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.
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.
The small climb leading up to Stevens Pass just felt brutal. It was the final climb of the day, and our undertrained legs were tired. However, we got back into the gorgeous fall colors in this section, and it was pretty entertaining to be hiking through the ski area where I recognized the lifts and runs. We made it to the high point, then eagerly started heading down. The toilet is near. And then we take a wrong turn, one that goes to the ski lodge instead of the parking lot with the toilet. So we have to go back uphill. I am really complaining at this point and so is my stomach.
Finally, we get to the parking lot and approach the toilets, and.... I kid you not, the slowest old lady in the world, assisted by a walker and one person on each side of her, is inching her way from her vehicle to the toilet. I did for the briefest moment consider running in front of her and getting to the door first, but that would make me the worst person in the world, so of course I did not. And seeing how slowly she was moving, I knew that it would probably be 15 minutes waiting for her to reach the door, use the restroom, and exit..... so we kept going. Iron Goat had a trailhead on the east end with a toilet, and what's another 4 miles of your stomach threatening to explode, right?
We took the pedestrian bridge over Highway 2, but we had to walk/hobble along the shoulder of Highway 2 for about a third of a mile as cars sped by. This was certainly the most unpleasant part of the route, but it's a small price to pay for such a cool loop that connects all of these trails.
Then, a blessed sight: PORTAPOTTY. I am saved! It was indeed gas after all. And it turned out that the bathrooms at the east trailhead were closed, so this really was a fortunate thing.
The sun was setting and there were some nice views, especially from the Windy Point viewpoint, but we were ready to be done. Rushed down the switchbacks (that I was thankful to be going down instead of up) and made it to the parking lot at last! We passed some people near the bottom who asked us about our run and gave us some very nice congratulations on our accomplishment, which felt great. I guess I do miss all of the "good job!"s that everyone normally does on trail runs.
I clocked in at 26.3 miles, a full marathon effort, with almost 5,800 feet of elevation gain, elapsed time of 11:14:47. Took longer than last year's 31 miles, but that's ok. I'm happy our legs could still carry us that far, that I didn't have any horrifying accidents, and that we got such a glorious day after a smoky September and a very challenging 2020.
