Descending to Beaver Brook, with the hills getting higher around me:
Climbing up from Beaver Brook on the west end of the trail is the toughest part of the route, especially heading east, where the slope often slows me to a hike. It's "only" 1,200 feet, but it seems to go on forever.
Hey look, a riderless horse wandering around on the trail! Perfectly logical.
Actually three horses, with a couple of hikers behind them, who had nothing to do with the horses. A hiker was walking right behind the last one, and I mentioned that might not be a good idea. The horses were in the public open space grazing.
Trail is at lower left:
The east end of the trail has some precarious ledges and one-rock scrambles. Good fun.
On the way up to the east end of the trail, I was focused on climbing without slowing down much. Hiked the rocks, but ran what I could. I was winded by the time I reached the road and the Lookout Mountain Nature Center at around 9.2 miles and 2:20. I ran the trail in this direction (starting on the west end) so I could fill up the bottles half way. I ate some Clif Bloks as I walked back to the trailhead, and I headed back down.
Hey look, cows in the woods:
A couple of times I heard noise in the forest that got my attention, and it just turned out to be a cow.
At this point the sun was low enough that large parts of the trail were now in shadow, and it was noticeably cooler. Time for the arm sleeves. As long as I kept running, that was good enough, and the occasional spots of sunlight helped.
This is heading west on the last major descent, down to Beaver Brook:
I saw a bright white ball in the woods, and when I realized it was a puffball mushroom, I had to go down and take a picture. That's a pretty good-sized specimen:
The final 900-foot ascent is a bit of a kick in the teeth, but the slope is gentle and runnable, except for a couple of spots. One of them is the final bit up to the parking lot. With 1/2 mile to go, I noticed I was at 4:50, so I ground it out to stay under 5:00.
Distance was 19.35 miles, time 4:57 (moving 4:12), elevation gain/loss 5,094 feet, avg. pace 15:24 (moving 13:03), and best pace ~7:30.
