We wanted a bit of an adventure run without a lot of running through snow and this route was nearly perfect.

I’m a huge fan of Rapha’s annual #Festive500 challenge. The challenge rules are simple: ride 500KM in the 8 days between Christmas Eve and New Years' Eve, inclusive. I look forward to it every year because there’s something about riding in the cold, dark, wind, and rain which appeals to me.

I rode the Capital Forest once before, for the 2019 Cascadia Super Gravel and I got lit up. I was riding my 29er mountain bike on which I didn’t have many miles and I had almost no idea what I was doing racing on gravel. I remember the climbs being steep, the descents fast, and the overall environment pretty incredible.

I finally had time and cooperative weather to ride this classic PNW loop through the mountains. The Seattle Randonneurs have a 200K brevet route but since I was riding on my own I decided to short it by ~30 miles and avoid some of the less scenic city riding.

Fantasic tour under blue skies, under falling leaves, and quiet roads among farmland. I started the ride from BI on the normal loop to Port Gamble with a small detour for a road closure.

Mt Townsend is an extremely popular hike in the Olympics appearing in all the popular day hike books. This route built on the standard hike by adding an extension to make a loop via a short jaunt on FR 2870 and the Silver Lakes Way Trail.

I hadn’t been to Royal Lake since a backpacking trip in July 2011. At the time we were unable to make it to the upper basin because of a late melting snow pack. I was excited to explore the upper basin on this trip as over the last few years I had become pretty familiar with the region from prior rides and hikes.

I started this ride by entering through the Park entrance at Longmire and parking in the day use lot behind the lodge.

I’d been planning this ride for months ever since reading about the climb to Babyshoe Pass in BQ. The climb from Highway 12 to the summit at the intersection with FS 2150 has an average grade of 6% and a max grade of 20% with soft, loose gravel and rough washboard making it tough to keep traction and rhythm.

The tour ridden clockwise ascends gravel and descends a near-perfect paved road.