Smokies Challenge Adventure Run Northbound
Ignorance is bliss until…
So this run didn’t go as planned for many reasons thus I’m kicking myself because I think I should have known better. The frustration due to failing to complete something is very real and can lead to questioning one’s self and their abilities to accomplish a goal. Thus if we let it, the best teacher is failure. I’ve learned a lot. I will being doing this again. I will conquer the northbound route of the Appellation Trail through The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Lots of folks have done it and succeeded, lots have tried and not finished, this time the later was me.
I’m dividing this up into four basic sections data, stories, gear and nutrition so you can jump around to what you want to read.
Data
What was planned: Total Distance from Fontana Dam to Little Pigeon River: 73.9 miles
Total Elevation Gain on route: 20,580’
What happened:
Total Distance from Fontana Dam to Newfound Gap: 41 miles
Total Elevation Gain on route: 13,920’ish
This data came from Appalachian Trail Distance Calculator at www.atdist.com/atdist
Start time was around 6:35am on Friday morning, Finish time 1:15am Saturday morning.
Stories So I arrive at Fontana Dam on Thursday evening and head over to the Fontana Resort to
grab a burger. Once at the dam I do a little wondering around and by 8pm had rearranged the back of the Outback for sleeping and proceeded to rest. Sleep never really came not because of day-before-jitters but due to all the people who came to the dam all night long. When my alarm finally went off I was ready for a nap. Instead I hopped up dressed and pulled out my cooking stuff to make eggs, sausage and coffee. Once done, clean up and start putting everything into my vest. I took a second look at all my stuff and then again at my vest. How am I going to get all of this in there? Good thing I run in cargo shorts. I managed to get 90% of my gear into the vest, the rest went into my shorts. As I’m packing in my gear up roll Keith and Jamie. After several trips to the restroom we head over to the dam for a few pictures, hit start on our watches and off we head over the dam. Half way across I remember to start the InReach so our crew and family can monitor our progress.
As we walk to the trail head I tried putting my poles in place on the vest. It worked of a few minutes but because of the overstuffed nature of my vest they fell off. Lesson one get a bigger vest for mostly self-supported adventures. We arrive at the trail head take a few more pictures, get our poles ready and we’re off. Up. Climb. We made great time on our first climb of the day. We were moving at a steady pace but not such that our legs burned. The first landmark was going to be Shuckstack Tower, which we could see from the dam. It was so small from the dam.
We didn’t really go to the tower as the trail turned left a side trail took you up to the tower. One of these days I’m going to go up there as I’ve now been by there three times. We moved on towards our first shelter, Mollies Ridge. Upon arrival there we roust some guy from his sleep. He asks us for the time, which happened to be around 10am. After a quick chat we’re off again. I start doing calculations in my head to see if I was on track for a 29 hour finish. I wasn’t quite sure. One thing I started questioning more than the time was my nutrition. Did I have enough to finish the whole thing?
Anymore on any race, adventure run or training run (longer than 10 miles) I make sure to eat something at the first hour and then every 30 minutes thereafter. So I had done this really well and would continue to do so until much later in the day.
As we climbed, it is all a climb until you reach Clingman’s Dome the highest point on our route, we moved well not pushing too hard. There was some storytelling and joking happening. At one point Keith was compared to Humpty Dumpty, which ended up being funny. Later The Beatles were used to explain the bug, beetle, that is killing all the fur/hemlock trees in the park; this turned out not to be so funny.
Early on in the hike, I think not too long after Mollies Ridge, we sited our first and only bear of the day. The section of trail was about a 30 yard straight away. We were at one end and it was at the other. As soon as I saw it I stopped, pointed to it and said ‘Hey Keith look.’ in an almost whisper. Keith gets Jamie and as she gets to where we are standing the bear turns and moves up and off the trail. After this encounter the talk turns to bears and what to do and other bear encounters. One of the reasons I always want to do this section, Fontana Dam to Clingman’s Dome, in the day light because I can see the bear and just not hear them. If I hear them then they are a whole lot closer than I want them to be.
Our first water stop was by my calculations supposed to be about .4 of a mile from the Russell Field Shelter, so I just kept on rolling to the water. I told both Keith and Jamie that it was only less than half a mile down the trail, so about 10 minutes. Yea, my math was off and it wouldn’t be the last time on this trip either. Reality was that the water stop, a stream, was 1.4 miles away or about 40 minutes.
When we arrived at the stream I knew exactly where I was. We were at the place where last year going the other way at about 1 or 2 am I had stopped for water and then got up to keep going only to end up doing a drunk walk, stopping for about 20 minutes and eating. This stop would take about 30 and while I ate as we arrived I couldn’t remember if I had eaten by the time we where leaving, so I ate again as we left. This should have been a huge red flag to me about my nutrition.
