Granite Peak: A Snowy Summit

Over the years, Matt and I have formed a collection of mountain peaks we summit every year. Two are within our local coastal ranges, and two more are further inland. One such mountain is called Granite Peak. Located just a few forest service road miles off the highway, it's often accessible enough for us to attempt during all twelve months of the year. Topping out at just over 8,000 feet, it definitely spends much of the winter adorned with a snowy hat.

The time we had to start at the highway because the FS road isn't plowed.

I've attempted a winter summit two other times before, one on January 2 and once in mid-March, both on drought years. Would it be as the saying goes "third time's the charm"?

Matt and I woke early one weekday morning last week to give it a try. Our winter hadn't been especially wet yet, so we were hopeful that a little additional gear would make it a success.

As we meandered through the river canyon to the trail head, we crossed two summits. Snow levels appeared to be at 4,500 feet. On our final approach to the parking lot, we caught glimpses of our mountain. Gosh there was a lot of snow up there, well below tree line.

When we reached the trailhead, we were pleasantly surprised by the lack of snow. The air was crisp and frosty, but nary a sign of the white stuff. Matt and I bundled up and started our skyward trek.

In the summertime, this trail is humbling. Climbing 5,000 feet over five miles, it's an unrelenting grade that shows no mercy. We made our summertime summit in June this year and it took us two hours at a good effort to make it to the top.

June 2018

After just one mile, our hike went from following ribbon of trail along the ground to studying the sunken snow accumulation to find the trail. Some spots were easier to follow than others. There was one other set of footprints to follow, but they frequently veered off where the summertime trail was and we didn't trust them. Sometimes, they looped back to where we already had traveled.

We threw on our microspikes for added traction on the windswept icy patches and continued on. Having completed this trail a dozen times in the last eight years, we were able to piece together the route from memory.

The trail wandered through the forest for almost four miles before even the tiniest glimpse of the nearby mountains and lake came into view. When we reached that point, we were already sinking into snow two feet deep (or more in some places) and it was mid afternoon.

Photo op. We didn't hike through here.

Eating our snacks, we debated pushing on to the summit. Due to the late hour, we didn't think the remaining distance was doable before nightfall so we took some additional pictures at the intermediate viewpoint and called it a day.

Despite now being zero for three on a wintertime summit, it was still a fantastic day full of sunshine, light winds, and gorgeous views.

All smiles while getting our winter fix

I guess that means we will have to try again another time. D-A-R-N.

A Little Bit of Everything

The problem with a long absence is we never know where to begin again. Do we jump right in as if no time has passed? Or do we try to do a quick recap of the highlights to catch up?  Today I went for a hike with a friend I haven't seen in over a year. While our friendship felt familiar and comforting and everything it used to be when we ran together regularly, there was the odd undercurrent of not really knowing what her day to day has been. Returning to blogging feels just like that.

How about I compromise and offer a bit of both? A recap plus some day to day details?

The biggest thing to happen for me was that I didn't run a fall marathon. Basically, the whole season from September to November was a mess. I caught a cold the day we left for five days in the mountains in mid September. Summer fire season had finally died down and there was no way I was going to miss out on at least some time with the mountains. I doubled up on sleeping bags (probably sign of fever) and DayQuilled myself through the waking hours.

 

I don't know if that's what wrecked me, but I wasn't myself for the next three months. I was on antibiotics for a month for the lingering sinus infection. The fatigue lasted even longer. It was rough. (In fact, I'm still trying to unravel the mystery of my lingering symptoms.) When I pulled a muscle in my leg in mid-October, I decided to give up on any major distance goals for the rest of the year. Despite not having any concrete running goals, I spent a lot of time doing exactly what I wanted, when I wanted. And that alone was pretty awesome.

We managed an extended trip to Diamond Lake while I continued my torrid love affair with Oregon. Despite all its flaws (toasty warm summers and too much smoke), I'm convinced that somewhere within the interior areas of the PNW is where our next move needs to be. Bonus: Allergies be gone!

Matt got his nine hour shift rotation back and suddenly we were able to go away for up to a week without taking any vacation time. That happened just about the same time as South Lake Tahoe's fall colors peaked and hotel prices dropped.

