The Dalles Cherry Festival is coming up (Saturday April 22nd this year). Despite the cheesiness and the crowds, this is actually one of my favorite "local holidays." The 10k run is one of my new favorite traditions. The run has been around longer than I have and goes right through where I grew up. It's about time I started to "enjoy" it.
"""April 22nd – 3k and 5k are out and back, with a nice uphill at the start. The 10k does a LOOP, with rolling uphill the first half, then enjoy the nice 9+ miles of downhill to the finish. Paved, scenic, orchard country roads. Awards to the top 3 in each age division, all runs. Great random prize drawings! Proceeds will benefit TDHS Cross Country Teams. Registration forms available at The Dalles Chamber office."""
If you're following along at home and can convert customary to metric in your head a run with 9+ miles of downhill is a comically long 10k. Despite the obvious typo this is actually a really nice run, especially this time of the year when the grass is green and the cherry blossoms are in full bloom. In a few weeks the hills will be brown and the blossoms will be a distant memory. This is one of those rare years where the Cherry Festival is actually going on the same time as the blossoms are in bloom so enjoy it.
Despite the long history and the beauty involved with this route there is almost no information to be found about it online. I couldn't even find any Strava segments, which is a real shame because Strava segments make everything more fun. I've created one for the 10k route and several smaller sections. With the Strava segment we can now race each other year round. ;)
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| Here's your sign |
The official race starts at 8:00 with registration starting at the Dry Hollow School field an hour earlier. All the runs start at the fork of Three Mile and Dry Hollow. The 3k takes a right and goes up Dry Hollow and back. The 5k and the 10k both climb up Three Mile Rd.
First climb
Both the 5k and the 10k route start off climbing up Three Mile Road. The elevations stops climbing right around where the turnaround is for the 5k route. To stay on the 10k route you simply keeping making right turns at every major intersection past this point.
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| What used to be an orchard. |
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| Somewhere near the 5k turnaround |
Second climb
Rolling hills
After the second main climb there are a few more ups and downs. I for one am done thinking about hills at this point, but there they are.
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| Take a peek at Mt. Adams's peak |
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| Keep right here to stay on the route |
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| Dry Hollow Creek currently not dry. |
It's all downhill from here
Then comes the fabled 9+ miles of downhill. There might be some way to continue going downhill for 9 miles from here but not to the end of the 10k.
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| More road and more orchards. |
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| First 10k of 2017 done. |
Get out there and move me lower on the leaderboards.
See more photos from this route.
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