Trail Running – Page 2 – Catching the Fog

Trail Running and Yoga Retreat in Costa Rica with Run Like a Girl – Part 2

August 4, 2017January 18, 2024Posted in Costa RIca, Trail RunningTagged Adventuring in Costa Rica, Costa Rica travel, costa rica wilderness adventure, Repelling, Run like a girl retreat, tree climbing im Costa RicaLeave a comment

The third day of the retreat had an array of activities in store for us. We took a break from the trail wandering and stayed close to the lodge all day – we were pacing ourselves before the following day’s adventure, a 30km round-trip hike up to the mount Ena summit.

Yoga practice ended with an introduction to Maria Fernanda’s own line of essential oils, and the benefits that each provided. Then after breakfast we headed to the river – the same spot we had dipped our legs in the day before. Along with essential oils, Maria Fernanda has developed a line of natural products, which she “engineered” herself. By producing them locally (directly in her home studio), she also provides employment for local women. Our outdoor spa treatment consisted in a cleansing clay mask, that we washed off with fresh river water. Then we applied Maria’s facial toner followed by a moisturizing oil. It was quite the treat, a little bit of TLC before continuing with the rest of our outdoor adventures.

Despite Brice staying away from the spa session, he must have smelled like a pretty flower…

…because butterflies kept landing on him

At that point, our group was split in two. Half of us headed a few meters further down the river, for some cliff rappelling, while the other half disappeared into the forest to go climb a 35-foot tree.

We started the rappelling with a couple of “baby” cliffs, in order for all of us to get comfortable with backing up over an edge and dropping ourselves down (one step at a time) to the bottom. After this “mise-en-jambe”, we rappelled down along the side of a waterfall, landing into ankle-deep water. Our two guides, Eduardo and Felipe, were excellent at explaining all the steps and staying close by as we were coming down, making us feel safe at all times.

Once we were done with that part of the repelling (which was only a warm-up for what was to come next), we headed to the big tree for the climb. I very much enjoy rock-climbing, even though I don’t get to do it very oftne, so I was really excited, l staring up at this giant, at the opportunity of making my way up there. It was a really cool climb, the intricate branches and knots provided ample hand and foot holds and I made my way up to the top without too much trouble.

But first I should mention that when I got to the tree, I found Brice hanging from a separate rope, some 30 feet above the ground, taking photos of each climber from above – and providing encouragement whenever they would get to a tough spot or thought they couldn’t make it any further. As usual he had managed to find the most optimal spot for the best photos: the highest vantage point.

Brice started with the tree climbing first, clearly he hadn’t had the repelling course yet ;P

I wish I could have stayed up there a while, sitting on a branch and looking out at the valley around us…but that wouldn’t have been fair to the other women below, waiting for their turn to climb 😛

Once we were all done climbing, we headed back to the waterfall to regroup with the other half of the gang. Then it was time for the plat-de-resistance, the main challenge of the day, which both previous activities had – hopefully – prepared us for: repelling down the waterfall. While the rest of the day had not presented a huge challenge for me personally, this part made my heart beat race. And I didn’t even actually go down.

First we all reconvened at the bottom of the waterfall, so we could watch each other from below. Eduardo, all geared up, stood at the top of the fall and proceeded to demonstrate the process. The first part wasn’t very different from what we had done earlier – slowly step back over the edge of the cliff and let the rope slide in your hand, inches at a time, to lower yourself down. Eduardo or Felipe would descend alongside us, holding the rope below us for safety. The main difference up until that point was that we were now stepping into, and partially under, a vertical wall of water. When we reached the halfway point however, then came the catch – or in this case, the release.

At that point we had two options: jump off backwards, or slide along the cliff, into the pool below. Either way we had to slip off the rope and dive into the water….When Eduardo first demonstrated (I think he showed us how to slide off), my heart skipped a beat. It might not have been that high or that fast, but I saw him suddenly disappear into the water and held my breath until he resurfaced, a couple of seconds later. And I thought “how the hell is any one of us going to do THAT?”.

But some of the other girls were already lining up to go. Jackie went first, and after Felipe gave her all the instructions, it seemed she didn’t even think twice before pushing herself off the wall and into the water. She was followed by a few others, and with each of them I watched in admiration.

That’s also when I decided to pass. I wasn’t so much worried about the repelling, and after watching a few of my retreat-mates go down without a hitch, I probably could have mustered the nerve to go up there and do the same (or so I tell myself). But the fog had already rolled in, as it commonly did in the afternoon, meaning the sun was gone. And the water was cold. As in mountain river cold. And if you know me, you’ll know that when water is cold, I just can’t deal.

So instead I watched and it was awesome to see how each woman approached the challenge, and how no matter how much fear and apprehension they had at the top, they had to let it all go, literally, to reach the bottom. And then to see each of them emerge from the pool, with both a completely stunned look and a huge smile on their face, that was incredible.

Jodie had been one of the last one of us to climb the tree, and just couldn’t make it to the top. Frightened by height and unfamiliar with climbing she had gotten stuck just a few meters off the ground and came down quite disappointed. The waterfall repelling was totally a redeeming act for her, and I was so impressed at how she went for it, head on, as if she had done this many times before. To watch someone come back from a personal deception by crushing the very next challenge was truly inspiring…although not inspiring enough to make me want to do it…did I mention how cold the water was? Ok, moving on…

Meanwhile, Brice had of course made his way up to the top of the fall, and had gotten himself harnessed up and hooked to the side of the cliff, once again looking for the best spot in the house to document every one’s accomplishment.

It took a bit longer than planned for the 10 or 12 women who participated in the waterfall repel to all go. It was almost 4pm by the time we were done, so when we returned to the lodge, we pretty much ate (lunch), had our yoga practice, then ate again (dinner). With all the adrenaline rushes of the day, none of us seemed to mind the back to back meals so much.

After dinner, Eduardo and Felipe built a big fire outside, and we all gathered around it to recall the events of the day. It went something like this “Dude, I climbed up a tree today!” followed by “And you repelled off a freaking waterfall” and soon after “People, can you believe we’re in Costa Rica right now?”. Yeah we were in Costa Rica, challenging ourselves to new levels, and it was all around pretty awesome…

Trail Running and Yoga Retreat in Costa Rica with Run Like a Girl – Part 1

August 1, 2017January 18, 2024Posted in Costa RIca, Trail RunningTagged Chakra Lodge, Costa Rica adventures, Costa Rica Retreat, Costa Rica Trail Running, Run Like A Girl, Run Like A Girl Yoga and Trail running Retreat1 Comment

On our 3rd day in Costa Rica, we returned to the Best Western hotel at 6am to meet up with the rest of the retreat group. There were 16 of us, including the organizer, Hailey, but not including the only two men in the group: Brice, and Eduardo, Hailey’s husband and a Costa-Rica native.

As a side note, this was a pretty different traveling style for us from what we’re normally used to. If you know me, you’ll know I’m a planner, and an organizer (which is also what I do for work). Whenever Brice and I travel somewhere, I usually take charge of the day to day planning, what we will do and where (he takes care of the accommodation and transportation). I love maps, I love looking at them to see where we’re going, where we are, and where we might want to head to next. On this section of the trip though, everything was organized for us, so much so that I barely paid attention to where the lodge was located on the map and what the daily program was. And it was awesome! In the last few weeks prior to leaving, I was pretty focused on planning the Patagonian portion of our trip, so not having to worry about the first 10 days was great. Every once in a while, being told what to do and where to go – obviously in those pretty ideal circumstances – is just the best!

The 2-hour bus ride was a chance to chat and get to know each other. The day before we had already, on our rafting and zip lining adventures, become acquainted with Kate, Lindsay, Valerie, Bea and Kara. We were joined by Melissa and her sister Heather, Jackie, Jodie, Amanda, Alicia, Kristen, Lisa and Alex. Most women where from different parts of the United States (Oregon, Utah, New York just to name a few…), and a small portion was from Canada. All of them were recreational runners, with varying degrees of experience on trails, but all with an equal love for it. The excitement for the days to come was clearly palpable as we rode out of the city.

The bus took us from San Jose to San Jeronimo, a rural town located between two major national parks of Costa Rica: La Amistad International Park and Biosphere Reserve, which is the largest conservation area in Costa Rica, and Chirripo National Park, home of the Cerro Chirripo, the highest summit in the country with its peak at 3820m.

