Q: How many KK runners does it take to find the correct trail to Cypress Bowl?
A: Apparently more than 11.
This week saw the largest attendance for the Sunday runs - 14 people & 4 dogs. Most of the group decided to run to Cypress Bowl while 3 runners were going to do a shorter out & back. We strung out in a line and made our way up the Hollyburn Chute. At one slightly tricky turn I stopped to make sure everybody took the correct trail and handed off the leading to Matt and Dave. Good thing they were going fast enough to drop everyone else because they ended up on the Skyline Trail and came out at the second lookout on the way up to Cypress. They decided to run up the road to the Cypress Bowl parking lot. Glad to see those surveyor skills are paying off for you Matt ;-)
Next in line were Jacquie, Molly her dog & Pete. They made it as far as the cross country ski trails but ended up getting turned around and came out at the cross country area parking lot. They too ran the road to the Bowl.
Now it was my turn. Rick was unfortunate enough to be following me as we chugged up the snow. I completely missed the BP turnoff that leads to Cypress parking area and kept climbing higher and higher. We finally stopped and realized we hadn't seen any fresh tracks in a while! We were well on our way to the top of Hollyburn which I've done a few times but never in the snow so obviously the terrain looked very different (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it). Backtracking down the slope we ran into the rest of the group who were following our tracks. Good news is we found the BP turnoff point (how did we miss the orange pole sticking out of the white snow?!?) and headed to the parking area. Along the way we ran into Matt, Dave, Jacquie and Pete - they had all regrouped at the parking area and were heading back to Cleveland Dam. Everyone had a good laugh at our group's superb navigational abilities. Good thing the race is well marked!
The rest of the run was relatively uneventful as we enjoyed blasting back down the mountain. Total run time ranged from 3.5-4 hours. There will be no run next Sunday, June 3 as that's the day for the trail work party. The regular Sunday runs will resume on June 10 with a 7 am meeting time at Grouse Mtn parking lot.
Cheers.