White River preview part 1 (short version), 7/5/2009

Three weeks to WR50; two weeks since Lost Lake 50K; SOME crazies (Jane!) did that one AND the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon AND came out for this one as well.

Ali too had marathoned and graciously volunteered to babysit me on the short loop up to Ranger Creek and back. Jeff and Robin joined in, first sighting for me since their mega-hundreds-of-miles Appalachian Trail trip. Tracy frisky as has recently been true set off after a bit after Eric Barnes & pal, leaving only a trail of cookie crumbs...wait, it was actually a baggie-full and they were back in the car.

Beautiful sunny day, nice Rainier views, pretty little purple flowers, orange ones too; uphill walking pretty slow going for me. Nice to see fast young guns Uli & Brian, then Michael H, then a passel of others spring by 3-ish hours into it having started an hour or so behind.

Every uphill has a downhill! Ali came back to collect me and we fairly zoomed down beautiful soft trail with cool cover overhead and in very short order were crossing the bridge over a rushing White River and so to hom....but first, some of Ali's blueberry
pomegranate juice! Thanks ma'am.

Beauty day! Next week Suntop. There or square.

Good times!