In San Jeronimo, we were introduced to one of Costa Rica’s main agriculture, coffee. The slopes of the mountains surrounding the village are covered with coffee plantations, and harvesting coffee is what most locals in the area do for a living. We visited a small coffee plantation and processing farm and learned about the harvesting and processing of the bean, before it is packaged and exported. In fact, most of the Costa Rican coffee is purchased by independent distributors for world-wide exportation, and rarely roasted or even sold locally.

After the visit of the farm we enjoyed a delicious lunch prepared by the farmer’s family. Then it was time to hike up the 5km road to the lodge. The weather had been pretty unstable all day, but the light rain eventually turned into downpour in the last couple of kilometres up the hill. Somehow I didn’t care too much as the climb was keeping my heart rate up and my body warm.

After 5km, we literally reached the end of the road and were able to look up at the lodge’s main platform, perched a few metres up on the side of the mountain. We walked up the short trail to the “front door” and then there we were.

Even with the pouring rain and dense fog, it was easy to instantly fall in love with the place. The main platform had banisters along its two sides facing out to the valley, an open view to the incredible nature around it. From there you could see some of the 20 hectares of land that is part of the Chakra domain, and had been purchased for conservation purposes, returning it from cattle farming grounds to its original untamed rain forest. (You can learn more about the Chakra lodge and preservation project here)

The main building hosted a kitchen as well as a large wooden table for meals, and the rest of the platform was left mainly unfurnished, to allow for yoga mats to be laid out for our daily practices. During down-time between activities, hammocks were hung between the pillars, providing a pretty perfect way to relax and reflect in this serene environment.

While the lodge had no electricity, two showers with hot water had been built near the main platform. Five cabanas were also scattered on the mountain side, each set-up to sleep 2-4 people and accessible via a short trail.

We were all drenched from the rain after hiking up the road, but once we had changed into dry clothes and warmed ourselves up with a cup of tea, we had our first yoga class of the retreat.

The fog was thick and the rain was pounding on the roof, and from that point on, I felt completely disconnected from the rest of the world, in a moment suspended in time, but ultimately, at home.

Our practice during these few days would be lead by Maria Fernanda, our local yoga instructor, who had joined our group on the way to the lodge. Something about her accent when she spoke English, the tone of her voice, the softness of her gestures and her altogether soothing demeanour, made her seem very familiar to me, one of these people you feel you might have met before, in a slightly different shape or form, and without remembering when and where.

After practice came dinner – it was 6:30pm, and being close to the Equator, the sun had long set down way below the mountains. We ate all together around the big wooden table, in the candle light. Our meal was prepared by Luis, his wife Martina and their daughter Roxana. The family lives in the mountains nearby and harvesting coffee is their main source of income, except for when they participate in the Run Like a Girl retreat by preparing the food. Luis, 60-years-young, also does a lot of manual work to help maintain and expand the Chakra lodge.

The food was simple and delicious. Yams, yucca, rice, beans, meat and eggs, fresh pineapple and watermelon. The same ingredients were more or less used at every meal, but prepared one way or another and always incredibly flavourful. The fresh mountain air and the active days were likely contributing to our appetites, but still, I surprised myself with how much food I was ingesting, and the fact that it was so tasty made it even harder for me to not go back for seconds (and so I did, many times). One of the Costa Rican specialty is Pinto Gallo, a dish made of rice and beans, mixed together with a (not so) secret ingredient: Salsa Lizano. We all were soon pretty addicted to the Salsa, a big bottle of which pretty much never left the dining table.

With the sun setting so early and our wake-up time of 5:30am the next day, we were all in bed and sleeping by 8pm. It continued to pour throughout the night, until eventually we woke up to a different kind of sound. It was still water but it was no longer the pounding of rain on the roof of our cabana. It was the rushing water of the river down below and the nearby waterfall. Hailey and Maria Fernanda both told us at breakfast the next day that they had prayed with all their might for the rain to stop – the previous retreat, in November, had been a really wet one, forcing them to cancel some of the activities.

When we started our morning yoga practice at 6:00am, the sun hadn’t made it up above the mountains yet, so every one was still bundled up in warm layers. By the time we laid down in Shavasana, bright sunshine was filling the main platform and we were all down to our tank tops. Prayers had seemingly been answered.

As soon as breakfast was over, we headed out for our first trail run. We first ran/hiked along the river, coming across no less then 11 waterfalls in the process! The trail was pretty technical, with lots of roots and rocks along the way, and the recent downpour added a good layer of wet mud on top of it all. But once again, I felt right at home. While some of the participants were more used to dry, groomed trails, I realized how fortunate I was – in this particular instance – to have cut my (baby) trail-running teeth on the wet and muddy tracks of Vancouver’s North Shore.

Brice was of course totally in his element, running effortlessly back and forth to capture shots of everyone and the scenery alike.

After we reached the bottom of the last waterfall, we turned around and ran back to the trail head. At that point we had the option of returning to the lodge, or continuing up along a ridge to get closer to the top of the highest waterfall. The group split and Brice and I joined in with those who were continuing up.

While the first part of the run was mostly in the trees, we now were heading up along a ridge with wide open views of the surrounding hills – getting the full extent of how far around us the coffee plantations spread.
Eventually we reached the waterfall, rewarded our climb with a few photos and made our way back down.

The trick about starting from the lodge was that all our hikes started with a descent of the main road – which meant they also ended with an ascent of the same. So as we reached the bottom of the ridge and returned to the trailhead, the day wasn’t over. We still had to climb up the road to return home. This time I think we were less than a kilometre away from the lodge, but when you’re tired and hungry, a 500 meter walk a steep, unfamiliar stretch of dirt road can seem like the most challenging part of the day. When we arrived at the main platform, Hailey told us that if we kept going for another 100 meters, the road turned into a small trail that lead down to the river, with easy access to the water if we wanted to cool down our overheating legs and feet. Yes please! So we did and it felt amazing!

We had lunch and showered and had some down time to relax for the rest of the afternoon, until the second yoga class of the day, at 5:30pm. While morning yoga was a more invigorating practice, meant to wake up our bodies and prepare us for the day’s activity, the evening class was more restorative and relaxing, to help us recover from our adventures.

To be honest, while I do enjoy the occasional yoga class for a good stretch, I wasn’t sure how I would like having two practices a day. But Maria Fernanda made each class different and new, and after the 14km run/hike that day, I could really feel the benefits of the evening class. Towards the end of the retreat, when we relocated to the beach town of Dominical and said goodbye to our yoga teacher, I actually came to miss our daily practices, the relaxation and stretch and focus that I found in it.

Once again dinner was shared in the intimate setting of candle light. That night we enjoyed a delicious broth with yam and yucca bits and rice and it was once again a delight for our bellies, and dare I say, our souls.

Pacific Northwest Adventures: Trail running and exploring on Orcas Island, WA

June 24, 2017January 18, 2024Posted in Pacific Northwest, Trail RunningTagged Camping in Moran State Park, Camping on Orcas Island, Exploring the Pacific Northwest, exploring Washington, Paddle Boarding on Orcas Island, pow, Trail running in Moran State Park, Trail Running in Pacific Northwest, trail running in PNW, Trail running on Orcas IslandLeave a comment

One cool aspect of trail running/trail racing, is that it helps put new places on our radar. It was the case for Orcas Island. We first heard the name in the context of a Rainshadow trail race (the same peeps that put on The Gorge 100/50k). Knowing the type of races they put on, we made a pretty fair assumption that Orcas would be a very scenic place to run.
We kind of decided on a whim to go for a week-end. On the Tuesday of that week, I checked online for available campsites. There was only 1 spot left in Moran Park, out of the 150 sites, so after looking at the forecast to make sure we would get good weather, I snatched it. Then I secured our return spot on the ferry, and texted Brice ” We’re going to Orcas Island this week-end!”

This trip was also an excuse to make use of our brand new Nexus Cards. The lines at the border where not bad when we arrived on Friday night (around 5:45ish), but with Nexus, we didn’t have to wait at all. Border was crossed in less than 2 minutes.

The drive to Anacortes is about 2 hours from Vancouver, but we made a few stops along the way, including one to REI, to pick up a couple of supplies.

