What's Your Dream?

Kaurine and I have already had many adventures in the great outdoors of Utah. There are so many beautiful places to go and see! We have barely scratched the surface of it all. The following are a few of my favorite pictures from our recent adventures. 5th Water Hot Springs Horsetail Falls Oak Grove to Battlecreek Loop Add caption Flaming Gorge Red Pine Lake There are a few places that we can take the dogs, so we take them when we can. They love hiking, backpacking, trail running just as much as we do. We do practice leave no trace , Laddie was recently fitted with his own doggy backpack, which means he gets to carry his own poop out. Which is awesome! I hated carrying it in my pack.  If you are on a trail and you see trash, pick it up. I never come back from an adventure without trash in my pack that I have collected along the way. Want to get more involved with keeping our trails clean? Check out Clean Trails.   Plogging  is the new ...

I just had the most wonderful weekend. I was able to do all the things that I love with the people that I love! My weekend started off by my bouncing out of work a couple of hours early on Friday to head down to the Rock N Roll Seattle Marathon Expo! One of my favorite race expos but this year I got to volunteer at two booths. I started off at the Seattle Green Lake Running Group Pacer booth for an hour or so and I was very fascinated by how many runners didn't know what a pacer was. It was exciting to tell them what we did and how we did it. I absolutely love being a pacer, helping people reach their goals is so rewarding, it's indescribable! I highly recommend it!  I then spent the last 3 hours of the expo at the Hot Chocolate 15k/5k booth! I love love love Chocolate, so why not share my love with other runners! It was a blast telling people about the race and how... there really are chocolate aid stations and chocolate at the finish and chocolate chocolate chocolate, did...

I am sure that many of you have heard of the Ragnar Relays but have you heard of Ragnar Trail Relays? Same concept of a relay team but very different concept about traveling 200 miles. In a Ragnar Trail Relay there is a base camp where all of the teams camp out for a couple of days while each team member takes their turn running the three trail loops. Each runner still runs 3 separate times, just like a Road Ragnar but instead of all different legs, everyone on the team runs the same three legs.  We did it!  This race was a bit of a tough one, one of our teammates Lynne had an unfavorable run in with another very rude runner and ended up breaking a few bones in her right leg. We are all very grateful that she is up and about now, determined to be running again in the fall. She is an amazingly inspirational person who has shown us that there are no excuses! Here's to you Lynne! May you heal swiftly and kick all of our asses at our next meet up! I look blah but was doi...

June 4th I found myself in Whistler with my running pal Peter. We had decided to run this half marathon several months back without much thought put into the decision, it just sounded like fun at the time. Peter and I at about mile 9 As it turns out the Whistler Half Marathon is very beautiful, the course is lined with all sorts of multi million dollar homes that you get to gawk at when you are running by with sneak peaks of a lake here and there and of course a few snow capped mountains. But, the race is anything but flat!! You just go up and up and up! Eventually towards the back half of the race the course did level out but EEPS! The only negative about the race were the sections of the course that you have to cross through the people ahead of you who had already turned around. There were 4/5 spots like this on the course. Other than that, it was a very well put together race with an incredible finish area right at the Olympic rings! With tons of food and really great swag...

If you like hiking then you'll love Kendall Katwalk, it's an 11 miles round trip with a 2600 ft elevation gain. Sounds hard but it's one of the easier hikes that I have done here in Washington. There are wild flowers, wild Alpine Blueberries, only about a mile of rocky hiking but easy small rocks with an even trail, a couple open meadows, old growth trees, creeks and even a lake if you are in shape!  (What the rocky section looks like) The the jewel of this hike are the mountain views. You get to enjoy the mountain views about 50% of the time.  (One if the views on the way to the top) Once you reach the top, your breath will be lost from the sheer beauty of the mountains and valleys, not from the hike itself! Once you reach the Katwalk it's a good place to rest and soak up the views. You can continue on to a lake about another mile ahead or turn around, the Katwalk is the 5.5 mile turn around point. To go on you may camp down at the lake.  Sadly the photos do not do it ...

My friends came to town so we decided to go hiking, they had never hate to the mountains before. So I decided to take them to Snow Lake near Mount Baker. We started off pretty early in the morning and on the way he stopped and saw the Snoqualmie Falls on the way. Which for some reason I never seen before even though they were great falls and it was truly beautiful. Then we stopped for breakfast at Tweetie Café. Which was a quaint little café  with an old style feel. Eventually we made it to the trailhead for Snow Lake. After a misadventure in a washed out parking lot and off roading just to get back on the road to get to the right parking lot. As soon as we arrived we were immediately greeted by beautiful views of the mountains covered in snow and waterfalls from the snowmelt running off the side of the mountains. We started our hike and not even a quarter-mile into it we hit snow and not just a little snow several feet of snow that we had to hike over. It was snowy for t...