Pinchot Trail (Frank Gantz Loop)

I didn't run or do anything yesterday, due to the heat and other things going on.  I had to make it out there today.  I wanted to run somewhere new, but also didn't want to go far.  I had been meaning to check out the Pinchot Trail for some time.  It's just over an hour away, although being stuck in Route 33 traffic, it took much longer.

The main Pinchot Trail is a 23 mile loop.  Apparently, that makes for a great training run loop.  I'm hoping to do that one day.  Since it was already 6:30 PM when I arrived, I opted to just attempt to run the much shorter Frank Gantz Loop.  It looked to be about 4-6 miles, but I wasn't sure.  Frank Gantz did a lot of work for this trail system.

It had rained a bit on the trail before my run and there was some drizzle during the run too.  The rocks were slippery.  It was also foggy out.  I wore a short sleeve shirt and shorts.  The air was damp, but at least the temperature had dropped a lot and I was relatively comfortable.

I took off without my map, hoping I could follow the route.  It seemed simple enough.  I'd be hitting the Frank Gantz section early on.  This was a nice flowing singletrack to start.  It has some rocks and some elevation here and there, but it was relatively flat and all very runnable.

I was cruising early.  There were signs where the Frank Gantz Trail began so I followed that.  The only issue was I expected it to be blazed red, but I guess they now changed the blazes to yellow.  I followed them over some crazy pine trees roots.  They were hard to run on.

It wasn't long and I came through to the loop part of this trail.  I headed off to the right.  The trail was a lot of the same, narrow singletrack.  Some of it was slightly overgrown, but overall it wasn't too bad.  I'd imagine later in the summer it will be worse.

I knew there was a vista at one point.  I was hoping to run to that view.  I came to a sign for it and followed this path through some rocks.  It became overgrown.  I think I was actually supposed to follow the woods road that I had just crossed.  It really didn't matter anyway, because with the fog, I wouldn't have seen much of anything.

I continued back on the loop.  There was a short climb.  Before I knew it, I came out to a woods road.  This time, the trail followed it.  I'm glad the trail was well blazed.  These woods road crossings made it a little confusing.

This part was boring, but at least it was fast.  Early on, I was exploring a lot and taking tons of photos.  Therefore, my pace was so slow.  I definitely had enough daylight out to finish the loop, but not much more. 

Everything was kind of boring and then it happened.  I was running along the woods road and I saw this big animal in a tree.  It was a porcupine apparently.  I've never seen one trail running or anywhere and definitely not in a tree.  I was glad it wasn't on a singletrack section.  I walked in a little closer for a photo, but not too close.  That made my day.  I love seeing new creatures out there.

There were a couple turns in the woods road and I saw a map and a marker.  I think these are used for snowmobiles during the winter.  I thought the map would be helpful, but I was still kind of confused by it.  It turns out, I was going in the correct direction.  I followed the orange blazes (for the main loop) now, as the yellow blazes disappeared.  When the orange trail had reentered, I went out and back on it very briefly.

The woods road then turned back into singletrack.  I was following the orange blazes in what I believed to be the correct direction.  My watch does have a compass feature and shows tracks too.  That definitely helped, but I still was only 90% sure I was headed the right way.  The good thing was as long as I was headed south on the orange trail, I'd come out to the main road and could run back to the car.

Again, things were uneventful on the singletrack.  I went over some boards in a swampy part.  Then, as I was looking down, I noticed a bright orange newt on the trail.  It really stood out and I took a photo before I was on my way.  Some time later, I saw another one too.  That was amazing.

With all the wildlife I was seeing, I kept thinking that I would see a bear.  I didn't see one and oddly, I saw no deer either.  I did see two next to the road later on, but none in the woods.

I got over 4 miles and then at some point got off the orange trail and was back to the yellow blazed Frank Gantz Trail.  It seemed like I was running and running on there.  I couldn't be going the wrong way because this section all looked new.  However, I was over 5 miles and didn't think the whole route would be that long.

I finally, I got to a familiar section.  That was such as relief, as darkness was creeping in.  I wasn't that far out there that I would've been lost in the dark, but finding my way back if I got turned around would not have been fun.  I cruised on back over the roots.  They remind me of what I've seen of the H.U.R.T. 100 course.

I got back to the parking area as I was nearing mile 6.  I ran around the lot until I hit that point.  It was a good run and great to be done.  This is some nice singletrack and I'm sure the loop would be great.  It might get boring after awhile, but I'll give it a try sometime.

Tomorrow is my last run before heading to Indianapolis for a few days.  I don't know where or when I'll run, but I'll definitely run.  It would be nice to get close to 10 miles in somewhere too.  Maybe I'll go to Mt. Tammany, although I think it is supposed to get hot again.

6 miles - 1:21:29 (13:35 pace) 357 feet of elevation gain