Geocaching Run

With the weather threatening to bring snow and rain we decided to take advantage of Tuesday's nice sunny afternoon. We decided to find a few geocaches in the Rattlesnake recreation area while we were running. Maybe I should say, we tried to run anyway. We parked the car at 3,700 feet elevation and began our run. We started walking when we arrived at the major incline that become the mountain. It's about a 3 mile climb up so we only ran for 1.25 miles before we started walking. We always seem to find the hardest trail up to a cache, and we certainly did yesterday. For nearly half a mile there were no switchbacks and we went straight up the mountain. Our legs were burning by the time we arrived at the top which was 4.5 miles away from the car and at 5,200 feet. The great thing about climbing to the top though....it's all down hill to the bottom! We ended up making a loop when we took the popular trail back down.

We found three geocaches and we ended up running, walking, and hiking a total of 9 miles. Here's a birds eye view of the route we took. We ran a counter-clockwise route, starting from the bottom and running to the top of the Grant Creek area. Winter is clearly on it's way here in Missoula. The fog is starting to set in and taking several hours to burn off, sometimes it hangs on until mid-afternoon. It is cloudy today, and expected to be cloudy for the next two weeks with occasional showers. Saturday might be sunny, but the odds are not in the suns favor. It's easy to see why so many people can become so depressed during winter months in places like this. Especially people who can't find work and need money! Missoula is certainly one of those places. Laura and I are excited to go to Wyoming and Nebraska over Christmas so we can see the sun occasionally and do some running where there are not mountains. I am looking forward to not having a mountain blocking the sunrise and sunset - heck, I will just be happy to have the mountains out of my sight period.

Well, that's my complaining blog for the month. Laura's birthday is coming up and I need to be getting her a present before the weekend. She gave me a short list of some things she would like and it's either a movie, book, or music... Ok, I can handle that. Until again

-=Nolan=-