Circumnavigating Mt. St. Helens

I had thought off and on for a couple of years about running the Loowit trail around Mt. St. Helens, but had never made it a very high priority. We were planning to run the Wonderland Trail around Mt. Rainier the first weekend of August, but the late snow this year ruined that plan. Running around Mt. St. Helens rather than Rainier seemed like a great replacement plan, but it wasn't clear that the Loowit trail had melted out enough to run it either. After a week of web searches and calls to the ranger station (reports ranged from completely snow free, to sections of the trail completely snow covered), we decided to give it a go.

I found a couple of great guides to running the Loowit trail here and here, so I won't attempt to make this blog post into a complete guide. I will say that if you are an ultrarunner living in the NW, you should really make a point of doing this run. It is truly spectacular! The varied scenery ranging from moonscape, to wildflower meadows, to deep canyons and forest combined with the incredible views, not only of Mt. St. Helens but also Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier make this a compelling experience.

The route around the mountain. We did get lost and significantly off trail for a mile or so at the north-east end of the loop.

We decided to start our run from the Windy Ridge trailhead on the northeast corner of the mountain and to follow the Loowit trail counter-clockwise around the mountain. We started about 6:45am after getting a decent night's sleep in the truck despite the continual screaming wind for which the trailhead is aptly named. A dense fog had settled in overnight and we started out hoping we would not make it around the mountain without ever seeing it! However, within a few hours the sun started breaking through the clouds and we could see the glorious mountain we were traveling around.

The scenery on this run turned out to be so much better than I could have imagined, but the pictures below can do better justice to this than I can with words (additional photos here). I think we lucked out in running this route at pretty much the optimal time this year--the snow had melted just to the point that the trails were passable (despite the need for some snow field crossing) but there were still many streams flowing so that water availability was never a problem and the mountain was incredibly green with many wildflowers. The Loowit trail is difficult to follow as the markings (primarily cairns and posts) tend to be frequent near popular day hiking spots and pretty much nonexistent in between. We managed to get off trail and thoroughly lost for a mile or so on the Studebaker Ridge before realizing we were below the trail. After hiking directly up the ridge for what seemed like way too long, we rejoiced to find the trail again. There are many steep gullies to climb in and out of and in many places the trail is fairly sketchy in that the trail is extremely narrow on a steep slope with loose footing. However, even with my agoraphobia, I managed without any problems other than going very slowly in these sections. I think my least favorite section was traversing the field of large lava rocks on the south side of the mountain where each step seemed like a russian roulette shot at an ankle injury. We were fortunate to finish before darkness fell just under 14 hours after we started with the Garmin racking up 36 miles and about 7500 feet of climbing. Big thanks to Rich for making this adventure happen!

View of Mt. St. Helens from the parking lot at the Windy Ridge trail head the night before.

Rich as we are about to start in the fog.

The first few miles were a foggy moonscape.

Mt. St. Helens from the north as the fog begins to break up.

Some of the elk that we saw. They create many false trails which adds to the difficulty of staying on the proper route.

I'm guessing we encountered peak wildflower season.

Mt. St. Helens from the North.

The Toutle River canyon.

Plunging down the sheer walls at the bottom of the Toutle canyon.

East side of Mt. St. Helens

Twin Buttes at the south-east corner of the mountain.

Mt St. Helens from the South.

Lots of water was flowing in the gullies.

Picking our way across the fields of lava rocks.

Mt. Hood

Mt. St. Helens from the east.

Rich on Windy Pass (4885 ft).

Mt. Rainier

The sun setting on Mt. Adams

Mt St. Helens from the north as we finish the loop.

Stumbling through the snow at Knee Knacker

The Knee Knacker course.

I've been wanting to visit Vancouver for what seems like forever. I'm not sure why it took so long, but we finally got our chance. Gary Robbins had suggested the Knee Knacker as a good event to run in the Vancouver area so I put my name in the lottery back in February and was lucky enough to get accepted into the race.

This is really a must-do event. I'm not sure why it hasn't received more publicity south of the border. Not that it needs more participants. It is already so popular that you have to enter a lottery to get the chance to run. But most of the participants are from British Columbia. In fact it's so popular that people that don't get to run volunteer in droves--there were more volunteers than runners and they even turned volunteers away.  It's easy enough to do the trip in a 3 day weekend, but the Vancouver area is so beautiful and there are so many things to see and do, I would suggest adding a few more days onto your trip as we did.

