I'm not going to talk routes and mileage, because sometimes I just want to do what I do, without judgment pro or con. Let's just say I ran some, hiked some, and it was hard.
I will say that it's dry right now up there, so don't rely on streams for water. My plan was to go from campground water pump to pump, and it worked out OK. But if one had been dry, I'd have been in trouble. It was hot on Wednesday.
What you can't see is me getting lost a lot, to the tune of about 4 miles (that's both for water, and for wrong turns). I remember reading about Nick Clark doing that during the 2011 Dirty Thirty. The trails are a cluster in some places, and the map is just plain wrong sometimes. I remember being at a 4-way on the the map, and it said "You are here" and there were 3 trails. Huh?
And the campgrounds on the north don't have signage to tell you where the trails are. Was it removed/vandalized?
But hey, on balance the park is seriously beautiful.
Although the trip up Windy Peak is sadistic and should be against the Geneva Convention. Instead of just going right up the mountain, you circle around the back until you've made almost a 360 turn as viewed from below.
I was nauseous and dizzy by the time I topped out on Windy. Kind of like my trip up Pawnee, I'm not sure if I had enough water or food. Dunno.
Markers left over from the race:
The section coming back down to Nott's was awesome, a nice ridge run with huge views of pine-covered mountains on the right. Wow. Nice end to the day, and I was whooping it up.
I can't believe any human being can run almost every trail in this park in under 5 hours. You people are amazing.
