed some of our covid weight, but that starts on Monday.  Since we were allowing ourself one more do whatever the eff you want run, we just made up a route as we went. We had planned on 14 miles but got closer to 16. It was actually quite a nice route and since I haven't posted a new route in awhile I thought this would be a good one. So enjoy!  Route ( Strava Route ):  Firelane 1 - Morak .08 Morak - Wildwood .15 Wildwood - Maple 2.08 Maple - Leif (end of Maple) 3.55 Leif - Firelane 7A 1.6 FL 7A - WW .25 WW - Fir

A the beginning of a typical dry, hot September in 2017, a teenager threw fireworks into Eagle Creek Canyon, setting off a t hree month long blaze that destroyed 50,000 acres of beautiful forested wilderness in the Columbia River Gorge. Many parts of the Gorge have been closed ever since, as burned areas and the subsequent dead trees lead to many issues like increased erosion, flooding, and invasive species. While  trails have been slowly opening (like Angel's Rest ), many of us who love the Gorge have been holding our breath for the reopening of the Eagle Creek Trail . Eagle Creek was the first place I ever went hiking with my now husband over 20 years ago and one of the first trails I took Susan running on outside of Forest Park.  It happened on Friday, 1 January 2021-- perhaps proof that this year will be better than the last. As soon as I found out I pinged Susan and said we need to take a day off and go run Eagle Creek. We decided on Thursday, January 7th hoping that it would