Titles are boring.

It's reading break at school, and I was out in the morning and it was the most gorgeous "tease you with it almost being spring" day so I just couldn't resist the urge to go for a run.... for six and a half hours. I went to Okanagan Mountain Park and decided to take the Wildhorse Canyon Trail. I had crazy notions of possibly making it all the way to a trail on the other side of the mountain which I could take to the top. Turns out My sense of distance on the trail maps was quite wrong. At one point I got lost just because I thought I was halfway further down the trail than I thought I was.


My excitement at the beauty of the weather in the bottom of the valley served me well in being naive about what the weather would be like in the mountains. I was greeted with sheeted ice, heavy thick snow (that kind that feels like it had melted earlier, but then froze again so it's rock hard stepping through it and even harder stepping back out of it), and lots of puddles! Huge puddles that I should have just run straight through because my feet were soaked at the end of the run anyway, but instead I chose to try and avoid that so I spent lots of time bivouacing through heavy fallen trees to avoid the unavoidable wet feet.

I wish I had come up here a month ago, with ice skates. Lots of small ponds perfect for hockey.

I'm not a very good photographer, or own a very good camera so I don't think I do the scenery justice. But sometimes running in the mountains where I live makes me feel like this is God's country.

I wish I owned a chainsaw, so many burnt trees are fallen down that need to get moved.

The trail down to the lake had five massive trees that had fallen down, and the side trail was only about 800 metres long. I had to do some fancy balance beam action over fallen trees that were ten feet off the ground to get through.

But it sure does look nice once you get there. This is Buchan Bay, only accessible through trails in the park which will take the average person hiking at least 2 hours, or by boat.

The peak on the left has a trail that goes up it. Haven't been there yet, but I'm pretty sure once I get there I will be able to see to Kelowna and all the way south to at least Summerland. I'll probably go there Saturday.

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In this section of the Canyon I came across a deer leg that had been eaten. Seeing that makes for an interesting dichotomy between the beauty of the nature, and the reminder of the lingering savageness that lurks in the mountains.

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I didn't even get as far as 40 km running, but it sure was fun and felt like a lot of work. I was a little sore by the end, I don't think I had enough fluids and food for more than five and a half hours. I expected to be really sore the next morning. But I managed to pound out a solid 6 km in 28 minutes today. I intended on doing a timed mile on the track at the stadium, but my garmin died one lap in and I couldn't find my stopwatch, but it felt like a 6:00ish. I was so stoked that I was on the mountain moving for that long one day, and still felt good enough to run the next day even if it was a short run. I guess that means I need to run harder on the mountain next time.

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During my long run I watched the sunset, and the moon come up...

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Maybe Friday I will try and time a run to watch the sun come up.

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You should definitely try and find the time to watch the sunrise, sunset, and moon rise at least once every couple months, just like going for a run, it's never something you regret after.