MacDuff Mountain

A beautiful Sunday in October with so many choices, some of which are on fire, but you know, still so many choices. I went back and forth, but really I just wanted a good trail with a nice view and some wonderful hiking. I thought about a bunch of options, but finally settled on MacDuff Mountain. I ran on the King Castle trail frequently and often times I would take the  trail and run down the road. I knew the road was good up to the junction with the Castle Rock trail and I had only been on that section that connected to the O'Leary trail once. It had been many years, so I thought maybe I would go for it today. I got a nice early start and was beginning the drive up the dirt road when my low pressure light for the tire came on. I thought about turning around and even went back to the beginning of the road. Then I thought about it. The tire was not incredibly low and I knew I was in need of new tires. I decided to risk it and went back up the road. I made it to the trailhead and the tire was a little low, but I figured part of that was just the cool morning that we hadn't had for quite some time. I hoped that my tire would not be flat when I came back. The trail was actually pretty flat for the first couple of miles. I was not expecting that on the Castle Rock trail. 

I thought that maybe this would be a good place to bring the cross country runners because it was a clear path through the forest. The terrain was rather level and the trail was cleared without any big logs or brush along the trail. The forest was nice with some big trees. The only real highlight of this section is crossing Cougar Creek that I would then be following up the mountain for the rest of the day. The crossing was easy enough and soon I was at the junction with the O'Leary trail. From here, my workout got a little bit more intense. The trail switchbacked quite frequently as I followed the ridge uphill. These were some of the steepest switchbacks around so I was really getting a good workout today. 

I had been on this trail a couple of times before, but not for a few years. It climbed steeply through the woods crossing some dirt roads a couple of times. It also used the road a few times as the trail. In one of these instances, I missed the turnoff for the trail and had to cut uphill through the woods to get back onto the trail. It wasn't too difficult, though, and before long I was popping out into a clearing where I could see the top of MacDuff Mountain come into view. It was only a short jaunt off the trail to the top of the peak where a plaque for the former forest supervisor was waiting for me. MacDuff must have been a good man to get a plaque and a mountain named after him. 

The views were a little less spectacular than normal with all the smoke. It had been borderline unhealthy hiking up, especially in the lower elevation places, but up high was not too bad for smoke. Still, I could barely see the Sisters peaking out of the smoke. The hike itself had taken 7.5 miles to reach this high point with over 3000 feet of elevation gain. Definitely a good workout, but when it came time to find my way down, I was feeling a bit impatient. I decided to just run it. My little pack that I had on was actually pretty good for running and I was in good enough shape to do it. So I slowly ran down the mountain. My watch gave me an estimated time of arrival at my car and it was fun to see the minutes really start to tick away with only going at a rather slow speed. 

I felt pretty proud of myself for being in good enough shape to handle something as intense as running 7.5 miles down a mountain with a pack on and 3000 feet of vertical to drop. It was actually rather easy and I wondered how many more long hikes that I could do like this where I am half running and half hiking. These were my two favorite activities that I wanted to do nearly every day. I made it back to the car with over an hour taken off of my estimated time of arrival. That made me feel pretty good. I also was back in time to watch part of the Seahawks game which was exciting also. All and all, a great day in the mountains.