Located on the eastern, and sunny side of the North Cascades – on the edge of the Chelan Sawtooth Wilderness, above the Methow River Valley – these courses offer great mountain trail running early in the year. You can expect fields of wildflowers, beautiful, snow-capped peaks of the Cascades in …
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Located on the eastern, and sunny side of the North Cascades – on the edge of the Chelan Sawtooth Wilderness, above the Methow River Valley – these courses offer great mountain trail running early in the year. You can expect fields of wildflowers, beautiful, snow-capped peaks of the Cascades in the distance, and mostly gradual, smooth, runnable trails.
Sun Mountain race courses will start and finish from the Chickadee Trailhead — this will eliminate all the pavement from the previous course. All participants, volunteers, friends and family will need to park at Big Twin Lake Resort Campground and take a shuttle bus to Chickadee. There will be no parking available at or near Chickadee and no vehicle access to any of the race course or aid stations. The limited parking that is available is to be left available for other trail users, this is essential to the success of this event and our ability to hold this event in the future.
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Cloudy with a chance of running
This was my 3rd Rainshadow 25K, and it was the easiest of the 3, but was by no means easy. There are some good climbs, but they all seemed reasonable. … MORE
This was my 3rd Rainshadow 25K, and it was the easiest of the 3, but was by no means easy. There are some good climbs, but they all seemed reasonable. The views are great, and there are lots of wildflowers all around. I was also surprisingly happy that it turned out cloudy on Sun Mountain – perfect running weather with the occasional mist to keep things cool. As always, the production was flawless (at least from my perspective). I’ll definitely continue to do more Rainshadow races! If you like a race with lots of swag- you should know that you’ll have to buy it yourself at the merchandise table after the race (or pay up front for the shirt when you register, but be warned, they will not send you the shirt if you don’t make it to the race… found this out the hard way).
In terms of location: Winthrop is a great little town to spend a couple days in- be sure to check out the Old Schoolhouse Brewery and get there early to grab a table right next to the river on the back patio. If you are lucky, you’ll catch a great band while you eat. This race is about a 4-hour (beautiful drive) from Seattle. There are lots of reasonably priced options for hotels. I highly recommend this 25K!