Run Without Fear gathers 100 on Olympic Discovery Trail in Port Angeles

PORT ANGELES — Close to 100 women walked and jogged the Olympic Discovery Trail on Sunday morning, showing solidarity with a woman who was attacked two weeks ago and sending a message that the trail belongs to the public.

Standing atop a table at the Hollywood Beach trailhead, Run Without Fear organizer Carrie Sanford told the group of mostly women that she was angry when she learned a woman had been attacked while jogging a nearby section of trail, a feeling she said many had expressed throughout the past two weeks.

“I wanted to go for an 8-mile run out here by myself and I didn’t feel like I could — and I got mad,” she said. “During my run out to the hook and back, I decided if this woman was ready to go take back this trail I wanted to run with her.

“If she wasn’t ready, I wanted to run myself and I thought maybe some of you might want to come too.”

She said it was a feeling that apparently resonated with the community because more than 100 people showed up for the event to show solidarity to the woman who was attacked.

The woman told deputies that at about 8:30 a.m. April 15, two men attacked her while she was jogging with her dog between the Ennis Creek parking lot and the Gales Addition section of the Olympic Discovery trail.

She fought them off, incapacitating one of the men and fighting free from the other, before she fled down to the beach to the safety of others, according to the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office.

What stood out to some who attended was that the attack happened during daylight and with people nearby.

“If I could speak to this woman who was attacked — and you will not hear me call her a victim — if I could speak to her right now I would say ‘you are brave, you are fierce, you are strong and this community is proud of you and will not stand for this,’ ” Sanford said.

The Sheriff’s Office has since started patrolling the trail in an effort to provide peace of mind for trail users and to keep the trail safe. The focus is primarily on the section of trail from Hollywood Beach to Morse Creek, but deputies are intermittently patrolling up to Railroad Bridge Park as well.

Women who attended the walk said they have had uncomfortable encounters on the trail. Some said they have been followed and that they were uncomfortable running the wooded section of trail between Hollywood Beach and the former Rayonier mill site, a common place for homeless encampments.

Jo Johnston said she and her friends have changed their morning routine because of how unsafe they felt when walking the trail during early morning hours.

“For several years we were walking in the early morning and ending our walk here and watching the sunrise,” she said. “We’ve had to stop doing that because of the number of people sleeping along the trail.”

She said her group was once chased by a man, another reason they have changed their routine. As the group was walking they heard someone behind them shouting and talking to himself, she said.

As they looked back he was getting “closer and closer,” she said.

“We felt we needed to run,” Johnston said. “It was not going to be safe for us.”

Johnston said she and her friends were there Sunday to “take back” the trail from those who make people feel unsafe.

Taking back the trail will take more than one event, Sanford told the crowd. She told the group she didn’t want Sunday’s walk to be a “one-time thing” and that the community needs to use its public spaces.

“When we have eyes out on this trail and in our public spaces, bad things are less likely to happen,” Sanford said. “When we use our spaces … and put our elbows out a little bit, we have an ability as a community to take that space back and to have a positive effect on a place that belongs to all of us.”

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Reporter Jesse Major can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56250, or at jmajor@peninsuladailynews.com.