adventures of a tired coder

After lots of lurking and then finally completing my first Ultra Pedestrian Wilderness Challenge event last year, I was hooked and wanted to do more. My capabilities are on the lowest end of the challenges offered, and I'd already completed one of the easiest routes last year. This year, my trail training all went out the window with COVID, and I was in far worse shape for trail than last year.

Fortunately UPWC had added a new route suitable for Ultra Pedestrian beginners: the What a Surprise route, a nice loop in the Stevens Pass area. Advertised as a 25 miler with elevation gain in the 5000s, I knew I could get away with hiking the entire thing and still finish in daylight-ish. I had even done parts of the route before as day hikes to Surprise Lake and Trap Lake. 

I'd done a lot of hiking in August for WTA's Hike-a-thon, reacclimating my body to what 4000 feet of elevation gain felt like. As the last long hike/run for that month, I did the 18 miles to Snoqualmie Lake, reacclimating my body to what long distance felt like. I was ready. Took a break for Labor Day weekend, and we were planning to do the route as a small group the next weekend.... 

...and then smoke-pocalypse happened. Air quality so terrible that I did literally nothing for almost two full weeks. When running became possible again, I immediately ran a fairly terrible virtual half marathon to meet the deadline for results submission for the Lake Sammamish Half. The next weekend, I wussed out because of flaky weather forecasts. It ended up being lovely, and we hiked instead, but I felt awful on a mere 8 miles/2800 feet again. Smoke in the lungs still? Things were not looking good.

Hey, it's 2020, and YOLO. We called it for the next weekend, our group now down to just me and Shawn. Since this was a loop hike, we had to decide where to start and which direction to go. People in the UPWC group were making all sorts of different decisions, but for me, it was pretty clear: counter-clockwise, starting at the Iron Goat trailhead. 

We started bright and early at 7:30am and admired the train cars at the beginning and gave thanks that the restrooms were open. Immediately, we did probably the most dangerous part of the trip: running across Highway 2. This is a two lane highway with one of those signs on it that says "X days since the last serious accident" where X is never that high of a number. I wanted to make the crossing when there was daylight and not that much traffic. Not a problem.

After some navigational challenges (that trailhead is always hard to find, and once on the trail, we managed to walk past the first turn we had to make), we were on the Surprise Creek trail. This is a lovely trail that I've hiked twice, but this time it was just the first part of a long day, so I didn't take as much time to appreciate it. Surprise Lake was a short detour off the route, but Shawn hadn't seen the lake before, so we stopped briefly to take photos, make a toilet stop, and for me to eat a McDonald's sausage burrito. Glacier Lake is right past Surprise Lake, but I have always chosen to sit at Surprise Lake instead of continuing on. One day I will get there, but this was not the day.

The next order of business was the climb up to Trap Pass, which is also where we switched to being on the Pacific Crest Trail. On the topo map, it looks like a long a scary line of tight switchbacks going up way too many contour lines. I thought it would be a sufferfest, but it wasn't so bad. Trap Pass was the high point for the day, and while there were other small climbs to do, it felt like an accomplishment to get most of the climbing done right away. 

At the very top, Shawn burst into song, doing some parody rendition of the introduction to "Circle of Life." I don't remember exactly what he sang, maybe something like, "IIIIIIIIII'm at the top now!!! Blah blah blah blah." And then we saw a guy approaching us. Oops, we interrupted his nature experience with the crazy singing. But he told us that he was supposed to meet some friends who were backpacking, and he didn't think they would have made it out this far already, but then he heard the singing and it sounded like something they would do, so he came back to investigate. Haha..

At this point, we should have started running, but as we stepped over the pass and saw the scenery, I said, "We are NOT rushing through this." The slopes were ablaze with bright fall colors and full of juicy blueberries. Walking through this section was definitely the highlight of the loop, and it made me thankful that all that the universe had done to make us delay this trip had led us to this perfect view. Trap Lake was glittering down below, and we could hear some backpackers and their dog at the lake.

We began pursuing the answers to two important questions. Shawn: How many bags of blueberries can I pick and have it still count as running? Me: How many photos can I take of the same view? 

We ran a bit as we dropped back into the forest, though at some point my knee started twinging and I used it as an excuse to be lazy and not run (spoiler: this is a theme). We also had two grouse jump in front of us to cross the trail. 

Up until this point, I'd hiked everything on the route before, other than the climb between Surprise Lake and Trap Pass, but now we were entering new territory for me. But the PCT was pleasant, full of nice views and endless fall colors. There was a tarn, a view down to Swimming Deer Lake, and then I ran out of water. There were supposedly streams along the PCT, but we weren't seeing anything that was easily accessible from the trail. 

Lake Josephine was a large, beautiful lake, but it was a detour of few hundred feet down to get to it, which our legs weren't willing to do. The map showed a few small lakelets and streams that were right next to the trail, but still nothing easily accessible. There were points where we could even hear the running water, but it was too far off the trail and not visible. I was getting grumpy. Finally, we gave in and filtered at Lake Susan Jane, which was basically muddy stagnant water.

You can't really have long distance running stories that don't include some sort of GI factor. Unrelated to the muddy stagnant water, I'd started feeling some unpleasant pressure in my stomach, the kind where it's uncomfortable until it comes out, and you think it's probably gas but it may not be, and this isn't really the place where you want to be wrong. Of course, we'd passed all of the backcountry toilets at this point, and I wasn't desperate enough to duck into the woods, so instead I complained excessively on the uphills and refused to run the downhills (theme!). I knew there were toilets at Stevens Pass, and it was only a few miles (sigh) until there.