I stood up to get ready 40 minutes before dawn and that's about the earliest I can go. It was quite dark when I got there which made it hard to navigate the one puddle I had to contend with, but after that I was fine. I made my way up to the top of the gulch just like I have been, and am pretty sure the timing would have been good for a nice sunrise if it wasn't so cloudy.
Which reminds me, I wish there were bigger windows at the Snohomish Aquatic Center, because I've missed what I could tell were some really spectacular sunrises while I was in that pool.
The runway lights were on when I got up there and I was really hoping to see a plane come in, which is one reason I went back and forth on the access road. The other was that I wanted today's walk to be over 10,000 steps, and after some quick math I saw that if I stayed up top until my watch said I'd gone 6,500 steps, I could head back down. It was 3,500 to get up there, so I only needed 3,000 before going back. Not exactly difficult math, but my daily step count was already at 454 just from the day's activities, which includes all my ridiculous tossing and turning in bed. I might grab a second app such as Misfit in order to access a step counter that's separate from my daily total.
4.67 miles in 1:30, 10,049 steps, 408ft gain
Since I don't have a standalone step counter yet, I emailed myself that 454 step total before I got out of the car, then replied with the total when I got back, which was 10,921. Subtracting 454, that makes a total of 10,467, so just over 400 steps difference between what the watch says I did and the app estimated. I can live with that.
I believe this is the first time I chose the USA Topographic map option in my screenshot. It's really quite silly, but all my maps look the same lately so why not? In the real world, some of the green that's been gone for a few months is on its way back.