Downtown Vancouver with the mountains in the background.

The course is extremely technical--rocks, roots, staircases with lots of climbing. It was hands-down the hardest 50K I have done. It is a point to point course following the Baden-Powell trail from west to east starting near Horseshoe Bay and finishing in Deep Cove. There are magnificent views of the Vancouver area as one summits the first major climb, Black Mountain and even though it feels like you are deep in the wilderness, one is never far from the North Vancouver suburbs and several times the trail dips down into residential areas before climbing back into the hills.

The race started at 6am which seemed on the early side given that the race is over by 4pm. For those of us who prefer to sleep a littler later, insult was added to injury by having the buses leave the finish line at 4:35am to take us to the starting line in time for the 6am start. I met Scotty in the parking lot at 4:30am and we took the first bus together. It was good to hang out with him prior to the start especially since there were so few familiar faces.

Runners at the starting line.

and climbing.

Climbing . . .

 The course includes over 8,000 feet of climbing, about half of which comes within the first 6 miles. It had only been three weeks since Big Horn, so I tried to take it easy on the first climb and then assess how I felt. Nothing felt easy about the first climb other than stopping to take pictures, but soon enough we were reaching the top to be greeted by the large amount of snow still on the top of the mountain.

View from the ascent up Black Mt.

Vancouver obscured by the clouds.

 The snow section was my slowest split (relative to the rest of the field) of the day. I'm not sure how much of it was my lack of experience running on that much snow and how much was the lack of traction on my Hoka shoes. The other funny thing about the shoes was that the cushiony material in the sole hardens up considerably in the snow so when we finally cleared the snow and started down the dirt road, it felt like I was running on slabs of brick. However, that quickly went away and the shoes were excellent cushioning to prevent the knees from being knackered by all of the technical downhill sections still to come.

Elves greeted us at the top of the hill signaling the first aid station.

Slippery running.

Stairs down as far as you can see.

Technical? They weren't kidding.

 I felt the best over the second half of the course--probably because it is a lot easier than the first half and finished in 7 hr 9 min in 81st place. The race finishes in a beautiful park with a beach which made it easy to soak tired legs in cold water. I can't recommend this event highly enough--put it on your bucket list now!

2011 Big Horn 100 miler

I entered the Big Horn 100 miler to make up for the empty feeling I was left with at Coyote Two Moon when the race was canceled as I reached mile 84 in March. At the time it seemed important to finish a 100 miler and I wanted to leverage all the training I had already invested so I entered Big Horn. It turned out to be exactly what I needed. A big part of my motivation to run ultras comes from the scenery I am running through. Over the last year and a half without any real plan to do so, I ended up entering many more events than I ever had before. I think training had begun to supersede having fun this year and mentally I didn't feel motivated going into Big Horn. It didn't take long running in scenery like the pictures below to remind me why I love ultrarunning. How many chances will one have to spend a day running in mountains like Big Horn?

 

The Big Horn race is early in the season for a high altitude mountain course and this year the deep snowpack and late spring in the west left the race directors in a scramble to find a workable course. They did an amazing job to find a route that maintained most of the normal course while allowing the volunteers to pack in supplies to the many aid stations needed to supply not just the 100 mile race, but also 50 mile, 50 km and 30 km races. The new course route replaced the final 7.5 miles of the normal course (thus reducing the maximum elevation from 10,000 down to 8,000 ft) with a 7.5 mile out and back section (the lower spur in the picture below) which we did both on the way out and on the way back in. According to the map corrected elevation from my Garmin recording, the course had about 17,000 feet of climbing (see elevation profile below). Prior to running this race, I had considered an out and back course design much less appealing than a loop course, but it actually worked out really well. I reached the 50 mile turnaround point just as it got dark enough to turn on my headlamp so I got to see all of the course in daylight and it was nice during the night to have some familiarity with the course already.