The ferry crossing at sunset was really beautiful, with similar scenery than when going to Vancouver Island (which is really only about 25-30km west of Orcas).
We landed in Orcas village at around 10:15pm, then drove the 14 miles (20k) across the island to the eastern side and the entrance of Moran State Park. Our campsite was located in the Midway campground. Halfway along Cascade lake. As soon as we got there, we figured out why this campsite was left un-booked (spot 54B). Where most other sites where nestled in the trees, this one was basically an open area right next to the bathrooms and showers. It wasn’t a huge deal, the most annoying part being mainly the bright obnoxious light shining from the bathroom windows throughout the night. No need for headlamps while setting up the tent!

Although there was a specific spot to park the car, we decided to park it between the building and our tent. It worked great to cut out most of the light and vent noise from the bathroom building vents. I was slightly disappointed that the spot wasn’t as private as we could have hoped, but we weren’t planning on spending our days there anyways, so in the end we didn’t care that much. All considered, it turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable spot. Because it was open and not in the cover of trees like most other spots, it got a bit more sunshine than the other sites. Other spots were smaller, and generally very close together, which made them feel more crowded. Ours was in comparison relatively large and roomy.

Given the amount of people there, it was surprisingly quiet at night (in our area of the campgrounds anyways), and everyone was very respectful of each other’s privacy. Turns out there wasn’t a huge amount of foot traffic to use that particular bathroom and everyone walking by was super respectful of our space.

There are other campsites on the island, but from what I understand one is only accessible by water, and the other, in Obstruction Pass State Park, is a hike-in, first-come first-serve type of deal. With our ferry schedule, we weren’t going to arrive until 10:30pm on Friday, so I didn’t want to risk not having a spot at all. The hike-in site actually had a few spots available, as we found out on Sunday morning, so if we were to come back, it might be a good, more private option.

On our first day, we had planned on going for a run around Moran State Park. The park offers about 38 miles of trail, with the highest summit at 2400 feet (800 m), so all very run-able. I had looked at the course map for the Orcas Island 50 and 25k races, and highlighted a loop that would take us to various points of interest throughout the park. I hadn’t calculated the route exactly but I figured it would be somewhere between 20k-25k.

We left our campsite around 11am and headed east along Cascade Lake. after about 0.5 mile we reached the South End Campground and the start of the Cascade Falls trail.

After the waterfall, we continued East then North towards Mount Pickett. I (of course) had found a couple of maps online for Moran Park, with detail of trails, distances (in miles) and elevation. The area was pretty easy to navigate, as there was a limited number of trail intersections and lots of signage at each of them, but it was still helpful to have the maps, and not have to rely on electronic devices to find out way around.

We took our time going up, taking lots of breaks for photos. Mount Pickett didn’t have a view, but we continued on to Twin Lakes, then hiked up the steep switchbacks to Mount Constitution, the highest point in the island (2400 feet / about 800m).

The vista from Mt Constitution was pretty sweet, looking out onto the bay in the east, with views of Bellingham and Vancouver Island in the distance.

After the summit we continued on a really scenic ridge trail bordered by Pacific Madrone trees, with views of the water. We stopped on a couple of rocky areas just off the trail to take in the view.

Then it was all downhill from there, and some really fun one too! The trail was really smooth, soft, packed dirt covered with dried pine needles, super easy to run on. We stopped briefly at Cold Springs, to admire the old-fashion stone well and oven, then continued down the trail, which had lots of fun switch-backs (the trail is used in the winter for mountain biking, but is reserved to hikers in the summer, likely to avoid dangerous collisions).

With the campsites being full, I was expecting to see at least a few people on the lower portions of the trail, but we saw no one all day, except for the parking lot at the top of Mount Constitution, and a few people coming down the trail to Twin Lakes, and basically turning back when realizing how steep of a climb back up to their car it would be…

We eventually came out of the forest onto Olga road (the main road that crosses the park) at the parking lot of the Day-use area. Brice’s watch read 15 miles at that point, 22.7km, so a pretty bang on estimation. After a quick look at the beach there, we jogged the last half a mile back to our campsite. It took us about 4 hours to do the loop, with running at a pretty casual pace, power-hiking (for me) most of the up-hill and taking a bunch of breaks for photos and lunch.

Back at camp, we grabbed a snack and since Cascade lake was right on the other side of the road, we took the paddle board out for a relaxing float on the water. We had dinner by the fire and were in bed by 10pm,

The next day, we had booked the 7:55pm ferry back to Anacortes, which left us with ample time to do some more exploring. We decided to keep things at a nice island pace, by driving around to explore other areas. We got up and packed up camp, then headed south to Obstruction Pass State Park. The much smaller park offers free hike-in campsites and a 400′ beach. We hiked the .6 miles to the beach, had breakfast by the ocean and hung out for a while.

Then we headed to the main town of the island, Eastsound. The town is small, shops and restaurant spreading over just a couple of blocks, but really pretty, with trellis of roses in full bloom lining the sidewalks, and views of the ocean just off the main street.

After grabbing a sandwich at the local bakery, we left Eastsound and drove west on Crow Valley road, first towards West Beach (a resort on the west coast of the island, with beach access reserved to guests), then to Deer Harbour, a charming marina and a good place to come for kayaking, fishing, whale watching…

Next we drove trough Orcas Village (where the ferry terminal is located) to try and go explore the area just east of it. The map indicated places like Diamond Lake and White Beach, which sounded like good spots to hang out for the rest of the afternoon. Unfortunately, we quickly realized that this whole portion of the island was mainly comprised of private roads and lands, with no public access to the beach (or the lake). The one lake that was accessible, Killebrew Lake, was right off the side of the road and didn’t seem to have a beach-y shore that we could enjoy.

So we drove back to Eastsound, which is really only about 15 min drive from Orcas village, to go spend the last couple of hours before we had to be at the ferry. Once again we took out the paddle board and enjoyed some water-roaming, especially around the little island (Indian Island) just a couple hundred meters off the beach (accessible by foot at low tide). The island is actually labeled as a Marine Health Observatory as it hosts a large variety of birds and small marine species. Circling around it on the board, I was able to spot a grey heron taking flight, and some big starfish, hanging out in the sun on shallow rocks, just below the surface.

Eventually we drove back to Orcas village and waited for the ferry. We had noticed on the way there that jigsaw puzzles were left on tables, to entertain passengers while traveling. So on the way back we sat at a table with a puzzle, and before we knew it we were back in Anacortes.

We got to the border at around 11:00pm, and were surprised to see an impressive line-up of cars.The sign read 85 min wait to cross (turns out there was a Major League baseball game between Seattle and Toronto that week-end). Brice, who hates waiting in line, was pretty ecstatic when we flew down the nexus lane and through the border, passing a few hundred cars in just a few seconds…

Our little week-end in Orcas was a great way to get out of town and explore a nearby (ish) place we didn’t know, and live at a super easy pace for a couple of days…

Patagonia Travel: Planning our itinerary and what we brought along with us

June 4, 2017January 18, 2024Posted in Patagonia, Trail RunningTagged Driving on Carretera Austral, Hiking Gear, Patagonia driving, planning our Patagonia Road Trip, Renting a car in Patagonia, Road Trip in Argentina, Road trip in Chile, Trekking Gear, Trekking in PatagoniaLeave a comment

Making the most of a short(ish) trip

When Brice and I decided our next big trip would be in Patagonia, right away we agreed that we needed to check out what this whole Torres del Paine business was all about. Since the park is in the southern portion of Patagonia, we soon figured we would end our journey there.

A quick internet research landed us on Alan’s blog, and soon I had ingested his extensive advice for doing the full “O” circuit, the trek that would take us all the way around and through the Torres del Paine mountain range. Based on his suggestion, we went ahead and booked all of our campsites in advance – and that was probably the smartest planning step we took, as just a few weeks later, the park announced that due to increasing popularity, only hikers with reserved campsites would be allowed to hike the multi-day trails.

Once that part of the trip was locked down, we started to focus on the rest: how to get there and where to start from.

I did a lot of research for this trip – as I tend to do (I’m a planner, what can I say). At first, it was basically to learn more about Patagonia. We’d heard the name of course, and seen documentaries that got us day-dreaming about amazing wild landscapes, but we didn’t really have a clear idea of the geography, the climate, the overall environment we would be immersing ourselves into.

Then I started to read about the challenges it might present for travellers (remote areas, roads in very bad conditions), and how to best approach them. It seemed that there were various ways we could drive across Patagonia, all the way down to Torres del Paine. One way was through Argentina, the other through Chile. Ultimately the Chilean side felt more appealing to us. I can’t remember where/when I first read the name “Carretera Austral” – the main road that spreads North-South through the narrow, southern portion of Chile, but at one point we decided that there was the path we would follow.

