12 Summits Photo Map

This post is for all those runners out there dreaming of running 12 Summits. Here's a turn by turn. Shela , Shawn and I ran it on Saturday.

take a right on to the Bus trail.




Take a left onto the nook trail.










Take a right onto the Section Line.














Take a left to stay on the Section Line.














Go straight across west tiger RR grade.













Congrats! You've made it to your 1st summit, Tiger #3. Only 11 more to go. Go down the trail to Tiger #2 It's right behind the sign that says Tiger #2.













2 summits down. Go down the hill and through the gate and then back up to Tiger #1.














After the gate, stay left.













OK that was your 3rd summit, Tiger #1. No time time to stop and hangout in the Hikers Hut. Just go right on past it and into the darkness.














Continue straight at the next 2 trail intersections.



Go right at this trail branch. You'll see the "Christmas Tree" on your right after a little bit.














Take another right. Then a very quick left.













In about 10 steps take a left. If you miss this turn you'll end up at the bathrooms and a place to tie up your horse.













Crawl under this tree and watch out for Devils Club!

Go straight across the road and weave your way counter clockwise around and through the blow-downs.

And over these logs..Never mind...

















And around the uprooted tree. The trail isn't very pronounced here so be careful.

















And across the creek. Be sure not to slip on the wet roots.

















Cross the Preston trail. Be sure to look both ways for bikers. You're in their territory now!

This is the out and back to East Tiger. Go to the right.

You can drop your bottles or pack here by this lovely statue.














This is the top, East Tiger. You can turn around or pause and have a snack but don't eat off the picnic table.

You never know what people do up here in the middle of nowhere.

Don't forget your pack. Stay on the road and keep going down to the right.

And another right onto the cross over road?

And another right. It's starting to fell like I'm going in circles. How many right turns in a row was that?

Stay on this road until you get to the Metal gate not the wooden gate!

Then you finally go left through the metal gate.

At the dead-end go left up to Middle Tiger.














Summit #5, Middle Tiger, Good Job! You are rewarded with a nice long curvy downhill section. It always seems a little steeper on the way back up!

















This is the TMT. Take a left to avoid a long stretch of running on a boring dirt road.
















Go right here. If you go left you'll come across some cool rail road artifacts. If you have extra time I would recommend the side trip.














Go left onto the road for a good 15 paces then right through another metal gate that is usually open this time of year and closed in the winter.















Stay to the right and go up the hill. There is a sign that points you up but it can get over grown.















Take the trail down to the left.














This stump is hard to miss. Go left and drop your pack, if you like, for the dog leg to your 6th summit. South Tiger!














Pick up your pack and go left. It's a long way down to your water cache. I hope you still have some water left in your bottles.














Snake your way under the power lines. If you go to the right you'll fall into a ravine and if you go left you'll end up at Hwy 18th.













At the bottom of a steep rocky hill make a hairpin left.













Then a quick right.














Last turn before your water refill. So just keep going until you get to the end refill and have a snack. I would suggest finishing your lunch on the run because it's a long way back to your car.














Now just reverse all the turns you made to this point and you're home. Can't remember all of them. Niether could I the first 2 times I ran it. So...

Go left















Go left again














Hair pin right up that steep rocky road.















Snake across the grass.














Go right, up to South Tiger for your 7th summit. This is easy to miss because the smiley face is on the other side.














Pick up your pack if you left it and go to the right














Go right again. If you go left you'll end up at Carole's lunch area.














Stay to the left.














Go across the road to the left.















Go left, if you go straight you'll end up in that Rail Road bone yard again.













Take a right and start the climb up to Middle Tiger. This has been voted by the people I run with (well by thier complaints and light headedness) as the toughest part of 12 Summits. If you haven't been eating and drinking enough, this is where you'll find out.

Up and over Middle....Good job....Don't stop now, you can rest on the downhill!

Through the metal gate and up the road to the right.














Stay to the left onto the cross over road.













Drop your pack and go up to East Tiger, your 9th summit.