Course route, starting and ending in Dayton, WY

I'm not going to try to give a blow by blow of running the course. As usual my goal was to go out easy, especially for the first big climb which took us from 4000 ft to 7500 ft within the first 10 miles of the start and then try to maintain as steady a pace as possible while taking as much advantage as I could of the downhills. The weather was pretty much perfect except for an intense wind. It seemed that the wind would suck the last bit of oxygen left at altitude away before we could get any on the first climb. The course was perfectly marked so route finding was never a distraction. I tried to maintain a fueling schedule of alternating a gel with either honey stinger chews, lara bars, or honey stinger waffles every 30 minutes but it was only a few hours before everything started tasting too sweet leading me to rely more on gels (still sweet, but easier to get down), perpetuem and turkey/cheese sandwiches whenever the aid stations had them. I got a  big mental boost during the first half of the race when Dan Paquette offered me some unanticipated crew support at Dryfork and Footbridge aid stations. Dan was at the race to pace Seattle speedster Jon Robinson who finished in 4th but before pacing he gave me some great positive mental energy.

 

My favorite section of the course was from about mile 40 where we had our first major descent down to the Little Big Horn River (pictured below). The views down into the canyon were amazing and it was a blast to fly down the hill even knowing we would have to climb back up it later. After crossing the river at the Footbridge aid station we got to run back up the canyon along the other side. The leaders of the race passed me on their way back to the finish line as I headed up the canyon as darkness approached. For some reason I always look forward to night falling during these events--maybe to use the darkness as an excuse to slow down? The cooler night air felt great and I had renewed energy as I started downhill and towards the finish line for the first time. Later during the night the full moon made for a beautiful view. One of the odd things about the race for me was that from mile 40 to the end I hardly saw anyone except for people going the opposite direction. I was surprised when I finished in 25 hr and 10 min or so (the time has changed on the race website results) to find that I was in 14th place.

 

Little Big Horn River

Overall, I cannot recommend this race highly enough. The beauty of the scenery was just stunning and the race was extremely well run. If you don't feel like doing the whole 100 miles, you can always sign up for the 50 mile, 50 km or 30 km events. After finishing, I spent most of the day in Scott Park cheering on finishers and hanging out with the large contingent of Seattle runners who had made the trip out to Wyoming.

Desert whining: Zane Grey 50 miler

I have tried to think of ways to turn this into a positive race report, but I am stuck on whining. Zane Grey just kicked my butt. There's no way to dress it up. Within an hour of starting I was sucking for air and I never felt that I really caught my breath the entire race. About two hours into the race I pulled out of the conga line I was in and forced myself to slow down by taking a pit stop and eating a snack. I thought this would help but it didn't really. I didn't feel terrible at this point, just out of breath. After mulling over the feeling, I realized the last time I had felt like this in an ultra was at Where's Waldo which covers a similar altitude range of 5-7,000 feet. I had been worried about overgrowth on the trail and about the forecast heat, but had not given much thought to the altitude. The discovery that I was wearing my Where's Waldo shirt seemed like a clear curse which I was unable to remedy until I reached the mile 33 aid station and unfortunately changing shirts didn't mitigate the problem at all. To cut a long day down to a few words, I felt on the edge of bonking all day. Slowing down to deal with the altitude may have helped, but then the heat kicked in with a high temperature of about 80 degrees, the rocks pounded my feet all day and I just never got into the zone that usually makes these events so fun. I don't know if was the combination of heat and altitude, or lack of recovery from Coyote Two Moon, or something else but I have decided to write it off as just one of those days.

I had been excited about this event ever since I realized it was held in the same Tonto National Forest that I run in when I visit my in-laws who live east of Phoenix in Gold Canyon at the Peralta Trailhead. I had visions of the Zane Grey trail overgrown with cacti similar to what I have experienced when running from the Peralta trailhead. On our two hour drive north to Payson, the nearest town to the Zane Grey trail, it became clear that those visions were misguided. Not surprisingly given the higher elevations, the cacti had disappeared and the vegetation was a mix of scrub, grass and trees. The trail was established in 1870 and follows along the south edge of the Mogollon rim which provided magnificent views throughout the day like the one below:

View of the Mogollon rim.

View away from the rim to the south.

The trail has the reputation of being difficult to run in part because it is frequently overgrown with manzanita and other scrub that bites back when runners attempt to go through it. An army of volunteers had really outdone themselves this year clearing the trail as you can see in the photo below. Previous finishers should be jealous at how much easier it was this year!