We made a beeline for the Nevada border, stopping only to stock up on another year's worth of trail shoes at Merrell Outlet in Folsom (usually a CIM tradition on Sunday afternoon). Our first trip to Tahoe was in February of this year when it rained instead of snowed. This trip made up for it in every way.

I got my fall colors and two nice mountain summits. Running continued to be painful after just a mile or two, but hiking was no problem so we hiked ourselves silly, averaging almost twenty miles a day in steps, whether it was walking around town, exploring the trails, or leaf peeping.

We took a couple of short local trips, this time with Hazel in tow. The first one was a quick overnight to our favorite redwood park. We volunteered to repaint the mile markers for our club's fall marathon and broke the job up into two parts. We camped in the car and brought our furry friend. She really loved exploring the smells and sounds during the evening and then snuggling up with us at night. She's still not much of a snuggler, but it's encouraging to see that her trust in us has grown.

She wasn't a fan of going outside at the yurt on our second trip, but I think that was all the noise of the nearby interstate. She seems especially skittish with loud noises, even at home, so this didn't come as much of a surprise. We did learn that when she's left alone, she's content to cozy up and nap instead of meow, so that will be helpful if we ever need to hotel with her.

I took a gnarly crash while trail running on Veteran's Day. It didn't tear my skin up too badly or cause any internal injuries but I did come away with some significant bruising. Interestingly enough, as that healed, my quad/knee injury miraculously went away too.

By that time, I had already rediscovered my childhood love of rollerblading while looking like a weirdo so I kept on rollin'. I try to pretend that it will help me this winter when I suddenly force myself to ski ten miles in one go when we inevitably find some snow.

To continue on our tour of the seasons, we made a quick trip to Chicago for my brother-in-law's wedding.We arrived a few days early to hang out with the couple before the chaos began.

While there, we got to experience all of the best parts of winter: snow and 25 degrees and running on some nicely plowed streets.

Despite spending twenty-two years living in the upper midwest, I had never spent more than a few hours in Chicago. In our free moments between wedding festivities, Matt took me to see the sights. We found a Christmas market, the Bean, and of course the Lakefront Path.

Since then, I've been playing my saxophone a lot. Despite the lack of white Christmas, I've found that overloading myself with holiday music seems to bring me at least a little bit of yuletide spirit.

I'm not sure what's in store for 2019 just yet, but I've got some ideas. My only plan so far is to start the year off with a (hopefully) speedy 5K on my home speed work route. When I decided to skip CIM, I started doing what my leg could tolerate: shorter, faster runs. Since then I've done about two months of interval training and am ready to attempt a 5K PR. How fast I can run will be determined by how much I'm willing to make it hurt.

What have you been up to? When you haven't seen a friend in awhile, do you give a quick recap of the highlights or do you give some details too?

Trail Running Season

After our road trip with Joel, Matt and I returned to dirt for the summer. We set our sights on the Siskiyou Outback 50K and began running as many hills as possible.

Through the month of May, trail runs centered primarily on the Grasshopper course: scouting, prepping, and throwing up some flags and signs. One week, the entire burn scar was covered in purple flowers. The next week it was gone.

One week it was foggy, the next it was broiling hot. I enjoyed watch spring transition to summer as I prepped one of my favorite local trail running routes for race day.

By race day, I had already spent the equivalent of two full weekends on the course and was very excited to have all the runners check out my favorite place.

 

We had runners from six different states and some as far away as New Hampshire. The 30K nearly doubled in size from last year and I was very pleased with how it all turned out. The t-shirt was especially cute this year, too.

I picked the wrong day to forget I was wearing my husband's pajamas.

Training escalated quickly after that. The most exciting thing about the day-to-day of this year's trail summer was exploring the unmarked logging roads near town. People use them frequently, but I hadn't explored much beyond the main access road. Every Wednesday afternoon, we added pieces to the maps in our head and eventually found our way around most of the trails. On our final Wednesday before the taper, we finally discovered a way to connect them enough to make a loop. We estimate it's about fifteen miles long so it will have to wait until next season.

Every summer, whether I'm racing trails or not, Matt likes to take a camping trip and run a lot of miles. This year, we returned to Weaver Basin and got lost in the Trinity Alps. While we know the trails here fairly well, we were trying a new loop. Much like our trails at home, many aren't marked.

We did a lot of this.

