Started at Ona Beach Friday, November 10th, 2023 7:53PM with my running friend Brian Hamilton (male) who was attempting the FKT self-supported (male).
Crossed paths with what we think was 2 cougars along the trail at night. Kinda scary!
Trail was well marked with the exception of one point near a creek we went left following ribbons to a dead end. Not sure why those ribbons were placed there? Retraced our steps to find ribbons going in a different, correct direction.
Made it to the mile 33 check-in station (so i believe that'd be mile ~27 since we were going opposite direction) a little after 6AM Saturday where we had previously placed our drop bags. By this time it was raining and shoes were soaked.
We continued on along a road that nested in a really pretty valley with several farms with cattle, goats, and horses.
It was a beautiful trail but the rain really put a damper on the adventure. Feet were just completely soaked which was not pleasant.
Made it to the Shawala Point Park turnaround point just before 7PM Saturday. A lot of homeless people in the area which was also kind of scary-- I wish this trail had a different end point as this did not seem super safe especially at night. We resupplied with our drop bags and had a quick rest before turning back around.
This section for a second time was a real drag as it's a lot of sidewalks/roads. We were excited to get back on the non-paved trail.
We were super sleepy so had to stop and take a few trail naps which thankfully it was not raining anymore.
We were excited when the sun finally started to come up-- helped us get over our sleepiness. Beautiful PNW views with the fog flowing between the hills and trees.
Made it back to the mile 33 check-in station at about 11AM Sunday where our drop bags were still hidden. Resupplied and continued on to the finish!
I was really struggling with my feet at this point so my pace had slowed down a lot. We were worried about a heavy rain that was going to be coming in later in the day so we tried our best to keep moving.
The rain began to his us again late afternoon. We did not stop once the rain started to downpour as we would risk getting too cold. It was an exhausting final ~6 hours to the finish but we made it!
We got lost at the very end trying to find the beach which was funny (I'm sure you can see our wandering path on the gpx lol). We were very sleep deprived.
We both finished at Ona Beach Sunday, November 12th, 2023 11:51PM.
A fun adventure!