From a hike on the Ritchey Canyon and Redwood Trails in Bothe-Napa Valley State Park. The hike was one of several before-the-wedding activities arranged by Amanda & Brett. (Yep, there was also a trail run.)

Here's a PDF version of the park brochure & trail map.

We'd just arrived in Calistoga for Amanda & Brett's wedding, and I was looking through the "where's the ice machine" info provided by the B & B. A couple pages down, past the wineries and restaurants was a list of local hiking trails. What better way to work off the torpor of I-5 than to do a trail run?

The trailhead for the Oat Hill Mine Trail was just a half-mile away and in a few minutes I was jogging north on Hwy 29 toward Silverado Trail road. I had about two hours before I needed to be back. The sun would be setting in a couple of hours anyway, so I could run up the trail about 75 minutes before turning around.

Other than the brief description in the B & B info, I had not researched the trail. It looked like it worked up the east side of a ridge through oak, pine and fir toward some volcanic outcrops. On a hot day the trail would be brutal. This afternoon the temperature was around eighty, and in the long shadows of the ridge, it was relatively cool and shady.

Since it follows an old mine cart road, the grade of the trail is generally not too steep and is very runnable. It's rough and rocky in places, but most trails I run are rough and rocky in places. Heads up - the trail appears to be multi-use. Judging from the bear scat there are some bears (and other animal life) in the area as well.

Low on the trail there were oak and pine framed views of the vineyards north of Silverado Trail, and higher up nice views of Napa Valley.

I could have pushed it a little further up the trail, but the natural spot to turn around was the top of Bald Hill. A short use trail leads to the top from the saddle northeast of the hill. Oddly shaped fingers and pinnacles of weathered volcanic rock (andesite) form its summit.

The volcanic bluffs known as the Palisades encompass much of the view to the North. To the northwest is Mt. St. Helena, abutting the west end of the Table Rock-Palisades escarpment. To the west is Napa Valley, and in the distance, the coast near Bodega Bay.

The Oat Hill Mine Trail page of the Napa County Regional Park and Open Space District web site has more info about the trail, including a PDF brochure, trail map and a self-guided tour of the geology along the trail. The round-trip length of the run from near Brannan & Lincoln in Calistoga was a little under eight miles, with an elevation gain loss of about 1500'. From the trailhead it's about a mile less.

With a car shuttle, the approximately 11 mile route linking the Table Rock, Palisades, and Oat Hill Mine trails looks like it would be an outstanding trail run. The Table Rock trailhead is about 8 miles north of Calistoga on Hwy 29. Next time!

A hiker contemplates the day from the front steps of Mt. Baldy's San Antonio Ski Hut.

From Sunday's Back to Baldy trail run.

Today was the first chance I'd had to get back to Mt. Baldy since the Run to the Top was called 45 minutes into the race on Labor Day. Thunderstorms were the problem that day, but not today. The waning moon was the only blotch of white in the cloudless sky, and it wasn't going to cause any weather problems.

Part one of the plan for today's run/hike was to do a "run to the top" of Baldy using the ski hut trail. That would help make up for the incomplete race on Labor Day. Part two was to do some peakbagging and climb West Baldy, Mt. Harwood, Thunder Mountain and Telegraph Peak. Relatively close together, these peaks can be done as part of an 18 mile adventure, with an elevation gain and loss of about 6000'.

Climbing Baldy via the ski hut trail is about three miles shorter than the Run to the Top route via the Notch, but takes me about the same amount of time. Ultimately it's the rate of climb that can be sustained that determines your speed up the peak, and the elevation gain by either route is about 3900'. The ski hut trail can be busy, but I enjoy climbing the peak by this route. The tradeoff is that it is steeper and is less runnable.

Without some weather to stir things up, the views from the summit of Mt. Baldy were a little hazy, but San Gorgonio and San Jacinto could still be seen off to the east, Saddleback to the south, and Mt. Baden-Powell and other peaks of the San Gabriels to the northwest. I could also see Telegraph Peak sitting behind Thunder Mountain, and wondered how the trail between them was going to be.

After doing the half-mile jog over to West Baldy, I returned to the summit of Baldy and descended to the Baldy-Harwood saddle. Mt. Harwood is another one of those peaks I've run past many times. Harwood sees far fewer ascents than Baldy, but enough so that a path has developed from the Baldy-Harwood saddle up its broad west ridge. Today, save a a red-tailed hawk cruising by, its summit was empty.

