Girls Gone Wildwood

Me and Courtney at Chinook Falls My sister, Courtney was visiting from Seattle and we had planned to hike around Mt. St. Helen's, because in the 10 years she has lived in the Pacific Northwest, she hadn't been. Saturday morning I checked the weather and the forecast called for no rain but overcast at the  Johnston Ridge Observatory , so we headed out for the 2 hour drive from Portland. We were within 10 miles of Johnston Ridge and it started to rain and as we got a little closer the fog was so dense that we could barley see 10 feet in front of us. We pulled over at a look at point and pulled out our hiking book to figure out what plan b was going to be. We picked  Siouxon Creek .

Friday Susan and I did our "long run", since she was leaving on Saturday for a 2 week vacation to Ireland.  A long run meaning an incremental increase to what I did the week before, since I am slowly easing back into running because of my herniated disc . We ran 2.5 hours / ~13 miles in Forest Park. With the long run done and the long 4th of July weekend ahead of us, I planned a few harder hikes for John and me to do. The first being the  Elk Mountain - Kings Mountain loop . From the top of King Mountain