After our bear encounter and getting water we meet a series of hikers. The first was a girl in her mid-20’s I think. She wasn’t stopping to talk much so we told her about the bear, which she seemed grateful for and we all moved on. Later on we ran into Fire Ant, her trail name, and had a much better conversation in the rain with her. I could easily figure out why her name was Fire Ant as she had a red poncho/back pack combination to keep her and her stuff dry. Yea it was during this time we had our first rain storm of the day, it was heavy enough for me to pull out my poncho. Poncho Blanco was on the trial. Fire Ant was trying to make Mollies Ridge before night fall as the two other shelters between her and it where closed due to aggressive bear activity. We told her about our bear encounter and she told us of hers as well as having met a boar and the boar wallers on the trail that we would need to go around if filled with water because they were so deep. After about 5 minutes we moved on towards the next shelter.
Another hiker we came across was a guy working for the forest service doing trail maintenance on his day off so he was taking a hike to the top of a bald from which on a clear day you could have a view of Rock Top. We passed on our bear information, to which he seemed not too worried, but he could pass it on to the forest service. Jamie got him to take our picture and as you can see it was overcast.
At some point before or after meeting this guy I fell. When it happened I’m thinking what just happened? I never fall. Seriously I really don’t fall on the trail, the only time it might happen is when I’m tired or my nutrition is off or both. It happened. Keith called it a soft landing. I had landed on my right hip/butt area, right on my phone which was in my back pocket. As I got up Keith pointed out the rock that I tripped over and said it had been covered in the grass beside the trail. I do a quick check of my self and my phone and start moving again. I feel a little burning on my right knee which tells me that I might be bleeding. Oh well, nothing you can do about that out here and I ignore it.
We met one other guy doing a section hike. Nice guy. He had asked us if we had run into another hike heading north like us. We hadn’t and we told him of all the folks we encountered so far, including him it was four. I hadn’t expected to see many hikers out as all of the north bound thru hikers had already come through and the south bound hikers wouldn’t arrive until September or October. After a brief conversation about bears we moved on and I notice that he picked up his pack as we left him. About 10 minutes after leaving him I had my first bonk of the day. Yes, I had been eating every 30 minutes, but the amount of calories taken in hadn’t been enough. So we stopped in the middle of the trail while I tried to pull myself back together. I ate another Spring Energy, drank some Electroride and took a deep sigh. While I’m doing this the guy we had just spoken with a few minutes earlier comes rolling by us. That was a little disheartening, here I am a trail runner trying to make time getting passed by a hike with a full pack. A few minutes later we roll into the shelter only to find this guy. The debate was on whether or not to get water here, both Keith and Jamie did get water. I wasn’t sure I needed water. So I talked with the guy as we swapped stories about life we discovered that we had way too many things in common.
While talking with him I ask Keith and Jamie about the water flow out of the spring and was told it was flowing well. So I decided to go fill up as well. Later it would turn out that it had been a wise decision. As we left I asked him his trail name, he didn’t have one because he generally only section hike and was never with anybody long enough to be given a trail name. I gave him mine.
We come to another shelter, must have been around 5pm, where three hikers had stopped for the day. Anytime I approach a shelter I call out to the shelter to let folks know people are coming, it’s a good thing to do. I wasn’t planning on stopping and wasn’t real sure if Keith or Jamie wanted to stop. I asked the folks at the shelter that if they came across a guy in a beard to tell him his trail name was long beard altra or long beard lone peak, and to tell him it was from Poncho Blanco. They chuckled and said they would.
By this time or shortly thereafter I had my second fall. It had been a hard fall, landing on my hip again with the phone in the pocket. This one hurt a bit. I rolled over and sat there for a minute, dazed. At this point I knew something was wrong I just wasn’t sure what. Keith was fairly certain I wasn’t eating enough and he was correct. So I had some more Spring Energy. The problem had become I wasn’t keeping up with my nutrition and I was getting tired of the Spring Energy and I wasn’t sure if I would have enough to finish. One of the things I was worried about was running out and Keith said ‘Eat man we’ve got plenty.’ I remember switching my eating from every 30 to every 15. The issue then became not being able/wanting to eat anymore Spring Energy so I would ‘sip it’, a little every minute or so; meaning it would take me 10 to 15 minutes to finish one pouch and then it was time for another.
Later we came across our last group of hikers, who like the previous group where bedding down for the night. Keith was heading off to get water. Jamie was doing something and I was talking with the hikers. They offered us some of their water, I knowing how precious water it to hikers, especially through hikers was reluctant to talking their water. So we began questioning them about giving away water. Convinced that it was alright we took their extra water. Once refilled and information about the trail exchanged we left.