Strap on your pack for the last time and go left into the woods.














Zig Zag to the left across the Preston trail again.














Weave throught the blow-downs.













Across the road.













Take a right and then a very fast left.















Go left past the "christmas tree".













Go straight.













Stay to the left and then up to the Hikers Hut and Tiger #1.














By now any fog should have cleared and on a nice day you can see Mt. Rainier, Seattle, and Bellevue. 10 down, only 2 to go! It's pretty much all downhill from here.














Stay to the right and go around the metal gate. This one is always closed.














If you have anything left use it here. It's the last climb.















Tiger #2. One more summit and your done.














No it wasn't snowing but it looked like it. Summit #12 all done. Just a 2-3 mile downhill run back to the car.













To take the technical way down go back the way you came up.














Go straight on down the hill.














Take a hairpin right at the bench.













Duck!!!













Nevermind ;)

Hairpin left, yep more downhill.













Take a right and go over the new bridge (should be done by the time you read this).











Go left back to your car. If you started before dawn then you have another 1/2 mile to go.

Happy Fathers Day

I hope all you dad's out there had a great weekend. Mine was pretty good.

Friday night after work and work I finally was able to squeeze in a run. It was just 7.1 miles out on the cedar river trail in front of my house but I was happy with the effort I was able to but in considering it was nearly midnight by the time I got started and I'm sick. It took me 1:02. Everything felt pretty good. I obviously didn't cool down enough because I had 2 really bad cramps in the middle of the night (1 in my calf and 1 in my hamstring) that forced me out of bed and on to the floor.

Sunday I went to Tiger Mt. with my 69 year old Dad and my 3 kids.


Dad's recovering well from his quad-bypass 7 weeks ago. We hiked up toward Tiger #3 and on the Bus trail. We went 1.75 miles. I thought he might be able to go further than he did because of the great progress he's made.



PS. These pix were taken with the camera my "kids" got me for fathers day. It has image stabilization so maybe my running pix will come out better.

Congrats All Lake Youngs Runners

A good (and wet) time was had by all. A new Men's course record of 3:17 was set by 2 time winner James Varner! Newcomer Allison Moore won the Women's in a time of 4:18!

First Finisher


First Dog (no prize awarded because he took the early start)



First Female



First Blood



Youngest Finisher



Oldest Finisher .... and Son



Staying Hydrated



Great Volunteers



Last Finisher

All work and no running

I haven't put my running shoes on since Vantage. So here's some entertaining photo's.

This picture goes out to all those running or hiking the PCT. Lucky Dogs!



One of the many false summits on the CCC100. They say you can see the whole coarse from here but all I could see hills to conquer.



Go play in the street! Nicolette and Jessica entertaining themselves waiting for Daddy to start his race.



"Tony" showing off his knee. He just had bleed more than I did. ... He's so competitive.



Me and my "2nd" best friend out doing what we love and enjoying the scenery. #1 you know who you are. ;)



Ahhh the elixir of life. I just noticed who's working and who's watching.

Northbend to Vantage

Over the weekend I Paced Shawn at NB2V 108 miler. It had 3 (running) starters and 1 (running) finisher and some bikers.
See Shawn's (very long) blog for a play by play like no other.

I was originally going to run the whole race but because of many other things going on in my life, Other than running, and the 65 miles I did at Redmond last weekend, I opted to just pace Shawn from somewhere in the middle (basically during the night) to the finish.

After going to a 3 hour movie and eating a tub of popcorn, I met Tc at Tiger and we headed up to Cle Elum. We pulled up to an exuberant Shawn jumping up and down and waving her hands in the air like a sailors wife after a double tour of duty. ;D

I got Shela and myself ready as soon as I could and we were off. ... It was an interesting evening pacing Shawn. Her emotions went up and down more than the trail did. But in a good way.


She ended up being the only finisher, and she looked like she could have done another 30 miles easy.

