Sunday, October 24, 2010

Seattle Weekend

I flew back to Seattle for Dawg Dash weekend, and Waffle Fest.


  • Hike


  • But first, I met up with my friend Carrie for a hike. We mailed back and forth setting it up: I definitely wanted to hike, but I wasn't sure of any good routes, since it had been quite some time since I moved away. We settled on 6-8 miles with ~2000 foot elevation gain, which sounded reasonable. She brought more friends and we drove out to the Teanaway forest area to hike to Navajo Peak.


    IMG_0076
    Originally uploaded by klbarrus
    These three are serious hikers!


    What we wound up doing was 13 miles and ~4500 foot elevation. Carrie is a strong hiker - I think she goes every weekend all year long, sometimes both days - and perhaps overestimated my hiking fitness in her ambition to summit, and probably didn't measure the route too carefully. ;) It was a tough hike, and I was dragging a bit by the end.


    IMG_0092
    Originally uploaded by klbarrus
    Navajo pass. The summit is another ~1200 feet up.


    The view at the top of the pass was spectacular, and worth the hike. I was ready to turn around at this point, roughly 5.0 miles in with ~3200 feet of gain - that would have been enough for me. But Carrie wanted to summit Navajo peak, and it was "only" another 1.5 miles and ~1200 feet... so we headed up. It was snowing at the top, so the view wasn't too good. Despite how tough the hike was (for me at least), it did feel good to reach the summit.


    IMG_0101
    Originally uploaded by klbarrus
    Just below the summit, as fog and snow moved in.


    I don't think I slowed them up too much, but I know I did. We got back to the trailhead as the sun was setting so it was good timing overall. Afterwards, e were famished and ate at a Mexican restaurant in Cle Elum.

  • Dawg Dash


  • The next day I ran the Dawg Dash in the rain. We were lucky: it rained lightly before the event, and poured afterwards, but during the event it didn't rain much at all.

    The Dawg Dash is a fun event because it is dog friendly, and one of the UW homecoming events. After the race we retreated to Francesca's for Waffle Fest, a UW themed waffle brunch hosted by Francesca. Yum!

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Corn Maze

I drove up to Thumont, MD for a hiking group meetup at the Lawyers Moonlight Maze. The theme this year was... Iron Man.


Ironman Corn Maze
Originally uploaded by klbarrus
Giant Robot pumpkin targets.


I had about an hour before sunset, so I headed straight for the maze(s). They had 3 set up, each of different length, with several checkpoints to find inside. I did the blue and green ones on the map, finishing up in the darkness, which was a lot of fun. I made it out in time to catch the movie, Iron Man 2, and I stayed to watch a few minutes... but since it was late I decided to leave.