Picture of the week ~ flags of many colors

Picture of the week ~ At the end of the day?

Picture of the week ~ To be a kid again

Alternate Incline trail run

When I went to bed Saturday night I thought we were all set to run the North Lake Whatcom trail for our Sunday - fun day outing, but when my husband laid out our Happy Trails Chuckanut Mountains map on the dining room table Sunday morning I knew he had other plans.

We have signed up for two road races this spring besides the Montana Spartan race in May. In April we'll do the Whidbey Island half marathon & in June we'll do the NODM (North Olympic Discovery marathon). We'll be in the walking division for the marathon, we'll be walk/running the event. I'm too slow to make the running cut off time. The walk cut off time is 7 1/2 hours, hopefully I'll be able to complete it in that amount of time. My husband will be doing all 3 races with me.

Sunday morning we drove to the Blanchard Hill trail head off of Barrel Springs road to begin our run. We started walking up the road to get to the Alternate Incline trail head, as I have mentioned before I use the walk/run method for my training. I've found it works the best for me.

We came to the trail head after about 1 mile. Then we began running UP. We ran as long as we could then walked till we caught our breath. We did this until we reached the trail junction sign.

We took a left on the Lizard/Lily lakes connector trail and ran for about 1/4 of a mile to add a little more distance to what we thought we'd go for the day. The trail was beautiful with moss, ferns, mushrooms and huckleberry bushes lining it. We then returned to the junction and followed alongside Lizard Lake. We tried to go right along the shore for a short distance but there really wasn't a trail so we went up a short distance through the brush and over a few downed trees to join the real trail. We then continued on to the British Army trail running as much as we could and only walking to catch our breath or manage our way down some tricky areas.

The British Army trail connects to a logging road that takes you down to the trail head parking lot. We ran around 4 miles on the logging road to the first parking lot. It was a bit tricky because of the size of rocks used on the road. They are larger than the usual logging road gravel and we couldn't look around much because we were trying to finish without spraining an ankle.

We have switched to Hoka running shoes and boy was I glad I had them on, the extra cushioning really helped on those rocks.

The road was covered with Big Leaf Maple leaves. I took a picture with my feet to show how large the leaves were. I wear a size 8 shoe.

When we got to the parking lot my husband stopped where our car was parked. He had completed 8.35 miles. I continued running to the lower parking lot, he drove down and picked me up. My total was 9.55 miles. 

A very good day on the trails with my training partner.

Endomondo stats:

9.55 total miles

Maximum altitude - 1991 feet

Minimum altitude - 643 feet

Total ascent - 1307 feet

Total descent - 1618 feet (farther down because I continued past our starting point)

Picture of the week ~ Kayak from a kit

We stopped by Frank & Marjan's to see the progress on her kayak.

Fragrance Lake Trailblazer hike

 The weather has turned & Artist point road is closed.

No more to the mountains we'll go, it's the lowland hikes for us till spring.

14 of us joined together for today's hike to Fragrance lake. We carpooled up the Hiline/Cleator road to begin from the Two dollar trailhead. We did this hike in February of last year, you can read that post HERE.

It was the perfect weather for a hike, not too cold and not too hot. Just a slight misty fog as we began.

I really liked the picture below, it really captured what the hike was like to me.


There were still a few leaves on the ground for us to enjoy as we walked along in the forest.

We walked until we got to the lake and then stopped for our lunch. The reflections are usually really nice along the lake and we weren't disappointed today.

As we hiked out I happened to look up and saw this wonderful view.
I love our lowland forest hikes, it seemed the forest was welcoming us back after our summer away.

Leaves
by Elsie N. Brady
How Silently they tumble down
and come to rest upon the ground
To lay a carpet, rich and rare,
Beneath the trees without a care.
Content to sleep their work well done
Colors gleaming in the sun.
At other times, they wildly fly
Until they nearly reach the sky.
Twisting, turning through the air
Till all the trees stand stark and bare.
Exhausted, drop to the earth below
To wait, like children, for the snow.

Endomondo stats:
Total miles hiked - 4.79 miles
Minimum altitude - 591 feet
Maximum altitude - 1121 feet
Total ascent - 958 feet
 Total descent - 956 feet