Girls Gone Wildwood

Bald Mountain: perhaps the best viewpoint of Mt Hood on the whole Timberline Trail We timed our July day-off adventure to be the longest training run, four weeks before for our biggest race of the year, Waldo 100k. For a 40+ mile run, it's hard to beat the Timberline Trail loop around Mt Hood. Our last time on this route was four years ago, in 2015. Since then the infamous Eliot washout-- which was technically closed-- has been rerouted further down the mountain, adding a bit of distance and safety. We were excited to see the changes.

A pre-race view of the mountains This is the second year that Susan and I ran the Peterson Ridge Rumble 40 miler and the first time we ran a trail race more than once. Last year  when we ran Peterson, we had a great day and finished the race in ~7 hours, I expected that we would finish the race in the same amount of time this year. Sadly I was wrong and we finished the race 50 minutes slower than the previous year. I beat myself up over this for several weeks after the race.  The trail opens up to mountain views There were several reasons that we were slower this year. Last year we were training for Miwok 100k  and Peterson Ridge was our last long run before Miwok, so we were more trained up than we were last year. This year was also one of the hottest years on record for Peterson Ridge, which definitely had an affect on me. I also had been dealing with an injury  and had to take it easier than I would of liked for a few weeks. Oh, and the week befor...

Selfie at Ramona Falls It was time to truly run all the way around Mt Hood. Two years ago we mostly did it, but due to difficulties at the Eliot washout and getting lost around Eden Park, we exited at Ramona Falls instead of making it back to our car at Timberline. Coming off a glorious circumnavigation of Mt Rainier in August (post coming soon), we felt ready. Well, almost ready. We pushed back our planned September adventure run by a week to accommodate work, and it definitely helped to have an additional week to rest from Rainier. First view of the mountain as the clouds lift Unlike last time-- when we planned and meticulously packed for our very first mountain circumnavigation-- this time felt relaxed and casual as we tossed together our trusted gear and favorite eats. We spent the night at Ann's mom's house and drove up to Timberline in the early morning, leaving on time (!). It was cold and dark at our 6:30am start, and the lodge wasn't open yet. T...

Susan, Ann, and the Three Sisters-- thank you, fellow runner for taking this! The Peterson Ridge Rumble is an odd race. The two distances-- 20 and 40 miles-- don't follow most race lengths, and it's on a Sunday. It starts and ends in the small, high-desert town of Sisters but is neither at altitude nor has much climbing-- only 3,000 ft compared to Miwok's 11,800 ft. In addition, dogs are welcome on the shorter route. This would be a great race to step between 50k and 50 miles, but that didn't work out for us last year. This year, Peterson took place three weeks before Miwok 100k, so we used it as our last and longest training run. A rainbow leads to Sisters A day or two before Peterson, we got the news that Miwok's cutoff would be 90 minutes shorter than in previous years-- enough so that if I ran the time the registration site (UltraSignup) had predicted for me, I wouldn't make it. This had Ann and I anxious (to put it mildly) so for the first t...

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...