Archangel Valley Run/Hike
What better to do on a Saturday morning than go to the mountains for an incredibly brutal run/hike? I don't know, but this was one for the website for sure. We started out by driving up Archangel Valley road to the broken culvert. Seeing as how I don't want to drive my van over rusty, jagged metal, we parked in front of said culvert. Time to start running up the road. Ben started pulling away from me when we got to the climbing and by the time we reached the gate--three miles and 900 vertical feet from the start--he was a good minute ahead of me. Archangel road is a strange place in that the road isn't maintained at all, and in places is probably faster to bike than drive because the potholes are so deep, but for reasons unknown to me lots of people drive back up there. Luckily, those drivers can only go to the gate and they don't often stray from their cars, so Ben and I could still get to places with no other people. We kept running past the gate, off the road, up a long gentle slope to the big valley that dead ends against craggy peaks, and through the valley. By this time Ben was about 2.5 minutes ahead of me. While running by a group of middle-aged hikers I considered saying, "He's takin' me to the woodshed," but figured they wouldn't understand what I was talking about. We stopped at the old cabins at the end of the valley, 5 miles and 1500 feet from the start, after 46-49 minutes of running. Well, time to go up the mountain. We climbed to the first bench, then the second bench, then worked our way to a small point for a photo-op.
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Just below the point
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View from the point
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The clouds were pretty thick; they lifted for only long enough to take a few pictures. While there was increased visibility we saw what appeared to be a lower part of the ridgeline not to far from where we were standing, so we figured it would be worth seeing what was on the other side.
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It was pretty nuts up there
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Ben standing on the ridgeline at 5,000 feet
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Time to run down for an estimated round trip of 13 miles. Fun. But first, a quick picture looking down on our route up.
© 2004, Michael Logsdon