Distance / Elevation

It was smoky, hot, and without a breeze on Mt Margaret today. Just when it seemed like a good time to pat ourselves on the back for toughing it out... along came the ultra distance runners.

The Bigfoot 200 is an annual 206.5 mile race (with 42,000 feet of elevation gain) that starts at Mt Saint Helens and finishes in Randle, WA. Most participants complete the course in 4.5 days or less. I looked it up afterwards, and you can actually track the runners in real time. They are 38 hours in right now and it looks like most of them are resting for a few hours between the 75 and 125 mile markers (a couple of the leaders are running by headlamp over extremely uneven terrain!). By the time you read this, the guy in the lead may already be finished if he keeps ups his current pace.

Talk about tough!

After two weekends sans adventures, we finally broke our streak with a hike that brought us up into the subalpine zone of Mt Saint Helens.

Saturday was a clear, hot day and the mountain had very little snow on it. Above treeline, we hiked in a mixture of what I can only describe as talcum powder and volcanic rocks, scrambling up and down powdery gullies and trying not to trigger significant rock slides. The exposure to the sun left us feeling quite parched, and our hope was to camp near a stream marked by my GPS. Unfortunately, the stream had been long dry, and there was no sign of water anywhere around us. I consulted my GPS and we made an emergency detour towards the Toutle River. When we finally spotted it, we'd hiked about nine or ten miles without water access. We clamored down the boulder-laden, powdered sugar slopes with the help of some anchored ropes, and filled our empty reservoirs. That evening, we made camp on a cliff looking out over the water and slept with only half of the rain fly covering us so that we could look at the stars -- the first time we've done that this summer.

Kudos to Joanna for the shot of me jumping over the Toutle River.