Deception Pass 25k Course

Today’s mountain forecast called for pouring rain and just-above-freezing temps. In addition, NWAC was showing considerable to high avalanche danger, which gave me a great excuse to stick to sea level and check out Rainshadow Running’s Deception Pass 25k course (I used this map for navigation since the one on the race website is pretty low-res.) I’d done parts of the course previously, but never the entire route. It’s a popular race and I figure it can’t hurt to be familiar with the trails.

Even on an overcast day the course was super scenic. It’s a nice mix of terrain, with a little technical single track, lots of runnable sections, and numerous views of Deception Pass and the iconic bridge.

That said, it was a very busy day at NAS Whidbey Island, and fighter jets were flying over every 10-30 minutes (not an exaggeration). I don’t think this is the norm, though, because I’ve been to Deception Pass State Park many times before and have never heard/seen so much air traffic.

The trails itself are in good shape. Not too muddy, although heavy rain over the next couple days will likely fix that. There are approximately half-dozen blow-downs scattered throughout the course. A couple of them might slow you down but none of them were impassable.

Last but not least, I somehow managed to escape the rain. I’m not really sure how that happened, as I hear it was pouring rain in Seattle all morning. But up at Deception Pass, it stayed dry until noon. Rainshadow running, or something. 😉