Continuing along Harwood's elongated summit, I began to work down the peak's east ridge, staying on its crest. The east ridge is steeper and much less traveled than the west ridge. It is an extension of the Devil's Backbone and its north side is a steep, crumbly precipice that drops more than 3000' to Stockton Flat. The views along the ridge are excellent, but some care is required.

The east ridge of Mt. Harwood rejoined the trail at the Devil's Backbone. From there it took about 15-20 minutes to run down to (just above) the Notch and start up the service road that leads past the new snow making reservoir to the top of Thunder Mountain. I'd been to the top of Thunder several times and by several means -- by ski lift, by mountain bike, and by foot during the Baldy Peaks 50K. In that race Thunder had been the final challenge after climbing Mt. Baldy twice -- once from the village and once from Manker Flat.

Maybe because of pushing the pace on the ski hut trail, I was pretty worked going up the road to Thunder, and wondered if I was going to be able to make it to Telegraph Peak before my loosely set turnaround time of noon. I'd hoped to get back down to the car and on the road by around 1:30 pm, and felt like I was running a little behind.

But Telegraph is a compelling peak, particularly when viewed from the northwest, and from Thunder Mountain it only took about 30 minutes on the Three Tee's Trail to get to its summit. In another 30 minutes I was back at Thunder Mountain, and looking forward to the five miles of downhill that would take me back to the car.

Related post: Mt. Baldy Run (Part Way) to the Top 2011

A run or hike doesn't have to be long or difficult to be enjoyable! It had been a while since I'd done San Gabriel Peak, Mt. Markham, and Mt. Lowe; and although I'd run within a quarter-mile of the summit of Mt. Disappointment several times, I'd never done the last bit up to the peak. All four of these peaks can be done in a (round trip) run/hike of less than ten miles, with a cumulative elevation gain/loss of around 3000'.

Somewhere around the junction of the 210 and 605 I saw a flash of lightning to the south. As if the flash had been a warning, a gust of wind buffeted my car, and a blizzard of dust and debris blew across the freeway. Then it started to rain. Not good -- especially when you're on your way to a race that ends on top of a 10,000' mountain.

The Cottonwood Pass - New Army Pass loop is a longtime favorite that I try to do at least once a year. There's nothing quite like running at 11,000' through a forest of gnarled foxtail pines -- some perhaps a thousand years old -- then working up a glacier sculpted basin to one of the higher passes on the Sierra crest.

The trail run is the closest high altitude loop to Los Angeles that is almost entirely over 10,000'. Although its 21 mile length and 3400 'elevation gain/loss appear relatively moderate from an ultrarunning perspective, keep in mind it is a high mountain run that reaches an elevation of 12,300', and includes 12 miles that are over 11,000'. Nearly three miles are above tree line. It's kind of like driving to the top of Mt. Baldy and then starting your run from there.

This year a record-setting snowpack pushed back the date the loop could be done (as a trail run) to late July. I'd hoped to do it two weeks before the Mt. Disappointment 50K, but thunderstorms and flash floods quashed that plan. The next opportunity to do the loop was on Saturday, but once again thunderstorms were in the forecast.

A look at the SWFRS Bald Mountain #5 web cam midday Saturday confirmed the sketchy weather. The camera showed developing clouds from Olancha Peak on the south to New Army Pass, Mt. Langley and Mt. Whitney on the north. We wanted to enjoy the run in short-sleeves and shorts, so postponed the run to today.

And today the weather was perfect! A plus was that Saturday's rain had dampened the sometimes sandy and dusty trails, improving their condition and refreshing the landscape.

One of the interesting aspects of the run was that patches of snow remained from last Winter's heavy snowpack. Not only were there patches of snow on New Army Pass, and elsewhere above 12,000', but there was snow in lower, more exposed locations such as on the southeast-facing slopes above Chicken Spring Lake. Much of this high altitude snow will carryover into this Winter.

Here's a Google Earth browser view and elevation profile of a GPS trace of the loop. The view can be zoomed, tilted, panned, etc. Additional info, a slide show, and more photos are available in previous posts about this loop.

Some related posts: Cottonwood - New Army Pass Trail Run, Cottonwood - New Army Pass Loop, Mt. Langley in a Day from L.A., Climate Change and the Southern Foxtail Pine

The two most showy wildflowers we saw on our run in the Marin Headlands last weekend were montbretia (above) and belladonna lily. Both are escapees from cultivation that originated from the Cape of South Africa.

