Girls Gone Wildwood

Susan, Ann, and Mt Hood at Devil's Peak For our June day-off run, we were ready for Salmon River, one of our favorite routes over the years. Ann had read some reports of manageable snow and downed trees, but since there's a part of the route that always has a number of trees to climb over, we assumed that the folks who report just might not be used to it. We were wrong. Sunbeams through the trees on the steep slope of Green Canyon We decided to do the loop backwards from our usual, starting up Green Canyon to get the blowdown out of the way, ending with the Salmon River Trail so there'd be water for Cedar during the hotter part of the day. Green Canyon is so steep that we can't even run part of it downhill, our normal direction, so hiking up it wasn't that bad. Then we hit Hunchback and the adventure began. There were some trees down across the trail. It wasn't that bad. We climbed over them. Fairy slipper orchid But soon it wasn't just trunks. It was branch

making our way up Table Mountain I have hiked Table Mountain quite a few times and never understood why anyone would want to run it. Mostly because of the unrelenting climb up heartbreak ridge and the scramble up the rocks at the end.  New to us section of the PCT Susan and I had a day off adventure / training run planned for Friday, May 21st. I was hoping to do a 29 mile loop in the Herman Creek area but the snowline was still pretty low which didn't leave us with a lot of options. I gave Susan a few alternative options and the one she picked was Table Mountain, despite me warning her about the scramble at the end. To be honest I wasn't excited about the choice but she'd never been there before and I had never started the route on the PCT, so it was a new adventure to us both.  Table Mountain We got to the Bonneville Trailhead  early and were the only car there. It was a nice and sunny day, we were pretty optimistic after our last adventures runs having horrible weather, e

Top of Mary's Peak Susan and I are training for a 50 mile race in early July, which is great because it doesn't occupy our whole summer with training, but it doesn't leave us with a lot of training options outside of Forest Park because the snow is still melting at higher elevations. While I was researching some route options a few weeks ago I noticed that Mary's Peak 50k was happening in 2 weeks and wasn't full. We ran Mary's Peak in 2019 was a training run for Waldo and loved it. So, I texted Susan about it and a few days later we were signed up.  Cedar and I posing with the 3 foot gnome at the RV park The race approached quickly and just a few days before the race the CDC said that Covid vaccinated people did not need to wear masks outside. I was really curious if this would have an impact on the race or not. In previous years the race shuttled you to the start, this there was no shuttle which mean we had to run the extra 2+ miles to the original start, whic

Selfie on the North Fork bridge For our "day off run" at the end of April, we struggled to find something without snow, and ended up on the Wilson River Trail. We started at Elk Creek with the intention of doing the classic route up Elk Mountain. I didn't relish the traverse between Elk and King Mountains after our snowy debacle in April 2018 , so we decided to just do an out and back up Elk.  Cloudy views We started up Elk, and were transported back to that cloudy, wet day. Ann had some misgivings, and-- unlike last time when I dismissed them-- I heartily agreed with her and we turned around. We continued on the Wilson River Trail. Cedar loves the Wilson River Trail We ran to the trail up King Mountain and tried again. And once again, we just weren't feeling it. We decided, just this one last time before we got serious with our training for the Backcountry Rise 50 miler, to let ourselves have a day where we didn't push ourselves too hard, a