Smith Creek loop hike

We are still in our Spartan training, even though we just finished the Seattle Super over the last weekend. We have several more in our horizon this year. In a couple of week's we will be going to Montana for the Beast/Sprint races. My husband and I will both be doing the Beast and he'll be doing the Sprint the next day.

We wanted to get an "up" hill hike in today, so we chose Smith creek. We parked at the North Lake Whatcom trail head parking lot and as we were preparing for our hike, several cars pulled into the lot. I began to recognize several of them as people I had hiked with when I hiked with the Senior Trailblazers. Sure enough they were the Button Walkers! After some fun visiting we went our separate ways. They were going to walk along the lake on the Hertz trail while we made our way up to the power lines.

We started at the trail head that is now marked "Chanterelle Trail", we used to call it Cub creek. A few years ago we began calling it Smith creek, we still call it Smith Creek even though the new section of the trail begins here now too.

We saw a couple of trinkets in trees along the trail, this one was the cutest, but I have an issue with people that do this. I wish they wouldn't leave "trinkets, painted rocks" etc. in the forests. O.K. end of rant.

We followed the trail to where it junctions. We then took the mountain bike trail that headed left and planned to come down the new trail on our return.

My first Trillium spotting of the year. Not quite open but so pretty,

We had a couple downed trees to crawl over, this one had a nice step notched out of it.

After marching up the very steep bike trail - I definitely had to use my mountain goat feet in some of the straight up sections, we made our way up to the power lines. We walked up the road a bit farther before we had lunch.

We saw some patches of snow still here and there.

Looking back to see where we had come from. To the right of the tower there is a small trail coming out of the forest, that's where we came out from the mountain bike trail.

After our road walk we went on another trail and joined it, the "Tower trail".

We sat under the power lines and had a great view.

My husband brought our backpacking stove and made Chili, boy did it taste good!

It felt so good to laze around in the sun before we headed back down.

We hiked back out the Tower trail and joined the road. We walked along the road until we found the Smith creek trail. When we got to the Chanterelle viewpoint we stopped for a snack and water break and enjoyed the views.

Now it was time for us to follow the "new trail" (some of it follows the trail that was already there, but there are some newly routed sections).

We saw some signs of spring as we descended:

Many more Trillium, yellow flowers (I don't know their names), and lots of baby ferns just coming up.

We got the "up" we wanted, plus some solar warmth from that strange yellow orb in the sky along with signs of spring what more could you ask for?!?!?

Relive video of our route -

https://youtu.be/jK05u7L70IM

Garmin stats:

total miles hiked - 9.6 miles

total ascent - 2539

Seattle Spartan Race 2018 results

We drove to Monroe, Washington Saturday for the "Seattle" Super Spartan race - it's advertised as  as 8+ miles, 24 - 29 obstacles.

I always get excited when I see the first sign approaching the event. The traffic was backed up at this point, it was slow going to the venue. Stop and go all the way. Quite a ways from the race site at the Meadowood Equestrian Center.

We found out later that the delay was because the field where we park was very wet from all of the rain we've had lately and it was causing some issues when they parked everyone. Leaving was another issue, lots of people stuck and had to be pushed or towed out. 

Great fun!

Since we were delayed so long in traffic we were lucky to be ready at our start time of 9:15am. Registration and bag check went quickly so there we were, ready for our first Spartan race of the year with 10 minutes to spare.

Here's the course map, with a list of the obstacles. The Blue line is the Super course, the Red line is the Sprint course and the Orange line is the kids course.

The course was very wet and muddy in places. We had several barbwire crawls and one was especially long and full of water. I loved it. I dressed correctly for the day. I have some Merino wool long-johns, which I wore under my clothing. I stayed comfortable most of the time, my hands only got cold after trying the rope climb. They quickly warmed up while I was doing my burpees for failing that obstacle. 

I did better in the Super this year compared to ones I've done in the past. I didn't have any difficulty with the Slip wall. I ran more that I have in any Spartan race I've ever done. Last year at this venue I did it in 6 hrs. and 12 minutes, this year I finished in 4 hrs. 25 minutes. Quite abit faster. The courses are pretty much the same distance from year to year,  but never the same route and the obstacles are typically in different places so it's hard to gauge an exact comparison, but this was substantial improvement for me. Besides improving in time, I was also able to throw my Spear straighter, I still missed but this was the best I've done so far. I also made it up the rope climb about 6 feet. The rope was really wet and slick, so I was pretty excited about my effort.

Here are some photos from the day, courtesy of my brother and my dad - Thank you for coming and encouraging us and "bonus" taking pictures.

I was very happy after the Hercules hoist. I got to help a woman who had never done it before, so that she wouldn't have to do burpees. I sat her down and showed her how to do it. No burpees for her!

Spear throw

My husband rarely misses his Spear throw. He helped me with some of my 30 penalty burpees.

We have a tire at the gym where we work out at, and I was pleasantly surprised that this tire was lighter than the one I flip at the gym. Up and over - twice!

A frame cargo climb

Atlas carry

Our "Official" Spartan photos. We didn't get any from other obstacles, probably because the weather wasn't great for photographing with big expensive cameras:

Sand bag carry

It's always wonderful when we get to the fire jump!

Proud of my efforts for the Super this year.

We drove home, in the rain - of course!

Total miles - 9.07

29 Obstacles counting the start wall

Ascent - 1175 feet

My husband did the Sprint the next day, about 4.4 miles and 23 obstacles. Since I was spectating Sunday I brought the proper foot wear for the venue -

The weather and the parking was better on Sunday. They opted to park us all along the roads, pick up trucks and 4 wheel drive vehicles were parked in the field. 

Bag check -in for his day 2

Some of the photos from his day:

The start wall

Hercules Hoist

I found a heart rock on the path near the Hercules Hoist!

Spear throw

The Bridge (he's at the top, getting ready to cross)

An "official" photo:

Finished!

*Our daughter and her husband did the Super on Saturday also, and then came back and did the Sprint on Sunday with their middle daughter. This was her first year to qualify for the "adult" race. While they were doing their "Sprint" I helped their youngest get to her "kids" race on time. Timing wise it turned out pretty good. I missed getting to watch my husband do his fire jump finish, but she finished her kids race just on time for us to walk over to the fire jump and watch her sister, mom and dad finish!

We came, and we Conquered. 

Aroo!

WE ARE SPARTANS!