Trip Report Saturday Feb 18th 2023.
I started out with morning plans to sleep in. I woke up at 3am and wasn't able to fall back asleep. So I got up and prepped for the trip. 2:20 hour drive from Salem and I was starting the run at 6:44am.
Starting this trek the weather was cool at 44 degrees, overcast, and found myself running into a head wind. (I should have known this would be the case as cooling air will be moving down the canyon as air temps are dropping and back up the canyon as temperatures rise.) Per Strava wind speed was about 8 mph at the start. All withint the first 12 miles, ran across 4 antelope, 6 deer, 23 mountain goats (some with racks that almost did a complete 360 degrees), and a bald eagle (tried to get a picture and it took off right as I was taking it).
At mile 18 I noticed the winds were finally slowing. The trail itself was pretty well maintained until mile 19 where you run into the first of 6 small canyon crossings, some narrow paths on the edge of steep embankments to the river, several rocky land slides to navigate through, and jump a few fences. The turn around around at Mack's canyon and the day was still pretty overcast and beautiful. This was the first point in the trip where I ran into someone driving up the road.
Heading back about two miles in and the winds had started coming back up the canyon. The winds were pretty mild at first and gradually increased till they must have been around 15mph head winds. This was a day I should have ran the opposite direction. Around mile 12ish, I ran into the first mountain biker on the trail which soon turned into many more bikers, hikers, backpackers, and strollers. The last 5 miles the clouds started to break up and the sun made a showing. Got back to the car and the temp read 57 degrees.
Gear: 2.5 liters of water (used about 2.3 liters), water filter went unused this trip, energy gels and energy gummies were my only fuel for the 7 hour trek.