Girls Gone Wildwood

Mt Hood and Lupines -  our view most of the hike John and I had 12 hours between dropping off one nephew at the airport and picking the other one up, so we decided to go on a hike. I've been revisiting a lot of my old maps and hiking / backpacking books in search of new routes. I thought that we might be able to do something in Mount Margret backcountry or in the St. Helens area, but with the amount of driving involved I thought we might be cutting it close. So, John and I started thumbed through our hiking books and John said, "What about Elk Meadows?" I was pretty sure we had done the hike before, but I went back and looked at all 5 copies/editions I have of William Sullivan's red book  and didn't see any notes on the Elk Meadow hike. I always write some kind of note, if not at least the date of when we completed the hike in the book. 

Ann recently reminisced about our 21-miler to Salt & Straw  last year, and we decided to recreate it. We met up with Anna and Leslie for the first ~12 mile loop, then took off for the ice cream shop. I added a mile to the first part, and because Lower Macleay is currently closed, we ran down Aspen and some neighborhood stairs, through the neighborhood to Salt & Straw. It wasn't as hot as last weekend, but the cold treats were still deliciously welcome. Ladies on the trail

Dad and me jumping into our pool in the mid-80s When I traveled to  Italy  a month ago I started listening to the  She Explores podcast , which about women in the outdoors. I've really been inspired by all the different women and their stories of long distance hiking, starting outdoor companies, etc. It has made me think of what more we could do more with Girls Gone Wildwood, but that is a different blog post This post is about a She Explores podcast I listened to running this week called,  To Dad, From Daughter.  The podcast is stories from different women on how their dad shaped their outdoor experiences.

Ann was out of town for two weekends, which meant we were ready for a good long trail run upon her return. Since my family was going to be out of town, we had the whole day to drive somewhere new and run. We discussed doing the  Summer Solstass  50k up Silver Star Mountain. Ann contacted the organizer and we were in. But we started to wonder-- would it be better to do our own thing, something a bit shorter since neither one of us had run much the past couple of weeks? Time with just the two of us, to catch up, no pressure. Siouxon Falls

Mt Hood from Hunchback A few weeks ago, Susan and I took a Thursday off of work to go on an adventure run. We had requested the day off months ago, but what we hadn't planned on was going on a 37 mile run a few days before.  Our 37 mile run was supposed to be a 20 mile run but due an extreme stream crossing we had to backtrack. Given that epic adventure I decided to go with a route I was very familiar with for our Thursday run.  Salmon River Since the snow line was still relatively low, I decided we would run a Salmon River route. Instead of our typical Salmon River - Kinzel -  Hunchback Mountain - Green Canyon Loop , I decided to change it a bit and start at Salmon River and run up Kinzel to Hunchback Mountain and all the way down Hunchback Mountain to the Zig Zag ranger station, which is ~18 miles. Luckily my mom lives a few miles from the Zig Zag ranger station and could meet us to drop us off at Salmon River, so we could run back to our car. 

Our new Sprinter - She needs a name I ordered Sprinter 144 4x4 cargo van a year ago and just received it last week. I wanted a camper van to give Susan and me more freedom with our adventure runs and likewise my husband and I have a lot more freedom for all our hiking or weekend adventures. We are not planning quitting our jobs and living in the van, but we want to build it out as if we were. I plan on documenting the build out process on our blog, but I promise this is still a trail running blog. When I first ordered the van I thought I would have Outside Van  do the conversion, but the quote they gave me was way over my budget, so we started googling "Sprinter Van Conversions". After reading a lot of blogs and watching numerous youtube videos my husband John and I figured we could do most of the work ourselves. He built a brewery at our house, how much harder can converting a Sprinter be (heh)? I also thought I would have the van 6 months ago and have a lot of the bui