Category Archives: Beyond Colorado

A few weeks back a group of us spent a weekend in Moab to do a little biking, celebrate a birthday, and escape the unsettled weather spring has brough to the Western Slope. In an effort to get some longer training days in on foot, I swapped out one of our scheduled biking days, laced up the trail shoes, and headed out for a solo loop southwest of town that had long been on the wish list.

Among the vast expanse of routes and trail systems Moab has to offer, some are definitely better for biking while some are obviously better for hiking/running. As a lover of loops, I’d earmarked the Pritchett Canyon/Hunter’s Rim loop as one of the higher rated and more interesting loops in the area. Clocking in around 14 miles and over 2,000 feet of gain, it makes for a nice moderate length outing through some of Moab’s more beautiful canyon country. It’s also the route used by the Moab Half Marathon, which generally takes place in early-November. Keep Reading….

Last month Anna-Lisa and I spent a week up in the Olympic Peninsula region of Washington State. While we didn’t hike every single day of the trip, there was no way we were leaving without checking out one of the most beautiful, classic loops in Olympic Nation Park – the Seven Lakes High Divide Loop.

Most often done as a backpack, the 20-mile loop boasts ~4,800 feet of elevation gain and traces out a big circle around the Seven Lakes Plateau. The route starts and ends at the Sul Doc Trailhead, about an hour’s drive east of Forks. We chose to do the loop in the counterclockwise direction, first climbing up to Deer Lake. This gets the elevation gain over with earlier in the day and leaves the long, gradual descent down the Sol Duc Valley for the end. The first miles up to Deer Lake are steep but the forest is spectacular. We climbed up through a layer of fog as the sun’s rays were just cresting a nearby ridgeline. Keep Reading….