Patagonia is a huge land to explore. Most of the accounts I had read were by Overlanders, long-term travellers who had sometimes driven in vans all the way down from North America. They were on the road for months and had time to take every day as it came, and didn’t have a rigid plan to follow.

As much as I would have loved taking 2-3 months to wander the Carretera north to south and back, there was only so much time we could take off work – and we were fortunate to actually be able to take that much time. With the 6 days (+1 one for buffer) dedicated to the trek in Torres, and another 2-day trek in El Chalten, to get a glimpse of the iconic Fitzroy, we were left with about 12 days to drive along the Careterra.

I read a lot about this iconic road, how long it would take to drive, how bad certain portions of it were and how it affected travel times. And where to stop on the way, what “not to miss”. While planning that portion of the trip, I went back and force between thinking the time we had was way too short, and fearing we wouldn’t be able to “see enough” or we would just be grazing the top of what Patagonia has to offer…and maybe I was putting too much pressure on myself to have an amazing trip and maybe I was over-planning this whole thing. We actually had one car rental company advise us against taking such a trip, arguing it really wasn’t enough time to see a lot and that we would be driving too much. To ease my concerns, I got in contact with Rich and Ash from Desk to Glory, to get an idea of how long they had taken to drive down, and they replied that they only took about a week – not sure if that included the 2 days spent crossing the fjords in the beginning, but it made me feel better about the time we had, so thanks guys!

Well guess what. It was short, and it did involve a lot of driving, and we did only get a glimpse of Patagonia. But what a glimpse it was. Sure, there were a couple of stops that I was hoping we could make but weren’t able to, mainly due to weather (and we didn’t have time to wait for it to get better). But even just driving on that road and experiencing the landscape from the passenger seat or just walking out of the car for a few hundred meters, it was so worth it. If I had to choose between only having 12 days to drive 2500km through Patagonia, or not doing it at all, I would still do it the way we did and I wouldn’t change a thing.

So I slowly gathered bits and pieces of information online and eventually started drawing out an itinerary. We acquired The guide book written about the Careterra, which I would definitely recommend – it was a great source of information including road condition, travel times, and full of little gems of places that could cater to any category of travelers – from people wanting to stay in more comfortable hotels to hitch-hikers willing to “rough it up” (I’d say we probably were somewhere in the middle as far as our traveling style goes).

Getting a better sense of distances, we realized early on that driving all the way from Santiago (where we landed after our Cosat Rica adventure) wasn’t realistic. The Careterra “officially” starts in Puerto Montt, about 1200km south of the capital city. The bus system in Chile is actually very developed, being the main mode of long-distance transportation, and we easily found a bus company that offered overnight rides from Santiago to Puerto Montt (we’ve found in the past that traveling overnight is one of the best ways to cover long distance without wasting day time).

Aside from “how much are we ok to drive every day” (and by “we” I mean Brice, as he did all the driving), the other thing we also had to factor in was “how early are we willing to get up everyday”. Some people like to be up with the sun and it sounds like nowadays the trend is all about “chasing sunrise” and being up at dawn to make the most of the day. Well…let’s be honest here…we’re not those people. We’re not early risers. We’ll set our alarm for 7am, but most likely will hit snooze for at least 1/2 hour. And we like to take our time in the morning. We like to get up and make coffee and have breakfast and pack up the tent and make sure we’re not leaving anything behind. And rushing to get through this process to get an extra ½ hour on the road really doesn’t feel worth it to us. Neither does getting up with the sun, which in the southern-most portion of our journey was rising at 4:30am – but went down way after 10pm, giving us ample time to enjoy the daylight long into the evening.
So surely we could have packed a bit more into each day by being up at 5am and out by 6, but enjoying our mornings and taking our time in an otherwise short-ish timeline was part of what we loved so much about being on the road.

Transportation
Now let me tell you a little about the car we rented. This was to some extent, the most involved part of planning this whole trip.
The challenge we ran into was that we intended to drive from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales (about 2500km give or take, with detours) but one way only. Which meant we were facing a pretty significant drop-off fee attached to our rental cost.
When trying to book through big box rentals (Avis, Hetz), most companies didn’t even offer a one way option. And if they did, rentals for two weeks would cost nearly $3000 dollars (US). We thought about taking buses instead, but soon realized that we would be sacrificing flexibility for money. And being dependent on bus routes and schedules really wasn’t the way we wanted to travel, especially on such a short time frame.

I would say if you’re going for more than a month, with no definite itinerary and you want to travel on the cheap, then buses and hitch-hiking would certainly be the way to go. In our case, we only had about 12 days on the road and we wanted to be able to stop wherever we wanted, whenever we wanted.

So when it became clear that we needed to rent a car, I started looking for the cheapest option. I found a website called Interpatagonia, which listed pretty much every rental company, big and small, along the Carretera Austral. So one rainy Sunday afternoon, I emailed 30 or 40 of these companies, in 3 different cities in the northern portion of Patagonia, and then waited for replies.
I only received about 7 or 8 replies. Most of them gave me a pretty detailed breakdown of the cost, depending on the type of vehicle we wanted. All of them were still around $2800 minimum for a sedan, and more like $3500 for a 4-wheel drive.

One company however emailed back a short response, along the line of “for your rental of 10 days, I can rent you a Sedan (Samsung SM3 or similar) for $1900 dollars”. I thought “Ah, now we’re talking”. I emailed him a couple more questions, asking about other types of vehicles and a longer rental. He didn’t have trucks or SUVs so we settled on a sedan, $2100 for 12 days, including insurance, paperwork to take the car across the border to Argentina (very important!), and road-side assistance (whatever that meant). I had to have a few exchanges back and forth with him as he was mainly giving me one-liner answers, without really providing a full breakdown like other companies had. I did look up the name of his company and found a fairly legit website – mainly specializing in boat tours around Puerto Montt but also offering rental services. I even looked him up on Yelp, and while the tour reviews were pretty positive, the one negative review had to do with how this one customer’s credit card had been charged at the time of the booking for the whole amount – whereas most rental company will charge you upon pick-up of the vehicle.

I had a little gut feeling that this guy wasn’t quite as “by the book” as other rental companies, but his price was significantly lower than other places, and so we decided to go with him (in case you’re worried, I’ll say right now the story ends well, but this was definitely a case of culture difference and taking a bit of a leap of faith in terms of trusting that this barely-kosher transaction would turn out well).

Anyways, after multiple exchanges, he asked if he could bring the car to us on the day of the pick-up, to which I replied that we would be at the bus depot in Puerto Montt at 9am, arriving from Santiago, on December 13th. I mentioned the date to him at least twice, once by email and once on the form we filled out to confirm the car reservation.

Fast forward to Dec 13. We got off the bus and looked around for our contact, Enrique, but he was nowhere to be found. We had all his info in a conveniently packaged itinerary booklet that Brice put together (which, printed on 1/4 size paper, included all of our plane reservations, airbnbs, and even Torres campsites booking – I may be the planner, but Brice definitely has a strong organization fiber in him as well!). So I walked over to the ticket counter, and asked the lady behind it, in broken Spanish, if she would mind calling Enrique for us. She did and shortly after handed me the phone. I was able to converse with Enrique in English, and he apologized, saying he thought we were arriving the next day. He was very sorry and was on his way to pick us up immediately. I was a bit annoyed, understandably, but ok, we waited for him and he showed up 10 minutes later.

We got into a car with him and he said again that he was sorry, he had confused the date, and that he would have a car for us by 3pm. I replied that it wasn’t going to work for us as we had booked a ferry crossing in Hornopiren, which left at 3pm. Hornopiren was a 2.5 hour drive from Puerto Montt. Enrique stopped to think for a couple of minutes, and then said, “ok, I think I can have a car by 11am” (it was close to 10am at that point). He said he needed to drive back to his house to get another car, so we drove with him, then he got out of the car and said “meet me at the corner of … and… at 11am, there is a notary public there. I need to get some paperwork done for the car before you go but then it’s yours”.

