The beauty sandwiched between Snoqualmie and Leavenworth is well worth the trip. The Grand Tour is a tough 90 miles and 23k feet of vert and spans from lush verdant cedar and fir groves to harsh granite and snow passes, around pristine blue lakes and through high and dry ponderosa and madrone areas prone to burn.
Author Archives: philipbrundage
2021 Desolate Peaks
The 2021 Desolate Peaks was a beautiful and brutal challenge. 17 peaks connected by a combination of trail and scrambling and route finding through a desolate wilderness.
2020 IMTUF 100
The 2020 IMTUF race had substantial differences from previous years. Race directors Jeremy and Brandi Humphrey changed the course to a new start/finish due to closure of the Burgdorf Hot Springs. More than half the field DNF’ed, as the race was more difficult than previous years!
Forest Park All Trails Challenge, and my 2020 Birthday Run
It started innocently enough with a geometry problem. A real head-scratcher: what is the best possible route that will travel the entirety of every trail of Forest Park in one push? Wouldn’t it be fun to run every trail in Forest Park this way? After all, the Forest Park Conservancy sponsors the All Trails Challenge- …
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The Beaver Slam of UltraRunning
Oregon has lots of great things, like the Seven Wonders of Oregon, dynamic ecosystems, vast forests, and great small towns with fun names like Boring, Dufur, Powder, and Zigzag. We have the largest cheese factory in the world. Let us not forget the cultural weirdness of Portland, or that we sport the highest state tax …
2019 IMTUF 100
2019 is a “counterclockwise” year at IMTUF; the race alternates directions every year. The climbs tend to be more gradual in this direction and the descents are tougher since they are steeper and very rocky and technical. For this reason, some racers consider the odd years to be the TUF’fer direction, but it’s not totally …
Lawetlat’la Endurance Run- 2019
One of the first things that white man did in the PNW was to give the mountains white man names. But the mountains already had names, and for what is commonly referred to as Mount St. Helens, it was previously dubbed Lawetlat’la by the Cowlitz people who knew it long before. The Klickitat people already …
The signs of NF 2233
Late in the fifth day while biking the Oregon Timber Trail, I had a several thousand feet climb up to McCoy shelter from Idhana on the lovely NF 2233. It was paved for about half the way, and there was a national treasure of road signs that have been shot up by the locals.
BPA 24
During my Cascade Crest 100 training in 2018, it became obvious to me that this would be the perfect birthday run for 2019. The challenge is to run up and down BPA road: from the gate to the picnic table and back to the gate. It’s about a mile and 850′ of gain from the …
Storm King Ultra
You can read my race report for the Storm King Ultra with the link below. I hope you enjoy it, and decide to try the Storm King Ultra yourself some day.
Philip Brundage's wanderings 