Broad Mountain Foliage Run

It has been great resting most of the week.  I ran on Monday and took two more days off after that.  My body definitely needs it.  I was back out there to run today.  I had to get on trails.

Since the leaves are starting to change, I opted to head north a bit.  I went to Jim Thorpe for the trail run.  I decided to go past town and take Route 93 and run in the State Game Lands on Broad Mountain.  This was sort of a new adventure.  I had run this area last year with a group run, but it was the eastern side of the mountain. 

I parked in the State Game Lands Parking lot.  I got out of my car and heard several shots.  I thought, what's going on, it's not hunting season yet, let alone rifle season.  Then, I looked across the street and saw a sign for a rifle range.  I had planned to run in that direction at some point, but now that clearly wasn't going to happen.

I headed out east from the parking lot.  Much like when I ran other part of Jim Thorpe on the other side of the river, this was a wide woods road.  It was nice and open.  That made me a little more comfortable.  I wore an orange vest over my singlet, just to be safe.

This was easy going in the beginning.  Early on, I saw it was going to be rocky.  The frustrating thing was that it wasn't even natural rocks.  They had put down a bunch of rocks over the last few years.  The part I was on was ADA accessible, so perhaps that is why.

Sometimes, there were small stones.  More often, there were giant, annoying loose rocks under your feet.  That made it no fun.  In the beginning, I managed to run on the grass on the side of the trail.  That didn't last.

There was an early intersection.  I could go north or south or continued east on the path.  I elected to just keep going.  Although the rocks were very frustrating, there wasn't much elevation change and pretty orange, yellow and red leaves more than made up for it.

Other than the rocks, I found this run relaxing.  I had been worried about bears, but I wasn't seeing any animals at all.  There were eventually some rolling hills.  Nothing too bad though. 

After some time, I came to a stream with a bridge over it.  That was surprising.  There were some cool side trails that I decided not to explore.  I never could find much singletrack in this area.  It was mostly this wide woods road.

I kept going and the miles clicked on by.  The weather was pretty cool, so I was able to enjoy myself.  I went out and out.  I crossed another stream and a bridge.  I later looked at a map and it appears that this one was actually the one that turns into Glen Onoko Falls.  That's quite neat.

There was some slight up and down in this area.  I ran into a bobcat (the vehicle, not the animal), but it was just parked.  I was still alone with my thoughts.  I decided to keep going. 

I stopped to take pictures from time to time.  It was nice scenery, but I was hoping to get to some views.  I also thought maybe I would go out far enough to get to where we were last year.  Then, I could definitely find a few views.  The trail did turn and I was close to there, but I didn't quite go that far up.

I turned around at mile 3 and headed back in.  I figured that this would give me a solid 6 miles and I could go in a different direction at that intersection, for some additional distance.  I didn't want to run too long, especially on rocky terrain.

I was now on my way back.  I was glad to be doing a relatively short run.  My feet were just battered.  The stones were doing their damage.  On the plus side, my legs felt awesome.  They were much better than they had been.  The rest must've been a huge help.  I wasn't climbing as much either.

There was more climbing on the way back, but it was still moderate.  It's nothing like what I had been doing.  It was great to get to miles 4 and 5.  

Getting back to the intersection was a relief too.  That is because they didn't put stones in those areas.  I turned and headed south at the intersection.  This was a nice grassy woods road.  The grass seemed to be cut fairly regularly too.  The colors here were beautiful.

I got excited when I could see open space through the trees.  I was thinking that I was headed toward a view.  It turns out it was just a controlled burn area with dead trees.  There were even signs posted about that.  I had gone out about half a mile and came behind a groundhog.  I decided to turn around.  

It was mostly slight downhill back to the intersection.  I headed to the other unexplored side of the intersection.  That didn't last long, as I got to another stream.  I would've had to cross over it.  I decided not to.  It looked like nothing interesting over there. 

I headed back to the car to finish up.  This was a nice run, aside from the rocks.  I wish I could've found some singletrack too, but I won't complain.  The leaves made for a nice setting, although they haven't actually hit their peak yet.  Maybe I'll come back in the near future.

It turns out that I actually wanted to park farther up the road at the next lot.  I'll do that next time and explore more of the area.  Little by little, I am getting to know Jim Thorpe.  That is good because there are miles and miles of trails.  I don't want to get lost there.  At the same time, it would be challenging to get lost on such wide woods roads.  Finding singletrack and getting lost there would be more of an issue.

Tomorrow is another off day.  On Saturday, I'm going to a wedding in Baltimore.  I'm going to take advantage and trail run at a State Park down there.  That park has a 50k that I might do in the future.  I camped there once before.  I'll probably only run once or twice next week before my 50k.  I may try to make one of those the day before, on the race course.

7.12 miles - 1:04:30 (9:03 pace)