At first we were pretty skeptical – this was definitely not your run of the mill car rental shop. But since he was basically leaving us the car he drove in with, without asking us to sign any sort of paperwork or anything, we figured we’d go with it.
So, car keys in hand, we drove back to the address he gave us and waited. A few minutes after 11, Enrique came around, holding papers, and handed them to us. He said the car was brand new, purchased the day before (the paperwork he handed us confirmed it). It was registered to a woman’s name but the address was the same as his company’s (so I’m assuming that the woman was his wife or partner and he really runs his business out of his house). The paperwork he needed from the notary was a signed authorization from said woman giving us permission to drive the car over to Argentina. He handed us a pile of papers including insurance, proof of purchase, etc.., and told us “when you cross the border, don’t say it’s a rental, tell them it’s a friend’s car”… Oook. Once again, not our usual rental transaction, but heck, we were in Chile, and we did get the car that we had paid for, so we shook his hand and went on our way. By the way, no paperwork was ever signed by us during all this.

If you’ve read the previous posts on this blog, you know by now that although the car we rented was definitely not the most optimum choice for this type of road, it did take us from A to B without any issue. We actually came to be quite fond of our crappy little south-american Nissan Tilda, with manual windows and non-centralized door locking.

Navigation
Along with a road map (which was helpful to get a rough idea of how much distance we should try to cover every day, and were we should try to be every night) and the guide book, there are two apps that we used that were extremely useful.
Our favorite navigation map to date is Navmii. We’ve used in New Zealand, Australia, every time we go to the States, and once again, here in Chile. The main advantage is that it provides an off-line map, which means you don’t need any data or roaming in order to access it. Your phone can be set to airplane mode, all you need is your GPS to be on. It sucks quite a bit of battery, so it’s especially useful when driving, where you can keep your phone charged. You download the apps for the specific country you’ll be using it in, and they have pretty frequent updates. I have found their maps to be quite detailed – the Canada one even shows hiking trails all around Vancouver that Google map doesn’t.

The second app that we used for the first time (but not the last!) was iOverlander. I got the tip once again from Desk to Glory, and it turned out to be the most useful app we could have had in terms of finding places to stay.
The way it works is that it gets populated by other travelers, who enter the Geo location of the places they’ve been to. It could be a scenic wild camping spot, a gas station, a cute bakery, a hostel, etc…they’ll give a short description along with GPS coordinates. Again, the app can be used offline, and it will display a list of places that are nearest to you (note that distances displayed would be as the crow flies, and not driving distance). While the iOverlander map view requires wifi or data to load, you can also copy the coordinates from iOverlander and paste them into Navmii and it will get you there.
Basically, I used this app every day to find just about everything, Grocery store, gas stations, car mechanics and most importantly a place to sleep. We found 90% of our camping spots using this app. It was especially great at finding us little gems of places that where off the main road and that might not have been indicated anywhere else otherwise. I’m really grateful for all the users that took the time to enter all their travel finds, as we got to enjoy them as well.

On the Road
The guide book was very helpful in listing out the towns that did have a gas station, along with recommendations for car mechanics along the way. Along the Carretera, we didn’t have any issues finding gas. It’s once we crossed over to Argentina that we entered a much starker no-man’s land, in which we had to drive a lot longer to get to the nearest station. Also, none of the gas station took credit card, so on our first stop after crossing the Argentinian border, we had to figure out a way to change USD into pesos. Hotels and bigger shops would usually trade currency, with varying fees.

We didn’t have any car trouble, aside from two flat tires, which was to be expected. The first one occurred just before we crossed the border to Argentina. It happened overnight and in the morning we had to drive back about an hour to the nearest town to get it changed – ironically, this one was caused by a random screw that we probably picked up at the campground, and not even after all the rough pot-holed dirt road driving.
The second flat tire happened as we crossed the border back into Chile (it must be a border thing then). That last portion of road in Argentina was really rough for about 70km, so we’re not sure exactly what caused it. In both cases, we made use of the spare tire that came with the car and didn’t have too much trouble finding a mechanic to change the tire for us…

Regarding the condition of the road itself, it had improved in parts compared to what the guide book described, since it was published a couple of years ago but I did notice some portions that the book had marked as paved but were still gravel when we drove on them. There were still a fair amount of road that was pretty rough – around Puyuhuapi and Puerto Cisnes for example. Nothing was paved past Villa Cerro Castillo, nor is there a plan for it to be at this point, according to the guide book. Once we crossed over to Argentina, the book became irrelevant, and we just had to take the road as it was – mostly in bad shape, except for a good portion of Ruta 40, the Argentinian equivalent of the Careterra.

We didn’t eat “out” much, meaning in restaurants. But we did it outside a whole lot since we were on the road and camping every night. Avocado and ham sandwiches were a pretty good go-to for lunch, and for dinner we alternated between couscous, beans (we must have tried all of the options of the “Wasil” brand, various mixed beans packaged in small cartons) and canned fish, or pasta, or instant noodle…and lots of cookies, chips and snacks to keep the “hangriness” away while on the road – bonus tip for happy traveling: more often than not, things start to go downhill when one (or more) of the travelers’ blood sugar goes low. We know that well, and we both know to reach for a snack as soon as impatience or annoyance makes an appearance…sure enough after a few bites, whatever frustration started to rear its head is gone.

Planning the Torres del Paine Trek
When we were planning our trip to Chile, this is the first thing we looked into. We had never done a hiking trek like that before, but after doing some research, it sounded like it was a pretty accessible, not overly challenging one given our fitness level.

The main source of information I found was Alan’s blog: Adventure Alan. It’s probably the most detailed and accurate resource about Torres del Paine out there. It was incredibly useful in learning how to get to Torres, what to bring and what would be available there. He also shared the itinerary he and his wife followed, meaning basically what distance they covered each day and which campgrounds they stopped at. There are a number of campsites along the full circuit, so we had to decide which ones we would sleep at. After reading the itinerary in details, I figured Brice and I were in pretty good shape and could easily follow the same plan as Alan (the one detail I had overlooked was the weight of our packs compared to theirs, which did make a bit of a difference on our overall travel time, but we were still able to follow the itinerary just fine). He also recommended booking campsites in advance, as the park was getting more and more popular and sites were booking out fast.

Actually, from reading other blogs, it seemed that up until November of 2016, campsite management was a bit on the loose side, and there was sometimes a pretty big overflow of campers. This caused sanitary issues on a couple of occasions, which eventually led to the park having stronger rules about camping capacity. We were really glad we planned this ahead of time, as we met people along the way who just showed up at the park, hoping to be able to camp, but were turned away by rangers because they didn’t have a reservation.

Gear

Seeing how the last 6 days of our trip involved us carrying all our belongings on our back, we tried to keep things as light as possible. The Costa Rica retreat in the beginning of our trip did add some weight that we otherwise wouldn’t have bothered with (mainly summer clothes).

Our sleeping gear was comprised of our awesome Sierra Design Convert 2 tent, our two Nemo Astro insulated sleeping pads, and my DIY Ray-Way sleeping quilt (the making of which you can read all about on my sewing blog).

All these pieces worked out great for us throughout the trip. Our backpacks were Ospreys, also a pretty great tried-and-true piece of gear. My only problems with those (and it would probably be true with other brands) is that I have bony hips, and while we were hiking, I wished I had had a bit more padding on the hip belt as overtime I could feel pinching – which was of course accentuated by the weight. I did play around with weight distribution between shoulders and hips, but it never completely solved the problem. I might look into making a couple of little padding pieces to attach to the back of the hip pockets and see if that would make them more comfortable. Any advice from other bony-hipped backpackers are welcome!

Clothing-wise, I pretty much went with everything merino (except for pants, but including socks and underwear). Merino is awesome as it breathes well, keeps you warm when needed, and more importantly, doesn’t smell – even socks! It’s super easy to wash and quick to dry.

From tank tops to long sleeves, shorts to pants, I basically brought 2 of everything, layered multiple ways depending on weather. Upper layers included a fleece jacket (that I pretty much wore daily in Patagonia), a gore-tex rain shell to stay dry and a down jacket to stay warm. Even though we were in the Southern Hemisphere during summer, the unpredictable, ever changing weather in Patagonia definitely warranted hats and gloves and I also used a running buff – great for light head coverage during the day and sleeping mask at night.

Footwear was comprised of 1 pair of trail running shoes – mainly used in Costa Rica, 1 pair of hiking shoes and 1 pair of light weight flip flops.