Redmond Watershed 12 Hour

Short: 64.9 miles, 2ND place (under 40)

Long Version ...
Even though it's only 25 minutes to the start from my house, I carpooled to the race with Shawn. I figured that would keep us both there longer if things didn't go as planned. It was supposed to rain so I brought an extra pair of shoes and socks and a long sleeve shirt just in case. I wasn't to worried about the weather because the trees are so thick and the trail was really dry from the lack of rain.
We got to the start as planned with just over 1/2 hour to prepare. One of the volunteers had hand made some really nice hats. It's not my thing but Jenn loved it and maybe I'll get a few SPOF credits for it. ;)
My goals for the race were.
1. Win and defend my title. Well Sam Thompson and Brandon Sybrowsky had both signed up to run so I figured my chances were slim but I was going to lie down.
2. Run a 10 min. mile for 12 hours. This would give me 72 miles and the under 40 course record.
3. Get at least a 1 hour PR over last year(get to 59.5 mile in under 11:00).
4. Finish, no DNF (no quiting with more than ~12 minutes left)

I started off good, running my own race and not getting caught up in the fast pace of the competition. I found myself quickly alone. I was a little behind the 2nd pack and way ahead of any third pack that might have been back there. After the 1st lap which was around 51 minutes I was feeling great but I was tired of running alone so I decided to try to listen to some music. That kept my mind busy for a while. The 1st 26 miles just came and went. I was running about 6.3 mph and past by the marathon mark at 4:12 and then the 50k mark in about 5:03. Those are good times for me if that as far as I was going but I wasn't even to the 1/2 way point yet.
The sun came out and made for a great day not too hot not too cold. And the rain that came early in the day was more like a mist than a rain.
Some where on my 7th lap I started to slow down. There was about 10 or so miles there where I struggled. I wasn't eating or drinking much and it felt like if I did it would come back up anyway. I did manage to get in a GU per lap during that time which kept me from completely bonking. Laps 7(1:08 including a pit stop), 8(1:06), and 9(1:06) were all over an hour and were the lowest part of the race. My energy level was zero and emotional level was right behind it. (why am I here, etc.) I passed by 50 miles in 8:45, that's 14 minutes slower than Mt. Si. I had to do something to get out of this funk I was in, so I changed the station on my headphones. That seemed to bring me the rest of the way back to life because I did the last two big loops right at an hour each. Alex the overall winner and new course recorder holder of nearly 80 miles was the runner to pass me all day, but he did it twice!
On to the small loops. I would normally like the small loop better than the big one because of all the roots and rocks and sharp corners. But I was getting tired and there is a lot of the trail that slopes badly to the left and that really bugs my hips and I felt like if I ran faster I would just be tearing myself up. So I took it easy and did 8?(I think) small loops. And with about 10 minutes left I decided I had had enough.

Follow up:
Monday, Today my quads are completely trashed. I hammered the downhills for all 12 hours. Looking at my speed graph I was still hitting 8 mph on the downhills even in my 11th loop.
Other bloggers that were there: TC, Eric B., Kendall K.
Goals 1 and 2 failed
Goal #3 1:12 PR (1:12 left when I reach 59.5 miles)
Goal #4 Done.

Tacoma Marathon Review

The Tacoma Marathon is a very memorable marathon and not just because I ran it with my wife. It is one of the most visually interesting and diverse marathons I've run. There are new and old neighborhoods that range from pristine to run-down. Some that made you want to run faster (for your life) and even some that are historical and amazing. There are views of mountains and bridges and the ocean. You run through downtown and city parks and along the waterfront and even through some thick woods at the zoo. You run under bridges and over bridges and past bridges and even through a couple of tunnels. There were even a few places that made you want to stop and take in the view for a few minutes, but we didn't. One of Jenn's favorites was the water feature on the front of the Russell Investment building. I thought she was going to run over and start playing in it. I usually see about 5% of the volunteers looking like they are doing court mandated community service, but not on this marathon. Every single person that was involved in volunteering out on the course had a smile for us or something positive to say.