Yesterday I decided to head up north to work on my adopted trail, the Mt Clay Loop. Since I was going to be near Appalachia, I decided to give the Mt Adams Challenge a go first and then do the trail work afterwards. I wrote up and printed out some trail info and also made a map to put on my phone.
I started running with my dog Sitka around 8:15 AM. The air was very cool and the ground was slick with some earlier rain. Slick and muddy trails were going to be with me the whole time when below treeline. The first turn onto Brookside went fine. I had a little trouble figuring out what to do at the next stream crossing but quickly figured it out. I made a wrong turn at Kelton, paying attention to the blaze on the other side of the stream and not the Brookside sign on the back of the nearby tree. Once across and starting down Kelton, it didn’t feel right so I pulled out my map, figured out the problem and recrossed the brook and was back on Brookside. I next passed the Watson Path junction without seeing it at all. When I got to Bruin, I scratched my head, stared at my map for a minute or two, and finally figured out the problem. Backtracking to Watson, I turned uphill and that was my last wrong turn. After that it was all on familiar trails.
On upper Airline, I noticed that my pup was not right behind me as usual so I called back. Still not seeing her, I turned back and ran about 100 yards downhill. There I found her looking at a small gap between the rocks that she did not feel comfortable jumping across. With a little encouragement to go around it, we headed back uphill again. By the time we got to Gulfside, I was pretty sure we were not going to make the 2:10 goal. Gulfside went quickly though and I figured there was a chance by the time we got to TS junction. I pushed uncomfortably fast up Lowe’s while entertaining some rather uncharitable thoughts for the originator of this challenge. I think I blamed Doug Mayer whether he deserved it or not. Finally coming over the last rise and seeing the sign, I ran over and tagged it at 2:07:29. Sitka tagged it a few seconds later.
My legs felt good the whole way, my lungs not so much. There was very little actual running going on. Lots of power walking and slipping/sliding on the muddy rocks and roots. At some point I think I’ll give it another try on a drier day. I should be able to hit all the junctions right next time. Great fun.