If it wasn’t for Costa Rica, I probably wouldn’t have carried any summer running clothes or hiking shorts. As I mentioned above, the “summer” weather of Patagonia can go from bright warm sunshine to pouring rain and even snow in the span of a day. I wore mainly long pants and sleeves the whole time.

Brice was a bit more conservative than me with his packing (he tends to get much warmer much easier, so layering isn’t really his thing), but his bag included pretty much the same outwear essentials.

We purchased packing cubes to carry our clothes in, and that was probably one of the best investments we made for this trip. It wasn’t much, but having our clothes neatly put away into their own zip-able pouches meant we didn’t have to dig through the backpack to find them, they could be easily shoved in and out amongst the rest of our gear, and they also doubled as pillows.

For cooking, we kept things as simple as possible with a simple screw-on stove piece, 2 collapsible plates and cups, plastic utensils and a set of small, lightweight camping pots.
We also each had a “lifestraw go” bottle. These are great as they don’t require any “processing” of the water, you just fill them up and drink. Most water streams in Torres del Paine are potable, but these are just great for any sort of shady water (we used them everyday on our Mexico trip last year, to drink water straight out of the tap). And let’s not forget our tiny coffee filter, which worked great when we wanted some proper ground coffee, rather than the commonly-served instant powdered coffee that is widely distributed down there.

Brice also brought a KA-Bar military grade hunting knife, which served multiple purposes, from chopping wood to slicing saucisson. We brought two head lamps, which we used in Costa Rica but barely ever in Chile, as the days were so long (sun went down after 11pm and was up around 4am).

We also had a couple of extra small bags with us: one lightweight and easily squishable backpack – Brice used it as carry-on for his photo gear on the plane, and it also served as a day pack when hiking on the road.
I used one of those super simple pouches with cords (specifically, Brice’s Squamish 50 swag/drop bag) as a carry on and when we were just walking around towns. We later used it to put food in in Torres. We also brought one small packable dry bag, because you always need some sort of a dry bag, and it was also used to put food in. It might sound like a lot of extra bags, but we found that keeping things compartmentalized this way made taking things in and out of our Osprey packs fast and easy.

Brice of course brought his photo gear – probably the heaviest part of his pack, which included his Canon 5D mark III camera and 2 lenses (plus 6 batteries and tons of memory cards), along with a go-pro. He also carried a variety of cords and cables to be able to charge and connect all of our devices, as well as a small portable battery pack/charger. We were a bit worried about being able to re-charge my camera’s batteries on the Torres trek, but we actually took a lot less pictures then than we did on the rest of the road trip, and the battery lasted much longer. Just in case though, Brice ended up engineering a cable from two different ones, to be able to connect my battery charger to his portable battery pack via usb.

I brought my small Olympus mirror-less camera, a great size and weight for this kind of trip, with 17mm lens (equivalent to a 34mm in full frame DSLR world). It turned out to be a great little back-up camera, especially when Brice’s DSLR died on day 2 of our road trip. That’s right, every photo taken after that day was shot with my little Olympus camera.

I had my camera on a strap most of the way, which I didn’t love as it tended to dangle around too much. Fortunately, the camera was small enough that I could slip it into one of the stretchy nettings on the side of my pack, and it was easy to take it in and out for photos. I think in the future I would like to try one of those pieces that attaches to your backpack strap, on the front of your shoulder.

So that’s more or less for everything we packed with us for 4 weeks (not including food)! It was pretty cool to see it all laid out on the bed when we did our reset in Puerto Natales, and later see it all packed up into our backpacks. There would be improvements to be made for sure, for weight efficiency, but looking at weight vs variety of situations we needed things for, I think we did ok.

Refuelling

Foodwise, we didn’t have to worry about volume or weight on the road trip portion, so we bought canned fish, pasta and tomato sauce, chips and wine. The Chilean brand “Wasil” had a good selection of beans and vegetables in boxes (like juice boxes) as opposed to cans (lighter to carry and easier to pack away when empty), which we consumed a lot of, along with the single-portion packs of peach or apple sauce. On the trek we resorted to instant noodles and pre-seasoned rice, although the latter took 15-20 minutes to cook which wasn’t very efficient propane-wise. A lot of hikers had de-hydrated meals with them, purchased from more specialized hiking stores, but we couldn’t find any of those in the park.
We also ate a LOT of cookies and nut mix (walnuts especially were a good source of calories).

And pound cake. Pound cake was one of the most readily accessible sweet good in the Torres shops and it became our go-to snack while and after hiking. And there might have been one can of squid and mussels that I ate with great delight on one of our last days in Chile, while Brice looked at me with a half-disgusted, half-amused look. I can’t help it, I just love me some canned seafood…

For the trek, we had bought enough food in town to last us 3 or 4 days, as we knew we would be able to refuel in the park. Prices there were pretty outrageous though (understandably so since everything had to be lugged in and out on the trails). We did a re-supply at the Dickson campground, which had a tiny shop but with a good variety of options, then bought more food at the Grey campground (the last night of our trip), mainly because the day had been a pretty intense one and we just wanted to eat everything we could get our hands on….

On the road we rarely ate at restaurants, only on a few occasion, since we were trying to save on that front. That being said, buying food in Patagonia was NOT cheap, so our groceries were probably more expensive that we would normally pay.

So there you have it, a little behind the scenes of the planning and logistics that went into this trip. This wasn’t the first month-long trip we took, but it was definitely one that involved a variety of situations, from road trip, to hiking trek to running & yoga retreat.

Speaking of, we have yet to post about the Costa Rica portion of our journey, but guess what, it’s coming up next!

A little recap of the sites we consulted when planning out trip:

Websites we used to book things ahead:

And apps used to get around:

Navmii

iOverlander

Race Recap: Melanie runs her first 50k at the Gorge Waterfalls

April 17, 2017January 18, 2024Posted in Trail Running, Ultra RunningTagged First time ultra running, PNW, Rainshadow running Trail Race, running my first 50k, The Gorge Waterfall 50k trail race, Trail Race, Trail race in Oregon, Trail running in Orgeon, Trail Running in Pacific Northwest, trail running in PNW, Trails of the Pacific Northwest, Ultra marathons in Orgeon, ultra running4 Comments

On April 9, I ran my first 50k trail race. That’s right, little old me, who a couple of years ago still swore that she had no interest in running, and especially not long distance, somehow found herself signing up for an ultra marathon. So, never say never I guess 😛

After changing my mind about this whole running thing, I didn’t waste my time and just about a year after running my first 10k trail race, I signed up for the Gorge Waterfalls 50km 2017, organized by Rainshadow Running. I picked that race for several reasons. I had been told it was a really gorgeous course, passing a number of waterfalls. I figured if I’m going to be running for that long, it better be scenic. I also heard that it was somewhat less technical than some of our local Vancouver races, which sounded less daunting. The Knee Knacker or Squamish 50 are notoriously gnarly races, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to kick-off my ultra-running days with such a challenge. I also liked the idea of an out of town race, which brought the opportunity for a trip, a week-end away in a place I’d never been.

Entry to both the 50 and 100k races is actually granted through a lottery. I was talking to a couple of friends about it and they mentioned that the option was available to register as a group. This way, either the whole group was selected, or no one of us would be at all. So I put my name in with the rest of them, thinking it might also increase our odds, as that way we weren’t technically competing against each other for an entry.

Sure enough, just as Brice and I were about to set off for the Run Like Girl Costa Rica retreat in December, the lottery was drawn and our group was selected.

Fast forward to a month later. After a 6-day trek over 130km in one of Chile’s most famous national park, I was feeling pretty confident about my overall endurance fitness, and ready to start tackling 12 weeks of ultra-training…Unfortunately, on week 1, some bad move during a gym session resulted in weird pain in my left foot. I could barely put any weight on it for a week, and spent the following couple of weeks tip-toeing my way around, and basically unable to run. The chiro I first went to suggested I tried water-running to keep up my cardio and resistance training while my foot recovered. So I went to the pool about 3 times a week for 4 weeks, trying to make running with a belt in the slow lane as entertaining as possible (hint: it’s pretty hard, and I may or may not have resulted to pretend acceptance speeches in my head for receiving an Academy Award, or maybe even a Nobel prize…:P).

