Training Log Archive: Browner

Trans Catalina Trail, Catalina Island, California

As the highlight of our vacation, we decided to fastpack the Trans Catalina Trail. There are a few campgrounds along the trail and most people take 2-3 days to complete the full trail. We figured it would be fun to fastpack it in one day and stay in hotels on either end. As it turns out, this was a great idea.

We took a late day ferry from LA over to Two Harbours, a tiny village on a narrow isthmus that connects two distinct sections of the island. It has one store, one restaurant, one campground and one inn.

We brought only the bare essentials with us so that we could move quickly, but we still seemed to have our rucksacks jammed to the rims. Another option would have been to have our backpacks shuttles across the island to the other hotel. We didn't realize that this would have been easy to arrange.


We had to skip the trail section on the north side of the island due to lack of daylight, and just hiked up a hill with a beer to see a magnificent sunset, as well as a close up encounter with one of the island's 150 bison.



If we were to come back here, we would definitely take another day to hike or run the trails on this side of the island. Our hotel was very quiet and charming, and a total bonus that it included an extensive cold breakfast (and ergo lunch) set out in the fridge for us when we got up at 5am for the big hike.



We found the first few legs of the trail to be the most rugged, hilly, peaceful and beautiful. It was mostly good twisty singletrack. The first stop was at another tiny harbour, this one with no facilities other than a deserted campground. Then we hiked towards the island airport, passing by a unique hybrid Catalinian fox.






Surprisingly enough the airport had a full store and restaurant but we just stocked up on water and off we went.

We stopped for a quick lunch at a sliver of shade just beyond Blackjack campground, this one just in a quiet valley and completely deserted as well. After this, the heat and exposure started bothering me and Sean kindly carried some of my weight so we could keep up our pace.

By late afternoon, we approached the populated side of the island near the town of Avalon and could see a cruise ship just outside the port. The town looked so close from up above on the trail turned to gravel jeep road. At this point we would have been at 35km, and the map showed us skirting around the top of the bowl that capsulates Avalon for another 7km. It turned out to be an additional 5km to the port and ice cream shop. There was a way down directly on a side trail called Hermit Gulch. We wanted to do the full trail and so we stuck to the sunny, hot and dusty gravel road all the way around town, and eventually into town. It was easy going as we trotted down the switchbacks, but more tedious that we would have liked, and in comparison to the first few legs. We would not have wanted to come up this way.


Finally, just an hour before sunset, earlier than planned, we reached Scoops, our hotel and had an awesome seafood dinner.

This would be an awesome place to return to for a group training trip or ultra marathon. I think it is the only place from our vacation that would bring me back to the LA area. January was definitely the low season which suited me just fine!

Here is a nice flat walkway in Avalon, en route to the SUP rental place we took advantage of the following morning.

C • Wow! 4

Run to Kelso. First time I have run into Kelso into the winter while the trails were easy to run and also while people were skiing. Weird.

Trainer...yawwwn

C • Spin 2

Urban run with contour

Snowshoe Raid

Great day out in the woods with Lynn, who is new to orienteering. We wore snowshoes up the first hill and then took them off for the rest of the race. Pace was slow but my navigation was pretty good. This was mostly because Bash and Dee showed me around 2 weeks ago so that I could focus on the terrain and not the configuration of the trail network. That local knowledge makes a huge difference!

My only nav regret was aiming for 54 directly from 52. I ignored the "orange with lines" colouring on the map which ended up being generally open with pockets of thin, tight vegetation coverage (dogwood and pricklies etc) that slowed our pace way down.

After that, we found ourselves too far out than our pace allowed for the selected route (bad on me for not verifying our selected course was doable before the start), and so we dropped out of Loree to the road and directly back to the finish with a minute to spare.

I really love the choose your own adventure race format with a common finish time for bringing racers of all skill and ability together afterwards for story time.

Urban run with Contour

Trail run with Contour in HAFTA - crazy busy day!