Training Log Archive: bensmith

My first time up Mt Fromme, taking fairly quiet trails. The main summit of Fromme gives good views to the east, and the north summit gives views to the west (though mostly of Grouse and Crown area, as it's not super high). I'd definitely recommend doing both if you're up there - it's only a few minutes extra. The added bonus is that nobody else went over to the second summit, so it was much quieter and I was out of earshot of the people unironically talking very loudly about how quiet it was up there...

I took some orienteering route choices at times. I overshot the turnoff for McKay Creek trail off Baden Powell, so just went straight up until I saw blazes. There's also a maze of trails at the top of McKay and Skyline, and it wasn't clear how to connect on to Old Mountain Highway. I ended up 50m vertically above where I wanted to be, so took a gentle diagonal descent to intercept the old road. The undergrowth is quite minimal for a lot of the area. If someone could just make it half as steep it'd be a great place to run.

After Fromme and N Fromme, I took a very steep trail down to Pipeline Pass, then the Erik the Red trail over to Thunderbird Ridge. This was quite a cool trail, and felt very backcountry despite how close it is to the resort. There isn't much flagging, but the trail is easy to follow. Quite a few trees are down, but most are easily crossed; one required me to take my backpack off and shimmy underneath - would be a tight squeeze for the more rotund. You have to know where you're going if doing Erik the Red in reverse - you can't see the trail from the main Thunderbird Ridge trail, and the place to hop over to it is marked only by ~ 1 inch of flagging tape. Finished up with a very busy Alpine trail back to the gondola to save my knees from having to descend.

Easy run along Marine Drive. Normally this would be a tempo, but I haven't really run much for 2 weeks, and things were feeling tight. Also lingering cold made breathing harder than normal. Definitely conversational pace.

Yaletown WET. Took it pretty chill.

Ridge, Crater Rim and Riverside trails in Whistler (starting near the Athletes' Centre). Really nice trails, pretty forest, and varied terrain - on boulder field to cross, a lake to circumnavigate, a volcano crater rim to walk along, and a fast-flowing Cheakamus River. Delightful.