Bus ride to the start line. PC: Marc Roth

6 weeks to race day, the foot was finally feeling better and I was antsy to give it a go, so Brice took me out for a run around the sea-wall, which confirmed I was good to run again. I’m still unclear as to what exactly was wrong with my foot, my new favorite RMT (thanks for the tip Pargol!) suggested it might have had to do with some calf tightness and trigger points… Sneaky referred pain. It’s not the first time you play tricks on me and probably not the last!

Preparing of drop bags and fuel with Andrea and Pargol, on the night before race day

My fueling supplies: Fuit bars and Maple suryp, Tailwind, and chewable salt tabs

After a particularly cold Vancouver winter, which brought record snowfall, training on the mountain trails proved to be a bit of a challenge, so we stuck to the Lower Lynn Valley area for a few of our long runs. My longest distance had been the Squamish 23k in August, so I graduated to 26 then 31km in the last two long runs of my training. On that last one (organized by the Salomon West Van Trail Lab), we did a loop on Baden Powell/Mountain Highway from the Grouse Mountain parking lot, followed by an “out and back” to Park Royal, with the last stretch a nice steady uphill on Nancy Green Way. I didn’t quite run all the way up, but not far off, and felt like I definitely had another 10k in my legs by the end of that run, so all good signs to make me feel pretty confident about attempting that and 20 more a couple of weeks later.

Pretty solid Vancouver contingent at the Gorge 50k 2017 start line! PC: Brice Ferre

One of my favourite things about this race was being able to share the experience with friends. Pargol is a long-time runner and a pretty seasoned long-distance trail runner, having already completed a number of road marathons, 50k, 50milers, 100k and 100mile races. She had signed up for the Gorge as a “training run”, her goal race of the year being the Fat Dog 120 miler in August. Nadine and Marc were, like me, first timers when it comes to ultra-marathons, but had ran their longest distance at the Chicago road marathon a few months before. And Andrea, a former Vancouver FSRC member who flew in from her new home in Boston, also had some solid experience with road and trail races. Needless to say, I felt pretty well surrounded, not to mention of course Brice, who gave me all the right pointers without overwhelming me with advice or suggestions.

We arrived in Portland early in the afternoon on April 8th. Our group of 6 had found an AirBnB rental to share for the week-end, a comfortable house with a fireplace, about 30min East of downtown Portland, and 20 min from the finish line in Benson State Park. Brice and I headed there on Saturday afternoon, to check out the 100 km finishers. The day was grey and rainy and I was already preparing myself mentally for a cold and wet race.

Chatting with Lisa and Andrea at the start line before the race briefing. PC: Brice Ferre

Brice taking our group photo, next to Jes, another friend from the thursday night Vancouver Running Company run group, who came to crew and cheer her boyfriend Eric. PC: Jeff Pelletier

On a training run a few weeks back, Nadine had come up with this mantra for the race “Fun, Focus, Finish!” to which I had immediately added ”Food, food, food!”. Indeed, we shared a pretty epic pre-race dinner, combining all things healthy and energetic in the form of quinoa, pasta, beets, pickles, avocado, yams, roasted chicken, greens, in other words a feast.
Then came the ritual preparing of the packs and drop bags, and the comparing and sharing of fueling options. I hadn’t had a lot of chances to experiment during my training, so I stuck to what I knew: Fruit 2 & 3 bars and maple syrup packets, both from Xact Nutrition. I also put Tailwind in my water, and packed a roll of chewable orange-flavored salt tabs (the only thing I hadn’t tried before). I decided to forgo any drop bag since Brice would be crewing me at the first two aid stations, and the last one (No Name, which didn’t have crew access) was only about 10k from the finish. Just before going to bed, Brice and I also drank a cup of warm water with Apple Cider Vinegar and honey, a concoction we had started to add to our nightly routine a few weeks back. Brice had read that it promoted better sleep and increased energy levels the next day, and it seemed to have positive results on him (I’m a pretty sound sleeper as it is, so I don’t know about the sleeping part, but i did feel pretty energized on mornings after drinking it).

Start Line at Wyeth Campground. PC: Jeff Pelletier

Finally, it was race day, and somehow I wasn’t feeling nervous anymore, I was just ready to go! We drove east on Highway 84, and I couldn’t have been more excited when the rising sun started to shine right in our eyes. Against all meteorological odds, it looked like it was going to be a sunny day.
We picked up our bibs at Benson State Park, then hopped on buses to take us to the start line, at the Wyeth trail head.

Start of the race, with Race Director James Varner in the foreground. PC: Brice Ferre

The five of us started the race in the middle of the pack. The trail ascends almost immediately in a narrow single track, so for the first couple of kilometers, we all followed each other and every runner in front of us in a somewhat tight a conga line. Right away the course started to deliver on its promise of scenery, the trail taking us along a ridge with wide open views of the Columbia River.

Foggy but sunny morning. PC: Brice Ferre

One of the many moss-covered boulder slopes that we got to run by during the race. PC: Marc Roth

After a couple of km, Pargol decided that we’d had enough of a warm up, and prompted us to start passing people. I led the charge and the five of us carefully snuck our way passed a couple dozen runners (the trail was still pretty narrow so we were careful to let everyone know we were coming up to their left and making sure to pass where there was enough room). Eventually the trail veered off from the ridge and into the forest, widening slightly and we were able to kick it up one more notch. On the first big down hill, I forgot all about my plan to take it easy in the first 30k, and just went for it. I might as well have had my arms up in the air while screaming “weeeee!”. I knew I was probably going too fast, but, in echo to Nadine’s mantra, I was having too much fun, and figured I’d slow down when I’m tired…

First creek crossing at the beginning of the race. PC: Lisa Stone

When racing I don’t look at my watch very often, but I like to hear it bip for each km that passes. Without keeping track of the actual number, every time it buzzes it’s a little boost that tells me “one more down!”. I wasn’t paying too much attention at first, but when I looked at my watch for the first time, it read 12km…I thought it was a bit odd, as I didn’t think I had ran that much, but I felt pretty strong, so maybe it was true…The first aid station was at mile 9, aka km15. By the time my watch displayed 18km, and no station was in sight, I figured something was definitely wrong with it. It’s common to have a bit of a discrepancy, even between people running the same course, but that was a bit much.

Marc and I had distanced ourselves a bit from the other three when we made it to Cascade Locks, the first aid station (we didn’t know it then, by Pargol had taken a pretty gnarly fall on rocks and ended up with a couple-inches wide gash in her knee, and multiple bruises… which of course, being the machine that she is, did not stop her from running the rest of the race and finishing strong). I think Brice was pretty surprised to see me at Cascade already, and I said to him “yeah I probably started way too strong”, but at that point I still felt great. I downed a maple syrup packet, half a fruit bar and a cup of water, and I was on my way. At that point my watch showed 20km, which was 5k more that it should have.

Brice helping me refuel and restock at the Cascade Locks aid station. PC: Jeff Pelletier

The next 15km went by pretty fast. Marc and I stayed relatively close together I think, and I also ran for a bit alongside Shamai and her trail pup Rosie, an impressive little dog who was racing her second ultra!
Brice caught me on camera at the bottom of another downhill, halfway to the Yeon Aid station (I think near the Eagle Creek Trail Head).

After that there were a couple of sections that I ran by myself. My watch was still acting up and I tried to entertain myself by trying to extrapolate some sort of pattern for the kms it was displaying (if it showed 20km at the 15 mark, and 42 km at the 30 mark, what km will it show when I reach the 40 mark?) …But I’m pretty bad at math and after hearing it buzz two kilometers in a span of 2 minutes, it was pretty clear my watch had completely lost it. So I just gave up on it (it read 63km by the time it died, just before the last big hill, so around km 42ish).
On that section, we passed the first waterfall, an impressive sight when it appeared around the bend, rushing down and swollen from all the melted snow and rain from the last few weeks. Pretty awesome!

The official race photographer, Glenn Tachiyama, captured us in one of the most scenic spot, right after the first waterfall. PC: Glenn Tachiyama

Having kept a close eye on my nutrition and hydration, I was feeling in really good shape by the time I reached the Yeon aid station at km30. But in the last downhill, my right knee started to act up, sending a couple of sharp stabbing pain to the outside of my knee cap. It felt very similar to knee pain I had experienced a few years ago, coming down on some long steep hikes, which I believe had been related to tight hips and IT band.

