Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Asotin Creek Adventures

Starting the climb up to the ridge line.

This past Saturday Scott, Knut and I headed down to Asotin Creek for another trail running adventure. After logging a solid 24 mile effort on Moscow Mountain the previous weekend we decided to bump the mileage up to 30 to allow for a little more exploration of this beautiful area.

The run was amazing. We ran through miles of wildflowers as we ascended the ridge line, dropped down an over grown trail into Asotin Creek and then made our way towards Mt. Misery. Unfortunately, the NF trail had long since fallen victim to mother nature so instead we chose to take the unknown and slightly overgrown S. Pinkham trail back up onto the ridge line.

The trail was steep. And in just under 2 miles we had gained the 3,000 ft we had descended just 4 miles previously. The views were breathtaking and we were excited to see that the ridge continued for as far as the eye could see. (up next...the Asotin Creek 50 miler?!)

After enjoying the views we doubled back to the S. Pinkham trail and dropped back down to Asotin Creek and enjoyed a mellow 10 mile run back out to the car. All in all we netted 30 miles with close to 7,000 ft of climbing and a little over 6 hrs of moving time.

Below is a photo essay of our run :-)

Tracks through the meadow
Taking advantage of a long forgotten trail
Running through miles of wildflowers
Knut leading the way down to Asotin Creek
Scott descending from the ridge to Asotin Creek
Posing for a quick photo
S. Pinkham...a new trail!
Beautiful groves of Ponderosa Pines
Climbing the S. Pinkham trail back to the ridge line
View along the ridge line after ascending the S. Pinkham trail
Descending the S. Pinkham trail back to Asotin Creek