Montbretia (Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora) is a garden hybrid developed in France in 1879 from two South African species. In California it is most commonly found along the coast from Santa Cruz County, northward. Belladonna lily (Amaryllis belladonna) is widely cultivated and has been reported in numerous California counties, primarily along the coast.

Andy Goldsworthy's Presidio forest sculpture Wood Line.

Running along Coyote Ridge in the Marin Headlands.

NPS maps of the Marin Headlands and the Presidio can be downloaded from the NPS Golden Gate National Recreation Area Maps page.

It was great to be cold. Cold instead of hot. Wishing I had gloves. The wind, chill and mist. So different than chugging up Edison Road...

Runners on Edison Road During a Recent Training Run

No matter if you run at the front, middle, or back of the pack, there's the race you plan, and the race you run.

Based on the course info, it looked like the 7th edition of the Mt. Disappointment 50K was going to be more difficult than in 2009 and 2010, adding both mileage and elevation gain. Because of the closure of Mueller Tunnel and the damage done by the Station Fire and subsequent floods, we still wouldn't be running up and over the shoulder of Mt. Disappointment, or down to Clear Creek and around Strawberry Peak, but the 2011 course would make up for that with its own very memorable sections.

To try and cope with the difficulties of the course, I'd put in extra miles and done more back to back Saturday-Sunday runs. But in one of those uh-oh moments a couple of miles into the race, I could feel in my legs that I was probably going to need to adjust my expectations. I wasn't injured. I wasn't getting over a cold or flu. My stomach wasn't upset. I felt pretty good. But there was this nagging bit of fatigue in my legs...

The new wrinkle for 2011 was that we turned off Mt. Wilson Road half-way to Red Box and ran down the Valley Forge Trail. In a training run a few weeks before the race, the Valley Forge Trail had been an obstacle course overgrown with Turricula. Trail work by Hilliard, Rowlan & Company had restored the trail, and today it was in great shape. Here's an interactive Google Earth browser view of the 2011 course and the courses in previous years, and an elevation profile of the 2011 course.

At the bottom of the Valley Forge we turned onto the Gabrieleno Trail, and started up the canyon of the West Fork toward Red Box-Rincon Road. The change in grade from level to uphill confirmed it. I stepped aside so two running friends could pass. Maybe it was a tapering or over-training issue, or maybe it was just "one of those days." Whatever, the legs were just not cooperating. 

The irony is, this was probably a good thing. The day turned out to be the hottest of any Mt. Disappointment race to date. The lurking leg fatigue forced me to not push the pace, which made dealing with the temperature easier.

And hot it was! The forecast had looked decent just two days before the race, but Friday temperatures exploded in the mountains, jumping 10-12 degrees in 24 hours. The hot temps on Friday carried over into Saturday, making race day just that much warmer. 

Here are the race day temperatures at Clear Creek and Chilao for 2005-2011, and Mt. Wilson for 2009-2011. And these temps are the temperature off the ground and in the shade! A better indication of the temperature in the sun  is the "fuel temperature." This is the temperature of a ponderosa pine dowel in direct sun. Here are plots of the race day fuel temperature at Clear Creek and Chilao for 2005-2011.

Because I wasn't pushing the pace I didn't hesitate to take a little extra time at aid stations. I can still feel that ice cold sponge on the back of my neck, and the cold water running down my back. This year there were numerous small stream crossings, and I think there was at least one small stream between every aid station. This was "free" cooling, and I paused a dozen times to dump water over my head. Thanks to the West Fork San Gabriel River, I was soaked from head to toe for the first steep, sun-baked section of Edison Road. This was also the case on the Silver Moccasin Trail in Shortcut Canyon and on part of Kenyon Devore.

Hot day or not there were some remarkable performances. Heather Fuhr was not only was the first place woman, she was fourth overall and set a new women's course record of 5:07:11. Perennial favorite Jorge Pacheco sped through the tough Mt. Disappointment course in 4:46:29, winning the overall and setting a new course record in the Men's 40-49 Division.

Once again the event was superbly organized by race director Gary Hilliard and the Mt. Disappointment 50K Staff, with the help of an extraordinary group of volunteers, runners, SAR personnel and sponsors. Thank you!

Related post: Mt. Disappointment 50K 2010 Notes