Going into the race, I had my main “on-the-run” fuel pretty figured out but I knew I was going to need something slightly more substantial than syrup and fruit bar, if only to avoid my stomach from growling for the second half of the way. Avocado has never failed me, so I had prepared a container of cubed avocado, along with some sweet potato, which I dug into at that point (I would have loved to add some cubed mango to the mix, which combines surprisingly well with avocado, but couldn’t find ripe enough ones on time). I ate probably about half an avocado and a third of the potato. I could have eaten more but didn’t want to weight myself down and be slowed down by digestion. It worked like charm and I think was great to compensate for all the sugar I was otherwise ingesting.

Coming down to the second Aid Station, Yeons. PC: Brice Ferre

While I was doing some quick hip and hamstring stretches before heading back out (hoping it would make the insidious knee pain go away), Brice let me know that there was a 2 km stretch of paved road before going back onto the trail. That section was probably the toughest one of the race (for me anyways). I ran out of the aid station at a good pace, but the pain in my knee was slowly increasing and I felt heavier and stiffer. The sun was pretty high at that point, and I started to feel hot but couldn’t be bothered taking my merino vest off, knowing that I’d probably want to put it back on once I was back in the shade.

This is when the second part of Nadine’s mantra kicked in: Focus. I stared at the white line on the road for a few hundred meters, then I started looking up at the other runners in the distance, trying to make out how far I still had to go before entering the trail again. At that point I couldn’t wait for a nice uphill in the shade. That’s when Brice, who had driven up the road passed me, appeared with his camera. He later said that he was going to honk at me but refrained from doing so when he saw the look on my face. Still, I think I managed to muster a smile (always smile at the camera!). That’s the last time he saw me on course before the finish line.

this 2km stretch of pavement in the sun was NOT my favorite part…PC: Brice Ferre

I eventually made it to the trail head and left the asphalt behind, thank God! Pretty sure I have no interest on ever running a road marathon (never say what?). My knee didn’t hurt as much on the uphill and I ran the following portion fairly painless-ly I think, albeit slower than in the beginning. Eventually Marc (who I thought was in front of me) and Lisa, another Vancouver runner friend, caught up with me and we ran the next portion together, from km 35ish to 40 I think. We passed a number of waterfalls, and even ran below one, all of them a welcome scenic break from the task otherwise at hand. I was slowly fading, mainly due to knee pain rather than energy drop, and was grateful for Lisa being right on my heel, and encouraging me to keep going. She and Marc eventually passed me and I managed to keep up with them for a bit, until we reached the short downhill leading to No Name aid station. The pain came back strong and it became pretty clear to me at that point that I would no longer be running any downhill. After a quick 2 minute refuel at No Name, we headed back out again for the last 10-ish kilometers, which basically consisted of a 5k/1500 feet ascent, followed by the descent of the same.

The trail even took us behind one of the waterfalls. PC: Lisa Stone

I kept going relatively steady in the uphill, but both knees were hurting now and slowing me down. Due to a washout near the last waterfall, the course had been re-routed to use the main paved path up the hill, rather than the usual trail. I didn’t mind it too much, it was probably easier to power hike on that surface than on a rocky and muddy trail. The gap between me and Marc and Lisa in front was growing, and eventually I heard my name called out behind me. Pargol and Nadine, who had ran smart and paced themselves in the beginning, were now catching up to me. As they passed me I hoped I could maybe keep up with them and stay in their wind. But Pargol had shifted to finishing gear, and was powering up the hill faster than I could. My heart sank for a second as I saw them get further away, but that’s when my watch buzzed and biped one last time, signaling me that it had now hit low battery and would no longer be tracking my progress. Instead of pace, it now displayed the time, which made me I realize that I was still one hour away from my target finish – my secret “If I feel great and somehow nothing bad happens” goal was to come in just under 7 hours, but that goal was long gone. With only 7ish km to go though, I felt like I could definitely make it to the finish in one hour, and hit my official target time, so that made me feel better about where I was at. And thus began the final part of Nadine’s Mantra: Finish.

Remnant of a very snow winter in the PNW. PC: Marc Roth

Eventually I reached the top and the final descent started. I attempted briefly to resume running, but my knees would have none of it. I might have even tried side-skipping (that worked for about 50 meters until the sharp pain came back again), and even walking backwards on steeper sections, which turned out to be both useless and potentially dangerous. So with that I figured “I’ll get there when I get there” and kept steadily hobbling down the hill, taking in the sun and the scenery. I had been pretty good at keeping up with nutrition, and I actually didn’t feel any fatigue or drop in energy. My spirit was in fact remarkably high, considering. A number of runners passed me on the way down, all asking if I was ok, and always I would reply “I’m fine, thank you for asking! Just taking my time!”. After a few more muddy and rocky sections, the trail, which was now going down in switchbacks, started to overlook a parking lot below. As runners were passing by, they were commenting on how much of a tease it was, seeing from above what seemed to be the finish while having quite a bit of ways to go still to reach the bottom. But Brice had warned me about the finish: coming off the trail, I would still have to run about 1.5 km between a lake and the highway, before entering Benson State park and crossing the finish. This was a pretty crucial piece of information for me, Mrs I-like-to-know-what’s–coming. So while I was eager to get to that parking lot, I knew it wouldn’t be quite the end yet.

Finally, I reached the bottom. The volunteer at the end of the trail welcomed me with a loud “this is your last downhill of the day, soon you’ll be downing pizza!”, and I replied with equal enthusiasm “Thank you, I couldn’t be happier to hear that!”. He directed me to go across the parking lot and through the underpass, and then there it was, that last flat stretch of gravel. Flat being the key word, my knee pain suddenly vanished and I proceeded to run at a good pace along the lake. Nadine and Marc both commented later on how long that last mile had felt, but to me it actually seemed incredibly short (After all, I was traveling twice as fast as I had in the last hour), and most of all I was feeling great. The trail curved to the left and into the picnic area and there was the finish line, which I crossed with the biggest grin on my face, partly because I knew Brice would be waiting for me camera in hand, but mostly because I was pretty fucking happy. I had just finished my first 50k trail race.

The good thing when all your friends finish before you, is that they’re all there to welcome you at the finish line (that was my plan all along, mwouaahaha!). After high-fiving everybody and taking a moment to settle, I realized I hadn’t taken a look at the clock. Brice told me I had finished in 7 hours and 27 minutes. So 3 minutes short of my official target. Yeah! was my first reaction. Immediately followed by “Now where’s the food?!”

I honestly couldn’t have dreamed better conditions for my first 50k. Surrounded by friends, on a beautiful course, and blessed by sunshine all the way through.
The course was everything it promised to be scenery-wise (I thought). Ridge-running in the beginning offered really great vistas of the Columbia river, moss-covered, sunshine-drenched rocky slopes to run alongside, and of course, impressive waterfalls in the second half of the run.

It was a bit more technical than I expected. There were quite a few sections, mainly along the ridges, where the trail was pretty rocky and demanded quite a bit of attention to prevent any miss-step or ankle-rolling. The bad weather of the last few weeks had also resulted in a number of fallen trees across the trail, and some really muddy sections. There was even one portion where we had to climb up a rope to bypass some obstacle on the regular trail (I can’t quite remember why that detour was there, but Marc and I agreed that climbing that rope was one of the most fun part of the race :P). The race organizers had done a really good job at letting us know ahead of time, via email, what the trail conditions were, including photos, so there weren’t any surprises. They had also warned us about snow patches and higher water-levels in some of the creeks, but these last two were really not as bad as what we thought. Although all of this made the course slower for runners who might have hoped for a course PB or even just a faster run, I actually found all these obstacles a good way to keep focused, and not get bored.

Post Race cozy-ing up by the fire place… PC: Andrea Zi

Overall, I’m genuinely stocked about this first experience. And dare I say, pretty proud of myself for how I handled the unexpected. Pre-runner Melanie would probably have cursed at the course and hated the entire world when the knees started to give out, but I managed to chase away any negative thoughts about not being good enough and whatever else I would have come up with back then, and just kept trucking along with a smile. And for this, thank you doesn’t begin to express how inspired and motivated I am by Brice. Watching him begin his ultra-running journey 4 years ago and power through some pretty challenging and painful races, and always come out smiling and happy has really inspired me to push myself more, not be so afraid, and most of all, just quit whining 😛

Now what to sign up for next???

Thank you to Marc, Andrea, Lisa and Jeff for letting me use some of their photos, and of course to Brice, for not only being the best crew I could wish for, but also doubling as my unofficial race photographer and providing me with all the cool “action shots” :P.