Where's the Donuts?

Kind of a last-minute adventure into the Cascades with Krissy, Justin Angle and Bryan Estes. We met in the dark and drove up past Cle Elum to a trailhead to Ingalls Peak, where Justin had mapped out a loop of 20-25. Really pretty drive, and the sun was trying to come out as we arrived. 

The first 60 minutes or so were a steady grind, then we dropped down a steep descent to the campground and saw some hikers. We chatted it up, looked at the fall larch, and kept moving. Somewhere in the next few miles we lost our way, and the trails didn't match with our map. Too many unmarked ATV trails confused us, as well as one washout that we suspect may have been the turn we should have taken. So we ambled around, down and up one long hill, for an hour or so. We finally turned and decided to bag the loop, saw a bare ridgeline and decided to scale it just for a view and something different. It was steep, I was taxed going up that thing but the view over Ingalls Peak was worth it. We got a little misted on, but not soaked or anything.

Then we ran back, sun coming back out and day hikers heading up. The long descent to the car started working me over, my energy level was lagging by then but I kept up. Had been awhile since I'd gone that far.

Ended up being out there for 4.5 hours and climbed over 6,000 feet total, the 20 miles is kind of a guess.

brooks cascadia -- 120

Jaguars XC practice. 15 minutes easy around Olympic College to warm up, 8 hill repeats, then back to the high school. Then another 1.5 miles on my own or so. 

supernova glide -- 11

Morning run on 11th-Shore loop. Pretty nice actually, dry today and mild. Medium pace, my quads are still feeling beat up from Sunday's adventure. 37:59

supernova glide -- 16

Today's trail run turned into a chantrelle mushroom treasure hunt, so it ended up a little shorter than planned. That's all right though, I'm now planning on the Lake Padden Trail Half next weekend and probably didn't need a real big run. 

Mike and I met at Klahowya Secondary School at dawn, and ran into the Newberry Heritage Park trail network just west of the school. 30 minutes or so in there, the trails are  very well maintained and marked, and there's nothing steep. Then we crossed the road into the new trail areas on the other side of the school, and at about 33 minutes noticed some mushrooms on the side of the trail (on the "Chantrelle Trail," of course). Finding chantrelles is like striking a vein of gold, so we stopped and followed it back into the forest, and picked three big bags. These things sell for $8/pound at the grocery store, so it's worth your time and a good idea to carry a plastic bag on October runs.

Then we stashed our pickings and headed out on the Old Trail loop, which is advertised as four miles but probably is short of that. Then we went back to the cache, pick up our bags and walked out with some old man and his dog. Sun was up by that time, looked like a beautiful day was coming, so we went and found some coffee. 53:25

brooks cascadia