We wandered down an unmarked trail thinking it would close the gap in our loop but it eventually dead ended in a patch of bushes on a steep hillside.

We wandered around looking for it for awhile, consulted our map and eventually backtracked until we found it. We added another hour to our already long day with the bonus miles but time on our feet is time on our feet.  It was gorgeous and we were all pretty good sports about it.

Happy to finally find the car again!

Bootcamp weekend would not be complete with a trip up Granite Peak. Climbing five thousand feet in five miles, it's basically an unrelenting slog to the top. It's worth it every time. The trip down is pretty quick and a fun way to toughen up my quads.

Cheez-Its and Trinity Lake

One week later, we packed up all our gear and headed east. Matt and I volunteered to pace a friend in his first 100 mile race. We figured it was as good a reason as any to travel to a new place so we were able to check both South Dakota and Wyoming out in one trip.

That's Rapid City, SD down below.

We did a run to South Dakota's High Point: Harney Peak

One really awesome thing about pacing a friend for a race is that we don't have to taper. Matt and I embarked on what was basically a week-long mileage binge at a moderate (4000-7000 ft) altitude. Then I power hiked 20 miles of the Centennial Trail with Jeff  because he wasn't moving super fast from miles 80 to 100. ;) The first thirty miles of his run were through thunderstorms, the next thirty were flailing around in the mud in the dark, and by the time he got to me at mile 80, he was still looking pretty decent. The only whining he did was when he couldn't pick his feet up high enough and it caused him to stumble. We grabbed a walking stick and he was pretty good after that. He even laughed a bit when I told him he only had two more rounds of "99 Bottles of Beer" to go until the finish line. I offered to sing with him. He said no. Party pooper.

He finished twenty-six minutes ahead of the final cutoff and got horizontal as fast as possible.

I still have no desire to run a 100 mile race.

Then we moved onto Wyoming and spent the next day being chased off of a mountaintop by thunderstorms. When the forecast predicted yet another day of thunderstorms, we hunkered down for an entire day so we could read, nap, and not die.

Sundance, WY

Upon returning home, we had time for just two more trail running weeks before our taper. Mileage was a little lower for a couple of local 5Ks (5Ks during 50K training are ouch, btw), but our final long run was a pretty big awesome day and I was really happy with how strong I felt at the end. It was 26.2 miles with 5555 feet of climbing. It was fantastic.

Still finding more trail marker flags from the race.

Grasshopper summit #4 of 2018

Post run soak in Bull Creek

Everything about the buildup to this race went perfectly. Since May 13th, I have run 520 miles and climbed 62,744 feet in preparation for this race. I was climbing stronger and faster than ever before. I didn't have any whisper of an injury. Heck, I even became more confident as a downhill runner, which is saying a lot due to the fragility of my left arm. I was ready to completely shatter the PR I had set at SOB in 2015.

I took six minutes off my best route PR at Headwaters this summer.

As my taper progressed, small wildfires grew near the course. One particularly eventful lightning storm last week sparked fires all over the Siskiyou Crest and Cal-Ore border. The Pacific Crest Trail, on which half of the race course travels, was closed. Air quality diminished. Last week, I debated whether or not I should race with my asthma. Today the race was officially cancelled, an announcement everyone from race management to the runners anticipated happening due to the smoke alone. 

A 22 mile run on the PCT near Lassen

Given the tight racing schedule I have already planned and registered for through the end of 2018, this will be another year without an ultramarathon finish on my record. That's probably the most disappointing part of it all. While I know fitness is never wasted and I can build upon what I've done this summer, I really wanted to race a 50K this summer. Bummer.

While it's disappointing that I won't be able to test myself and spend all day with the wildflowers and mountains of southern Oregon, I truly enjoyed the process. I ran with friends in some gorgeous places, and hope to be even stronger when next year's Siskiyou Outback rolls around.

Joel comes to visit!

In mid-May, Matt's and my college friend Joel arrived for a visit. Back at college, the three of us were running buddies. We shared many races and even more training miles together. After graduation, the gap between our endurance levels increased as Matt and I began running marathons and Joel gravitated toward sports teams through his work. He's a better soccer player than us but we can outlast him in endurance fairly easily. That is unless he comes to visit us the week after a marathon. Smart guy, isn't he?

