Girls Gone Wildwood

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...

After our day off running on Friday, we took Saturday as a rest day and wanted a "short" run to stretch our legs on Sunday. We usually try to cram in miles by running the trailheads closest to us, so we were excited to get to the quieter, wilder, far north of Forest Park. A nice, new sign at Wildwood's far north end Leif Erikson Trail ends at Germantown, so there aren't many loops up there. I like to combine Newton and Firelane 10 with BPA, FL 12 and FL 15 for a figure-eight. To make it closer to 10 miles, I threw in an out-and-back to the end of Wildwood at Newberry Rd. A fancy woolly bear caterpillar Park at Newton Parking lot/ FL10 to WW (25.43)-- .15mi  WW (25.43) to BPA (WW 27.45)-- 2.02mi (2.17 total) BPA to FL12-- .25mi (2.42 total) FL12 to FL 15-- .51mi (2.93 total) FL15 to WW (28.63)-- .37mi (3.30 total) WW (28.63) to WW End (30.16)-- 1.53mi (4.83 total) WW End (30.16) to Newton Rd (ww 26.30)-- 3.86mi (8.69 total) Newton Rd to Parking ...

Mt Rainier from Goat Lake John and I had planned our last backpacking adventure for the summer in  The Enchantments  in Washington after getting a spot in the lottery earlier in the summer, but like many of our plans this summer we had to come up with a plan b because the trails were closed due to forest fires. We decided on Goat Rocks in Washington as our plan b, since neither of us had been there in years.  Our plan was to head up to Goat Rocks after I was done running and hike in and camp. Well, it snowed at Goat Rocks a few days before we had planned to leave. Instead of snow camping or coming up with plan c, we decided to camp in the Sprinter at the trailhead and hike the 13 mile loop in one day, snow permitting.   Making coffee before our hike The lows at the trailhead were suppose to be in the high 30s, I was concerned about how cold it would be in van, since our new heater was in but not attached to the diesel line yet....