This route went really well today, although I am tired and my new watch says that I won't be fully recovered for 96 hours. I took two liters of water and made it last until I was in the Santa Barbara drainage again, about 9 miles from the trailhead. There is a nice creek there and I filtered an additional two liters. I ate an Rx bar, a Larabar, some barbecue potato chips, a little bit of dark chocolate and drank one Emergen-C. The Santa Barbara drainage is just beautiful both in terms of scenery as well as the condition of most of the trail for running. If I ever do this route again, I will take the shortcut and avoid the detour toward Chimayosos Peak. That shortcut trail might be unmaintained, but it is well trodden and in good condition.
This outing landing me somewhat high on the current Strava segment for Santa Barbara. I checked all of the faster times and a few slower ones. Only one appeared to run this exact route. It features a significantly faster "moving time" but a total elapsed time basically identical to Matthew Matta's 2025 result.
Pictures:
*A view of North Truchas and the moon from near the top of the Santa Barbara drainage.
*Looking at Middle and South Truchas from the top of North Truchas.
*The detour toward Chimayosos to stay on the main trail, as the previous listed FKTs took, did reward me with spotting a couple of spectacular Amanita Muscarias. This wasn't even the best of them, but I wasn't going to stop again...