Our trip began with an overnight at Burney Falls. The falls were magnificent and well worth a second trip in the evening after all the crowds went home. This time, it was just me a quiet group of photographers.

Meanwhile back at camp, Matt and Joel had begun making dinner. And by making dinner I mean that Joel did the cooking and Matt chased away the very friendly squirrels who took to climbing the picnic table and got dangerously close to diving headfirst into our bags of chips. This, people, is why we don't feed the wildlife even if it's reallyreallyreally cute. What's also really cute? The following video of Matt in action.

 

The next day, we spent eleventy billion hours in road construction to travel just one hundred and fifty miles. Luckily, we had snacks.

I love when popcorn comes in single-serving bags.

When we arrived at Lava Beds National Monument later in the day it was already as hot as the surface of the sun. Luckily we wouldn't be spending much time above ground today. We had a quick picnic between our car and its twin before discovering the underworld.

What a relief that we came on green Subaru day!

We spent the afternoon wandering through caves. This went better than I thought it would. I'm not a very big fan of dark, tight spaces where I could potentially get lost forever.

The name of this cave did nothing to relieve my fears.

Everything went fine until my headlamp began to die. After that, I was done. The guys hit the last couple of caves on our list while I worked on my tan.

By the time they returned to the surface, I was ready for an adventure within my comfort zone. We did a couple of short hikes, watching the setting sun disappear into the clouds from the Schonchin fire lookout. Then it was dinner time, where we discussed whether our day's adventure was indeed spelunking. When we were reunited with the internet, we did a search to confirm. That's how I found out way more about spelunking than I ever wanted courtesy of Urban Dictionary.

The next morning, we pressed on to the north. We headed through the rest of the park and to a wildlife refuge. The birds were supposed to be the highlight of this area but I'm pretty sure that they meant the mosquito. Needless to say, we didn't linger.

Tulelake Wildlife Refuge

We rolled into Klamath Falls about midday and traded our four wheeled vehicle for two wheels. Joel rides the DalMac every year so he pretty much laid us to waste on the bike. I've always been a fan of rail trails and have had my eye on this one for quite awhile.

As predicted, it was straight as an arrow. And as predicted, afternoon thunderstorms were brewing. We stared at the same cloud for over an hour before deciding to turn around. After twenty some odd miles, my butt was more than ready to call it quits.

Sweet plow used to clear the tracks

From here, we checked into our hotel and waited out a downpour. Once the darkest skies cleared, we were tricked out onto another adventure. This one brought us to the hills above Klamath Lake. We hiked for an hour until the skies turned dark and Mother Nature scared us off the mountain. It did make for some really badass lighting.

Once the clouds started to throw lightning bolts, we broke into a jog and then a sprint. The downpour waited until we were back at the car. Back at the hotel, we hit the evening reception for soup and cookies. It sounded like a weird combination but was completely satisfying in the moment.

The next morning, we headed toward Ashland on Hwy 66 and planned to hike to a lake near Green Springs. The clouds were too low to even see the lines on the road so we decided to scrap that idea and see if the valley had any better options.

In between rain showers, we decided on Table Mountain. I've been up here before and it never disappoints. Again the weather put on quite a show with rapidly changing clouds and nearby rain showers, but at least this time we didn't have to go run for cover. It's surprising how often Matt got us into these situations when he's supposedly a professional weatherman.

The final stop on our road trip was the next morning at Oregon Caves. We decided we had our fill of caves so we set our sights on 6400 ft Mt Elijah in the Siskiyou Mountains. Normally, Matt and I make a nine mile loop but I think Joel was relieved to hear that a section of our loop was covered by a vertical snow field.

Instead we did a shorter out and back and built a snowman at the summit.

But the real reason I love Oregon Caves is the lodge. More specifically the old fashioned ice cream parlor inside. Nothing puts the cherry on top of a fantastic trip quite like a cherry on a humongous ice cream sundae.

Then we pointed our car to the coast and headed home. The final day of Joel's visit was spent in the redwoods and racing a 5K dressed as pirates.

The best part of the trip is always the quality time we spend visiting. Joel is always up for anything and the three of us have gone on a lot of cool adventures together over the years such as backpacking the Lost Coast, eating and drinking our way through France, and kayaking in Lake Superior. Where should we go next?