Hiking

I've been trying to go hiking one day each week and so far Linda and I have gone 5 weeks in a row.

Banner Forest  7 miles
Lake Lena. 9 miles
Carbon River Ranger Station. 13.1 miles
Wildcat Trailhead. 6 miles
 Stottlemeyer.  8 miles
Mt St Helens. 8 miles

Some of these have been absolutely amazing hikes. Lake Lena has the Valley of Silent Men, OLD growth fir trees, hundreds of years old and many have fallen recently so we were walking under them. It was also all mossy and green, so cool.

Carbon River had Green Lake and an old mine.

Stottlemeyer is a localish Forest, many mtn bikers and trail runners like to go there.

And Mt St Helens. We went on May 18, 2016, the 36th anniversary of its big explosion. That was cool because we didn't have to pay the $8 hiking fee. We hiked out 4 miles, up onto Harry's Ridge which looks directly into the opening of the volcano. We lunched at the feet of geological equipment and saw steam coming up from the new dome. Spirit Lake was beautiful but weird with so many trees still floating in it after all see years.

All these trail miles are making my legs stronger and I think it's good cross training that is making me stronger and faster and stops my legs from hurting when I run.  I have Harstine Island Half Marathon in 2 weeks and I hope my legs don't hurt two days later like they did so badly last year.