British Army trail hike

Today we decided to hike the British Army trail on Blanchard mountain. I'm glad my husband studies the trail maps before we go on these hikes because I'm sure I wouldn't have found the trail as it connects from the gated logging road we followed at the start of our hike. We started from the upper trailhead parking lot off of Barrel Springs road. After walking about 1 mile we came to the Alternate incline trailhead, but we marched on past it and continued up the road.

A view of Samish lake in the distance.

3 1/2 miles of gravel road walking from the parking lot brought us to the British Army trailhead. If you look on the rock on the lower left section of the photo below you'll see a rock with a white trail blaze painted on it. That was our route.

The British Army trail is part of the PNT (Pacific Northwest Trail). There was a plethora of blazes on the trees along the trail. You can read about the formation of the PNT trail and why we have a trail named "the British Army trail" on Blanchard mountain here in this article - http://www.pnt.org/who-we-are/history/. 

I took a screen shot of the sections of the PNT trail from the Pacific Northwest trail association website, so you could see the states/sections included in the PNT trail. You can read more at their site HERE.

The British Army trail

A little friend crossing the trail.

Trillium!

A face in the forest.

"Many" Turkey tails on this fallen log,

We stopped at the North end of Lizard lake for our lunch. We had a wonderful few minutes of sun to warm us while we ate.

Then it was back on the trail, we walked along the west side of Lizard lake before connecting with the Lily/Lizard lake trail.

Another face in the forest.

We choose to return via Max's shortcut, the Larry Reed trail, and finally the Lily lake trail which took us back to the upper trailhead parking lot.

I thoroughly enjoyed our day on Blanchard mountain.

Max's shortcut

Garmin stats:

total miles hiked - 10.05 miles

minimum altitude - 821 feet

maximum altitude - 2087 feet

total ascent - 1585 feet

total descent - 1667 feet

Port of Skagit Nature trail run

We decided to skip the hills and head for the flat land today, for our run. My husband and I have only 2 more weeks of training till our Spartan Race event(s). We have been training for the upcoming Seattle races. I'm doing the Super on Saturday the 22nd and he'll be doing the Super with me and the Sprint on Sunday the 23rd. 

We went and watched my dad run the Tulip run yesterday. He is 84 and placed 1st in his age group, 80 and up. 

Way to go Dad!

We've gone down to root for my dad on this course before, but we'd never run the trails. The trails are part of the Skagit Port Nature trail system. You can click HERE to check out the map. There are several map signs along the trail. It's a nice flat trail system with park benches and port a potties along the way.

If you look on the gravel trail in the photo below you'll see that the chalk arrow from yesterday's race is still visible.

My favorite section of the trail, was the "northern" loop. I think I need to go back and run it when the trees have leaves.

Northern loop trail

A bonus for me, a little library was spotted along the trail!

I found out that the Southeast parking lot (where the little library is located) is the start of the Burlington story trail. There were signs along the way encouraging children to read. 

You can read the Port of Skagit's article about it's ribbon cutting ceremony HERE. I really enjoyed that section of the trail. 

Fun day in the Sun!

Garmin stats:

total miles ran - 8.1

minimum altitude - 25 feet

maximum altitude - 173 feet

total ascent - 226 feet

total descent - 390 feet