Kary, Jane and I ran as a team - doing the "long orange" course. 
The course was a bit short of 4 miles. Dave also went - but ran the advanced long course by himself.
I can say, this run was fairly uneventful until the back half of the course. We had a great day, with great views.
We were enjoying the stream, when we ran into a bit of trouble.
We were down at the bottom of a steep cliff and had to the get to the top. There was allegedly a trail to take us up to the top. But when we did not find it at first (we were probably about 100 yards too far south), we came across a storm drain.
While we blame Jane for this decision, I am not sure it was necessarily hers. And, of course, neither Kary nor I said anything. So we started scrambling up, ducking under brush, and trying to avoid the slippery parts of the cement ditch. At some point in time the incline increased dramatically, leading to a 8 foot wall - and then continuing up some more. So we alternated climbing in the dirt and rocks and climbing in the storm drain itself. While it might have been easier to stay in the drain, at times the water and vegitation made it too difficult to get any grip with our feet. And as we were climbing at a 70-80 degree angle at parts, traction was a bit important.
While there came a point in time when we were not sure whether it would ever end or where it was going, we eventually all scrambled to the top of the storm drain. This was the look down, although you cannot clearly see how steep the climb was.
Once at the top, we were stuck behind a fence. But fortunately, if you followed it around for about 20 feet, we were able to get out.
From there it was a fairly straight shot back down across the park, back across the stream and to the finish.
We finished in 2:04, which put us in first place for long orange teams! Yeah!.
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