The organization of the event was very low key although very well executed. I was surprised at the low turnout for the pasta dinner the night before--are there excellent restaurants in Payson that no one told us about? The race was unusual in not having any kind of pre-race briefing either the night or morning before the race but the course was exceptionally well-marked which was particularly helpful given the difficulty of following the trail itself which frequently disappeared in dry gullies or grasslands with many overlapping false trails. Fortunately, Francine was able to drive me to the start and pick me up at the finish. The point to point nature of the course was definitely part of the appeal for me, but I was surprised that there was no organized transportation to help solo runners get back to the starting line after the race.

Double click to see detail.

Lots of short climbs.

I can't explain it any better than the FAQ page of the race website:
"No, race management does NOT provide transportation to or from the race. The race is a point-to-point run starting in the town of Pine, finishing in Christopher Creek. If you cannot manage the logistics of either getting there or getting home, do not run this race. There will not be transportation back to Pine provided from the finish."

The volunteers and radio operators kept my spirits up on a difficult day but I'm glad I experienced Zane Grey. I finished in 12hr19min but never felt comfortable running the entire day.

2011 Coyote Two Moon: Omens and portents

The alarm went off at 2am and I jumped out of bed to dress quickly and grab my stuff. I had gone to bed at 8pm and managed to get at least 4 hours of sleep. I had decided not to try to eat anything before the start. I got into the rental car for the 15 minute drive to the start and was cruising between citrus orchards when a bunny jumped out in front of the car at the last minute and with no time to react I winced as I heard it thump under the car. Was this an omen of things to come? I had trained harder for this event than any previous and had even asked to change from the midnight to 3am starting groups--was I going to get run over by the 27,000 feet of climbing?

Coyote two moon bills itself as an event rather than a race. It is certainly the most unique ultramarathon I have participated in due to the mad genius of race director Chris Scott. There are numerous pre-race activities including two dinners, bowling, fun runs, and lunch. One of the most unique characteristics of the race is the staggered start. Instead of starting all or most of the runners together, runners are grouped according to expected finishing times and start in waves ranging from 6pm Friday night and ending with the elites at 10am Saturday morning. The staggered start has several advantages over the traditional format: the trail isn't clogged with runners at the start, you meet the people who are likely to run at your speed prior to the start, you encounter more and more rather than fewer runners as the event progresses, and finally, everyone finishes within a 3-4 hour window on Sunday morning so everyone is together at the end for brunch/awards.

Last year I did the 100K option at Coyote Two Moon as training for my first 100 miler and had a great time so this year I decided to return for the 100 miler. In fact, this was my Christmas present to myself and I won bonus minutes for registering for the event on Christmas Day. There was a blizzard last year and the finish rate was only about 20%. I kept telling people that lightning doesn't strike in the same place twice, so we wouldn't have snow again this year. I don't know if that is just wrong, a bad analogy, or what, but nothing could have turned out to be further from the truth. The forecast prior to the race was rain on both Saturday and Sunday with snow levels down to four or five thousand feet and a National Weather Service Advisory. I had arrived in the area on Tuesday to sunny skies and 70 degree weather so the forecast was hard to believe and by Friday it sounded like the worst of the weather wasn't going to arrive until Sunday after the race was finished.

Finishing the Coyote 100K in 2010 as the sun rises over the remains of the blizzard (Photo by Leslie Gerein)

I think there were 9 of us starting at 3am which gave us 27-31 hours to finish the course in the 6-10am finishing window. Although I really hoped to finish within 30 hours, I was nervous about being in this start group since some of the runners in the group had finished other 100 mile races several hours faster than I. My pacing strategy for this event was to go out a little harder than I had in my previous 100 milers. We walked most of the first 4 mile climb in the darkness and this turned out to be the only time during the race when I could see the moon. I was surprised to meet several groups of people coming down the hill. Apparently there was a whiteout when they climbed Topa Topa, the highest peak of the course at 6300 ft and the combination of snow, wind and low temperatures made them too hypothermic to continue. Apparently the flattened bunny and the frozen runners were not enough of a hint for me to figure out what was coming and we continued climbing.

Map of the route as recorded on my Garmin (the last 3-4 miles were in the car after the race was canceled and I forgot to turn the watch off). Double click on the picture for a better view.

Weather:

To cut to the chase, although the sun rose brightly over Topa Topa as we climbed it in the early morning, the nice weather was not destined to last.

The view from Topa topa looking to the ocean and the Channel Islands.

View overlooking the green Ventura valley.

Topa Topa behind me as I stop at the Topa aid station for the third time.

