- I have been hiking, but not as much as I like.
- I did a 47 mile loop over Labor Day weekend. It kicked my butt. I did 18 miles in 12 hours (that is 1.5 mph, pitiful).
- I hiked this weekend, that makes two weeks in-a-row, I am thinking of starting a streak back up... at least one of training.
So I am two weeks away from the Sophomore Outdoor Ed trip, and the route I am doing is completely new to me. This weekend I needed to get a look at it, so I took off on an overnighter. I was lucky enough to bring three friends from work with me too.
We took off from the end of the Westside Road at 9:15am Saturday. We hiked 3.8 miles up the road, then took off towards the South Puyallup River camp on the Wonderland trail some 2.2 miles away. From there, we took a right and went to St. Andrew's Lake 3.2 miles away. We hiked in cloud cover almost the whole time. It was kind of nice since it was a decent climb, and I had worked up a good sweat. We were at the lake around 1:30 pm, then we wandered up to the cross country zone to set up our camp.
This is where the trip became something I wanted to write down. Since I am trying to see my 27 mile route, and I had only done 9.2 miles of it. I took off up the trail in my running shoes and with a small day pack. My goal was to get to Golden Lakes (8.8 miles from our camp, plus the trail has a good amount of up and down).
At 2:22 pm, I was running down to the lake and then to Klapache Park. Then jogged down the switchbacks to North Puyallup River. This was brutal down hill. I made decent time, it was about 3:30 pm when I began the 5 mile climb back up to Golden Lakes. No running here, but I was maintaining a fast-ish pace, telling myself to go quicker anytime I felt myself settling into my natural gait. At 4:30, I stopped for water at a stream. I told myself I had to be moving by 4:35, which I was. Shortly after, I was breaking out of the forrest and I was up on a ridge (but still in the clouds). I was soon losing elevation again, and then all of the sudden, the ranger patrol cabin and the Golden Lakes sign was right in front of me. It was 5:10. I chatted with the ranger (a beautiful woman) for a few minutes and took off back for camp. I walked back to the top of the ridge, then took off running. I maintained a good running gear for about 45 minutes. I walked into North Puyallup at 6:30. This was a huge highlight, that marked 10 miles in three hours. That has been a thought of mine over the years as a theoretical pace for thru-hiking the PCT. I was so excited that I was able to do that, but I also realized to maintain that over weeks, or even a whole day, my training needs to step up. I took another break at 6:30 but this time took an extra 10 minutes, making my charge up to camp at 6:45 pm. I decided the best thing to do was to move consistently and as steady as possible. By 7:55 pm, I was 2.8 miles up from the North Puyallup river. I met two wonderful people and spent a good 10 minutes chatting with them. As obsessed as I had been with time, I was so thankfully to give that away as I met these amazing people. The husband walked up for about a half mile with me. I was in camp at 8:22 pm, exactly 6 hours after leaving for a 17.6 mile round trip.
My friends, being amazing as they are, had seen my headlamp approaching and had a hot dinner ready. I slept well and hard. Today was amazing too, in a different way. We woke up had scones (freshly baked in my oven), played cards, and relaxed all morning. We were walking by noon. We saw a bear :). We were at the car at 4 pm.
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