There's one way to make the loop trip to the North and South peek of Mt. Strachan longer and that's to walk all the way to St. Marks first. Oops. Ah well, the 'bridges' and Strachan meadow were misinterpreted by us as 'boards across barely running water' and 'flat land with a few puddles'. That being said, we thoroughly enjoyed the views at St. Marks and as we had started at 7am, we were largely by ourselves. A few flies but with the breeze the mosquitos mostly stayed away. I coudn't believe how much trail work had been done up to St. Marks and I'm sure it's helped save the landscape a lot: it's sure a lot easier to hike up/down. The Strachan trail was a slog up and down with backpacks on (we seemed to be amongst the few who didn't handcarry water with us). I personally had a lot of trouble with my iTbands on the way down from Strachan on the big steps down with rock or root covered steep trails. Back to doing my lunges for sure! I've not included photos of amazing views as you can see those everywhere. We cut across to the ski slopes which were uglier and more exposed and difficult to walk down, but it cut a good 2km off the return trip. My GPS said we did only 12.62km but my fitbit said 17km and that's what it felt like to me! Not sure why my photo is sideways but that's a photo of the slope going up the creek to Mt. Strachan: the trail goes in and out of the woods (which I found beautiful) but the people behind us seemed to just follow the creek bed.