Shortly after passing Ridge Junction aid station around mile 40, snow flurries started. The flurries didn't last long and I had not really worried about the weather. As I left the Cozy Dell aid station (~mile 65) just after 7pm and turned my headlight on, the rain started. It was so nice to climb out of Cozy Dell without the steep mud slope where I fell and slithered in the mud last year! But the rain became more and more persistent. When I arrived at the top of the ridge, the rain had turned to snow and the whiteout conditions reminded me of last year. I felt a little cold and looked down to realize that my jacket was unzipped because I had been hot climbing up to the ridge top. My fingers had gotten so cold in the few minutes I was on the ridge, that I could not get them to zip the jacket up! I was sure I was going to get pulled from the event at the next aid station (fortunately only two miles away) for being such an idiot and so obviously not prepared for the weather! I was forced to run the entire way including the uphill to stay warm and the wonderful folks at Gridley Top soon had my jacket zipped up and my headlamp batteries changed and I was off to Gridley Bottom. The trip down was uneventful but the rain continued. When I arrived at the aid station I changed into a dry T shirt, put a warm long sleeve shirt on over that, changed into dry socks and then put tights on over my wet shorts. This was more or less what I wore during last year's Coyote Two Moon blizzard and I thought I was set. I started back up for the third and last trip to Gridley Top aid station and made it about halfway when I passed a group of people on their way down who informed me the race was canceled and I needed to turn around and go back down to Gridley Bottom. At first I didn't believe them, but the next group of people got me turned around and headed down. I had made it 84 miles on the course in 22 hours. In retrospect it is funny that I was thinking furiously on the way up of all the reasons why I would be able to make it the 8 miles along the ridge line in the blizzard despite the fact that I was cold at lower elevations and was completely soaked. In particular my gloves were soaked and I don't see how I would have kept them from freezing into a block of ice once I was back in the snow storm. Despite all this, the 100 miler brain fog had me convinced I could run through anything even though in retrospect I don't think I really had the right clothing/gear for the combination of heavy rain alternating with snow and high winds.

After turning around, I had to go about 3 miles back down the mountain to the Gridley Bottom aid station. I felt bad for the people who had made it all the way to the top before being sent back down, but even worse for the volunteers who were stuck on the ridge top for the night. The volunteers at Gridley Bottom quickly got us into cars as they became available and my running adventure was over, 87 miles and 23 hours after it began.

Pacing:

I was worried about my calf going into the race since I had strained it at the Orcas 50K in early February. It held up fine and overall I felt the best ever during a 100 miler. I completed the first 25 miles in 6 hours and the first 50 miles in 12 hours. I knew I wouldn't hold that pace and I think I was on pace to finish in about 26-27 hours if the weather had not turned. I'm not sure the weather slowed me down much except at the aid stations where I definitely needed more time to change into dry/warm clothes. My elevation corrected Garmin showed 26,000 feet of climbing and I still had a a few thousand feet of climbing left, so I am wondering if the course is closer to 28,000 feet than the 27,000 feet quoted on the web site.

Highlights:

Getting to Ojai in time to participate in most of the pre-race activities (bowling, Friday lunch) definitely was a big improvement over arriving Friday evening as I did last year.

Roch Horton leads the group in a sing along at Friday lunch.

The climb up Topa Topa at sunrise with the light glistening on the ice coating everything definitely made the climb worthwhile and convinced me that the 3am start was the right choice (it still would have been dark going up Topa if I had started at midnight).

Magical views from Topa Topa shortly after sunrise.

Seeing Jeff Browning bombing down towards Cozy Dell with Justin Angle in pursuit was amazing. Browning is an animal! I had thought I was going fast enough that the fastest runners wouldn't catch up to me (despite the 7 hour head start I had) but as with so much of my thinking during the race, this idea was wrong and it would not have been long before I was passed by the elites. Last year I learned to trust Chris Scott when he decided not to cancel the race during a blizzard and this year I am sure that he made the right decision to pull the plug. Despite my confidence in the decision, it does leave a feeling of unfinished business. I will be back to Coyote Two Moon, and I may have to sign up for another 100 this summer. Big Horn anyone?

The happy crew at Gridley Top station an hour or two before darkness and the storm hit. So was the bunny flattened by my car a warning for these volunteers? Or a sign that the race was not going to make it?