There’s a heap of stones piled up on the East Boulder Trail that I haven’t noticed before.  Probably because I haven’t run this far on the trail yet this year. In trumpian fashion, I didn’t intend to run this far today.  Maybe I was into a song, but I ran past my turn-around target, which was a couple hundred meters above this hill.  Seeing this cairn direct my flight toward the newer southeastern path, woke me up.  I stayed the course and ran down the hill.

 

I knew that, in my current state of fitness, running down that hill might be a mistake.  Odds very much are that I’ll have to return back up that same hill.  By the photo above, not only is it clear that I made it another quarter mile, but the footbridge has finally been repaired after the last big flood.

I did make it back up that hill.  I’m not saying I didn’t walk a bit of it.  I will say that I took both the downhill and uphill pictures together, on my return.

I made it back to my car, feeling like I just experienced my best run of the year.  Not only did I best a recent-distance metric, but my confidence level was boosted by the accomplishment.  Accidental or not.

I pronounce cairn like my wife’s name, Karen, but with an Irish lilt that moves the second vowel ahead of the”r”.  Some pronounce it like the word farm.  It’s Scottish-Celtic for a heap of rocks with a meaning.  A monument, if not a landmark.  Cairns are one of the best forms of aesthetic function you’ll ever come across.