Girls Gone Wildwood

  In preparation for the Backcountry Rise 50 mile race, Susan and I decided to run a 30ish mile route as our last big run before the race. (editor note we later dropped to the 50k) We had originally thought we would run the last 30 miles of the Oregon PCT heading towards Washington (Lolo Pass to Cascade Locks) but we saw a posting on Oregon Hikers that said there was a lot of blowdown from winter storms that made large parts of the trail nearly impassable. After dealing with that on Hunchback Mountain we decided to come up with Plan B. Luckily Plan B was literally on the other side of the river. We decided to run the first 30ish miles of the PCT in Washington going north. Yassine and a few other folks had also done it recently and confirmed the trail was in great condition.  Running in a cloud and happy about it We decided to start at the Bonneville trailhead and run the PCT to Wind River, which meant we needed both our cars for shuttling. The great thing about thi...

Susan heading up the PCT to the Timberline lodge A month from our first attempt at running the bucket list run of most MUT runners, the  Grand Canyon R2R2R , we wanted to get in one big run outside of Forest Park to help clam our anxiety, despite having an amazing summer of adventure runs. We decided to take a Friday off of work 2 weeks before running R2R2R to  run around Mt. Hood , which is similar distance and elevation gain as R2R2R2, though very different trails and environment.  A week before our planned circumnavigation of Mt. Hood, we got ~18 inches of snow above 5500 feet on Mt. Hood, which covered a lot of the Timberline trail. So, as with most of our adventure runs this summer I had to come up with a Plan B. Fall! Earlier in the summer when I planned our   Salmon River – Devil’s Lookout – Hunchback Mountain  route, I noticed on the map you could run from Salmon River to the Timberline Lodge. I pulled out the map and calcu...

Trail sign at the Herman Creek Campground start Taking advantage of our mild winter, Susan and I planned a "day off work run" in the Gorge to get some harder hills in for our Miwok 100k training. Originally I thought we would run Eagle Creek, but since we had done that a few times I pulled out my Columbia Gorge maps to plan another route. I immediately noticed that Herman Creek connected with the PCT to make a nice loop and that there were several other connecting trails to use to add extra miles. We wanted around 28-30 miles, Herman to PCT wasn't going to be quite long enough, so used Gorton Creek to add extra miles to, which made a perfect loop. I had hiked Herman Creek and Nick Eaton Ridge before, but I had never been on Gorton Creek, so I had no idea what to expect as far as trail conditions. The one thing I knew was that we would gain 4000+ feet over 9 miles.  A view down into the Columbia River Gorge The days leading up to the run we...

Pamelia Lake After Susan and I ran the Three Sisters Loop , Susan asked me if there was a loop around Mt. Jefferson. I told her I didn't think there was, but of course once I got home I pulled out my Mt. Jefferson map to verify. There isn't, but looking at the map it jogged my memory of previous Mt. Jefferson backpacking trips I have done in the past. Knowing that I was going to have a low key Labor day weekend, I thought if by chance I could get an overnight pass to Pamelia Lake , I would go camp and do a run and head back to Portland.  By some luck I was able to secure a camping permit for Friday night. I originally thought that I could run the Hunt's Cove loop  but come to find out the trail is closed due to a forest fire. However the PCT North and South were open, so I thought I could run to Jefferson Park and back which is ~15 miles. I emailed Karrla and asked if she wanted to join me on this short trip, we backpacked Hunt's Cove years ago, but we have...