Imagine a drippy Saturday morning in Oregon. The temp hovers at 50 °F. A forest with trees as big as 5 ft. in diameter. Spanish moss cascading from winter barren branches. Weak sunshine filtering through the clouds, brightening already vivid woody colors and deafening the sounds of our footfalls.
Footfalls? Running... After a home-made vanilla latte at Cafe Petro (more on this someday), Blair and I hopped into the Beeper for its first off-road experience and the 20-minute drive up Woods Creek Rd. to the base of the Northridge Trail. To local mountain bikers, the Northridge Trail is the holy grail, the nemesis, the scene of major whammies, and the source of their best stories. But on this fine morning, we saw no tire treads, barely any footfalls, and heard only the soft drumming of a misting on the branches and leaves far above our heads.
We started out on fire road 2005 heading towards Conner's Camp, passing through the closed gate, we encountered a single track off to our left. We followed this for a bit before it wound back around to the road. Figuring this was where we were supposed to be (running uphill), we turned left on the road again and continued along for a half mile. Something didn't seem right to me at this point (I thought we should be on single track). So, at a flagged tree, Blair and I turned into the woods along a game trail.. a narrow, sometimes non-existant scramble through underbrush, over downed trees, and across creek beds. We ran/climbed/scampered like this for a few minutes... I'm sure Blair was wondering where on Earth we were going. But, I was in charge of the show, the gal with the plan, and he said he was there to follow me. That's a lot of responsibility. Fortunately, I have a natural sense of where I am supposed to be, and before either of us had a chance to question if this was the right thing to do, we stumbled onto the Northridge Trail.
We again turned uphill... and ran for 45-minutes up the single track. It wasn't a "straight-up", but more of a gentle climb along the contours of the mountain. The air got wetter. We ran through pockets of warm air. Occasionally, we had to slow to climb over downed trees, navigate cascading tree roots, and twinkle-toe through rock gardens. And up, and up. For four miles. But it never seemed like too much and we didn't encounter anybody on the trail. At some points, I was running holding my breath as the trail came precipitously close to tossing us down the nearly sheer slopes.
The pace and the not super uphillness gave us a chance to talk. So, as we ran, Blair and I talked about the Beaver Freezer (OSU's annual fundraising triathlon), yoga, Haiti, cooking (he makes tapioca rice pudding by the gallon and I make chicken soup by the gallon), racing as a professional triathlete, and movies. Sometimes, we didn't talk at all, just breathed and ran.
At long last we reached the top of Mary's...at 4,097 feet, it is the highest point in Oregon’s Coast Range and the most prominent peak to the west of Corvallis. In the woods, we were shielded from the weather. At the top, out in the open, it was colder, rainier, and windier, and we were glad when the trail crossed the parking lot and dipped back into the woods. We had taken the short-cut to the top and planned to run down the East Ridge Trail, taking the Tie Trail back to Northridge. However, crossing the parking lot at the top proved difficult as the clouds shrouded one end from the other. We couldn't see more than 50 ft to where we were going, but after a minute or two running the perimeter, we picked up the trail again and started heading down... so we thought.
It was glorifyingly down hill, and we readjusted the hip flexors and quad muscles for the descent. At the junction with the Tie Trail, we encountered our first people of the day. I was focusing more on my footing, calling out my customary greeting to the hikers "Hi, how are you?!" One hiker called out, "Great, have a good rest of your run, Sunny". Which caused me to nearly fall off the trail. I came to a stop and recognized Mel and Eric, a couple from my cycling team, Pacific Power/Blue Sky. We exchanged a few words, not wanting to let the blood cool to much, Blair and I headed back down the trail quickly. A couple of strides in, he comments... "we've met six people total in 7 miles and you know two of them." What can I say? Most of the people I call friends are active. Stands to reason I would see them out on a cold raining day ascending the highest mountain in coastal range. ;-)
At this point, we thought the trail was all downhill. Wrong. Be prepared, you will run about a 3/4 miles more uphill to meet the junction with Northridge. That was the only part of the whole run that was grueling. After that, we bounded, ran, leaped our way down the switchbacks back to the car. The caffeine had long ago been replaced by adrenaline. We found the trail head that we should have used to avoid our bushwacking (turn right on the fire road from the other trail, proceed 9.2 ft). The real single-track came out 100 yds from the Beeper, and then end of our off-road rave run.
Epic.
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