Lake Sally Ann Loop via Bald Eagle Trail(edit)

The Skykomish is the Limit! So I did this thing... This incredible, memorable epic thing. The stars aligned for my buddy Craig Romano and I to finally meet for a trail run. Craig has serious trail cred. Search engine his name and..."Craig Romano is a prolific (more than 25 books and counting!) and award-winning author, an ardent conservationist, and a Northwest trails and hiking expert. He hikes, runs, paddles, and bikes (across America-several times) and yet still has time to write for several publications, websites, and tourism agencies..." He also has time to take me on one of my fav and most challenging trail runs. To run with Craig is to run with a professional guide that is the authority on WA State trails. So much so that numerous times during our run we were stopped by hikers that recognized Craig from his library of trail books and his podcast voice. I was grateful for the selfie with a celebrity stops because Craig is a trail beast. Usually I strain to keep up because I'm trying to hang with the young bucks. But Craig is old...a week older than me, lol. We also share a proud New Englander heritage and the diverse conversations flowed like trail butter. Craig had told me to plan for a 23-30 mile run. So I was mentally prepared for maybe a marathon of miles. Inspired by Craig I ran a trail 50K - with 7000-feet elevaion gain. We logged twice as many miles as number of people encountered along some of the most beautiful terrain in the PNW, including a gorgeous section of the fabled PCT. Worth mentioning...I awkwardly stepped off trail in mile-7 and took a tumble into a ravine. Eerily deja vu of my Mount St. Helens near-death fall in 2020. Except this time I fell into forest brush, not a boulder field, and only shattered a finger instead of an entire wrist. Duct taped the broken finger/s together and I logged another 24-miles with a stubborn, suck it up buttercup trail runner attitude. What a sunrise to sunset stupendous day!