Skien/Porsgrunn is the centre town of Telemark region in Norway. GUT RANGER track is rimming the town and linking the near woods and mountain area together. You will be visiting some of the major peaks in the area with amazing views of landscape from sea to summit in Telemark region. 

The rout is technically challenging and power eating, with constant changing terrain types and vegetation. 80% rough trails, 10% gravel, 10%asphalt and 100% trail runner heaven! 

I did this as a roundtrip loop starting and finishing at the Jack Creek TH. I went up Jack Creek to the Meadow Creek junction, then up Meadow Creek to the Snowall/Cradle Lake junction, up to Cradle Lake, down Snowall Creek, and out French Creek/Icicle River trail. I ran the road back to my truck at the Jack TH. Note there are no bridges across the 4 major stream crossings, effort was required to find places to wade across that were acceptable. This route follows beautiful Central Cascades valleys and gets you to a spectacular alpine lake.

First of all Mineral King is a hard place to get up to.  The approach road is about 25 miles long, but mostly single lane with plenty of sections with a fatal fall on the downhill side and a rock face on the uphill side.  So it'll take at least an hour, a nerve wracking, puckering hour of driving to arrive.  Once you're there most of the cars are wrapped in tarps from tire to roof to protect them from marmots.  With the bad news out of the way we can get to the good stuff.