Tour de Lassen NP- Finale

I got my energy back running downhill toward Snag Lake, even though it required hopping over numerous blowdowns. Once I landed with one foot on a log laying across the trail 18" above the ground, "flew" through the air to the next one, a couple feet away, which rolled under my foot and shifted, causing Ted (behind me) to audibly gasp as he did a 0.2 second evaluation of how to get my broken body out of that remote spot. But I was expecting the second log to shift a little and was ready for the movement, this time.

I was on the watch for bears at Snag Lake as we saw one there the last time, but alas, only a couple deer. At mile 22.5 the sign said we had 7.0 to go. We climbed up and I had Ted take a pic of me at Rainbow Lake, just to prove I was part of the expedition:


Ted at Rainbow Lake:
Ted at Lower Twin Lake:
We missed a turn at Echo Lake and got some bonus miles (Me, as the trail dwindled: "I don't like the looks of this, I think we're off-course." Ted, pushing on: "There's only one trail on the map, this has got to be it." Me, looking at the sun setting to the west: "Umm, you're heading east and our car is west...").

Obviously Ted was not to be trusted with navigation so as we went down the last steep, technical hill to the finish I ran ahead (fun!) while he picked his way down like a normal person. I missed the turn to the parking lot and ended up wandering around closed campsites, backtracking, retracing my steps, looking for Ted, looking for a sign or anything to help me figure out which way to the car and managed to get an extra three miles in before following the road to the car where Ted was waiting smugly.

33 miles, 8.5 hours (average 4.5 mph while we were actually moving), no bears, no loss of life.