Ultra Pedristration WIlderness Challenge Washington Coast.

On June 24 and 25 I ran/walked the Wa coast from Shi Shi Beach south to Oil City. This is one of the routes in UPWC. I have two friends John Brew and Roger Johnson that I though might enjoy doing this with me. We started our planning in the spring of this year for this adventure. Roger's wife Linda was going to crew for us. Our first date did not work out due to weather. We set two possible dates in June to do the run. I liked the 24/25 dates due to the tides.

John ran the Issy Alps 50k and crewed for Roger as he ran the Issy Alps 100 miler early in June. This adventure led them to me running this solo. John crewed for me and Roger did some running with me on the Sunday. John's effort made this route a lot easier for all. For me he got up very early to drive me to the trailheads and be a roving aid station. I can not thank him enough for all he did to make this a fun weekend for everyone. Now the adventure.

John drove over on Thur to get us a campsite at Mora campground. The rest of us drove over Fri getting there in time for dinner. We formed a plan for Sat that evening. John had done a trip over a few weeks back to scout the area out for this weekend. This was very helpful.

Sat morning 3 am John and I are off driving to Shi Shi beach. The drive along the straights was beautiful as the sky was getting light.

Start of the adventure  4:40 am, thanks John for the ride. You saved me from a long bike ride. 

This is a amazing place to visit. 

This is a easy route to follow. Just keep the water on your right side and you will be going south. When I was traveling along the beach I encountered five different types of surface to travel on. I will list in least favorite to awesome. 

5. Slippery medium size rocks. These one foot dia and smaller rocks have no solid footing. Every step results in sliding around.

4. Large rocks. You have to climb around on these. Travel is slow requires hands and feet to work your way through. 

3. Smaller dry rocks. Not great footing as they move sometimes and you walk around. 

2. Pea gravel, Every step is a sink in as you move forward. It takes a bit more energy to hold balance. I really liked using my poles in this terrain. 

1. Hard wet sand. This is great stuff to run on. You can look around as you run. There is nothing to trip on or trail to stay on. It was very enjoyable to gase at all the natural beauty around me. 

Every so often a rock formation would just out into the ocean and I would have to climb up and over using a trail with sometimes ropes to help. The ropes were due to all the erosion from all the rain that falls here.  

This place has a lot of wildlife. I did not take the time to stop to photograph very much of it. I was a little worried about making the tides through the headlands. 

John, Roger and Linda did the Ozette triangle meeting me with a banana and cookie. It was a treat to have a roving aid station.  At one point I got to a head land I could not go around. This one did not have an established trail over it. I has a choice of waiting for the tide to go out. This would be about four hours, or up and over. Up and over I went. There were game trails to follow and I am guessing other people have done the same. I had to do this same thing again for one more headland before the home stretch to Mora campground. 

I make it back to Mora campground around 7pm. Roger and Linda's camper has a outside shower. This was a real treat to get cleaned up after the first leg of my adventure. John and Roger went to get pizza for dinner. This was a real treat for me. 

Second day's adventure allowed John and I to sleep in till a 5am departure from camp. We had to wait till the tides were at the right point before I could get through the first headland. The section at the start has lots of small very slippery rocks. The second part would end up being lots of trails with too

 much mud and very nice beaches to run on. 

I meet the gang for roving aid station number 2. Roger joined me after this for the finish of the beach section and the road run back to camp to put the two section together. We put this route together as a group fun time. This is why I did it this way so everyone could have an enjoyable time. It worked out great for everyone with this plan. 

Finish time back to camp was around 1:40 pm. I good time was had by everyone. 

I want to thank the FB crew for all the information I read from them. My crew of John, Roger, Linda, Vicky and Laurie for helping me play in the wilds of Wa state. This is a great trip better done as a four day backpack to spend the time really being out there. 

Thanks for reading.