#pantoll

[christianmundloch]

Charlotte at the pantoll ranger’s station. 

[watchoutformish]

We ran 10 (somewhat unexpected) miles on Sunday!  

Much love to a friend @shockchan22 for having a drop off birthday party for her little one.  This left Matt and I with four blissful hours of alone time.  What to do?   Explore a new trail, of course!

I had read about an awesome trail that goes from Pantoll Ranger Station, down to Stinson Beach, and then back up.  The total mileage was supposed to be 7.5 - totally doable, even with a few miles uphill.  

What I did not factor in was the fact that there would be no parking at the ranger station - spaces were limited, and the area was mobbed.  We were lucky enough to find a street space about a half mile down the road.  Score!

We followed signs for the Matt Davis trail.  Or so we thought.  We didn’t follow the signs closely enough, and realized that we were on the wrong trail altogether.  But, had we not made this mis-step we wouldn’t have seen the massive slug the size of an iPhone.  One extra mile later, we were back on track.  Score!

The run continued another four or so miles down to Stinson Beach.  The path was super rocky and rooty (is rooty a word?  I’m basically trying to say that a lot of roots were sticking up out of the ground).  At one point, my toe caught the edge of a rock and I went flying forward.  It felt like I was running at the speed of light, trying to catch myself instead of careening over the edge of the ravine.  I flung myself to the opposite side of the trail (read:  not off of the cliff), right into a bunch of bushes.  I didn’t fall though.  Score!

The trail dropped us out right near downtown Stinson Beach.  We ran into town to grab some water before making the three mile trek back uphill - not an easy feat.  We easily found the famous Dipsea Trail and started our ascent.  There were quite a lot of people on the trail which came in handy when the trail split off without great directions as to which way to go.  We knew we had to take the Steep Ravine Trail and veer off the Dipsea, otherwise we would go many miles out of our way.  A nice couple came through and told us which path to take, allowing us to avoid adding even more miles to our run.  Score!

We ran uphill, uphill, and uphill some more until we came to a 15 rung ladder.  This was the only way to continue along the trail - so up we went and continued on.  Score!

When we finally reached the Ranger Station once again, we were elated that we had made it.  Our extra forays off the trail brought our total distance to ten miles.  Major score!

We ran to our car, did a bit of stretching, and off we went to go pick up our daughter.  There was leftover pizza and cake waiting for us - score!