I remember Jamie asking about headlamps and talking about it not getting dark until about 8. Keith then said we should have them out soon, it was around 7 or 7:30pm. She made the comment that she didn’t see well as it got dark so she was going to go ahead and turn hers on. Later Keith followed and just before 9pm I pulled mine out.
It was during the evening when Keith hit his one and only bonk, by the time he bonked I had bonked at least twice if not three times. We were just walking along and he said he needed to stop. He stopped at a rock turned around to face the opposite direction of travel and sat down. After a brief rest and the taking of a salt tablet he got up and we moved forward. Later on I would end up stopping multiple times to eat a bit or just for a stop. Jamie never seemed to need to stop other than we Keith or myself stopped. Keith and Jamie where supper strong as we moved through the woods.
As the evening turned to night Keith began to develop chaffing issues. It had gotten so bad that at one point he had to make a stop and try to come up with something that would deal with the cause of the chaffing. It was then a discussion of not finishing came up. As we finished the discussion I said let’s make a deal that we won’t talk about going on until we reach Newfound Gap and had eaten a good bit. We agreed.
It had started to rain again for the second time, third time if I was to count the little quick rain shower. I already had my headlamp on as the rain started. It didn’t take long for me to get my poncho out and on as the rain was falling at a steady rate and seemed to me to be picking up in intensity. It would rain from this point on to Newfound Gap. Because of my current mental state combined with the rain slowed our pace down to 2 miles in an hour. We had dropped to 2.5 miles per hour not too long before reaching the shelter with the folks who gave us water. As we neared Clingman’s Dome I had dropped our pace to 2 miles an hour. Most of the day as long as I had gotten my distances correct my timing was spot on.
As we worked our way from Clingman’s Dome to Newfound Gap things began to get interesting. I started signing the hook to the House at Pooh Corner and the hook to Puff the Magic Dragon, which got Jamie to go ‘Is he singing?’ and then ‘Is he singing Puff the Magic Dragon?’ She also had an interesting moment of her own when she asked Keith and I if we wanted a cigar, because she had found one on the trail. Keith confirmed it was a very cigar looking stick. I knew we were getting close to Clingman’s Dome when I recognized the tops of the fir/spruce trees. I told them we were close, I just didn’t know how close. Reaching Clingman’s Dome was a bit anticlimactic as it is not right on the trail, but a relief as we had made a major mile stone. I suggested that they come out here some time and do a couple of short runs one to Clingman’s and the other to either LeConte or Charlies Bunion. I also shared with them that of the four times I had been here the two times I had been with Jim the sky had been clear the other so much.
One more shelter and then Newfound. As we moved Mt. Collins Shelter Keith’s chaffing had gotten worse and he finally said he didn’t thing he could go on. I was right there with him. After two falls my right leg was giving me fits, I already have trouble with this leg so the falling didn’t help. So we called it, get to Newfound Gap and be done. I felt like I was dragging my leg like Quasimodo, I wasn’t but that’s what it felt like. We passed Mt. Collins Shelter trail right on time, 2 miles an hour, we didn’t stop as it would have been nearly a half mile or more to get to the shelter and we only had a little over 4 more to go, 2.5 hours to go, and we would be at Newfound Gap at 1:30 am. I knew I was close to the gap when we crossed a little field by a road, but not close enough. I was looking for the wall, it was a cut stone wall that was going to be on my right. It was the retaining wall for the road. When my light shined on it I hollered back that we were almost there, that we just had to get up this little hill. We made it!! Done!
We were greeted by the amber glow of parking lot lights and a car that held members of The Dirtbag Trail Club who had wanted to be our aid station and pacers for the last 30 miles. Kathryn, Becca and Jim jumped out of the car and began to tend to our needs. We all headed to the restrooms as that was the only place that could hold 6 people out of the rain and boy did it smell like a restroom that hadn’t been cleaned. We ate and recovered telling our crew of our trail travels. At about 1:45 the rest of our crew, Alex and her friend, showed up; they had been at the Little Pigeon River camping out waiting for us. Once we had recovered a bit we were ushered into waiting cars and taken to a hotel. SCAR-2 was over.
Nutrition So this plan didn’t work so well for me. In the last 4 hours I ended up ‘sipping’ the Power Rush and Long Haul. I will still continue to use Spring Energy (use JackS at check out for a nice little discount), but balance it with other foods for self-supported runs.
10 Long Haul
19 Power Rush
6 Hill Aid
6 Canaberry
8 Electroride
Gear Salomon 5 Set pack – way too small for the type of run being done
Black Diamond Trekking Poles
Katadyn water purifier – way too cumbersome for what I was doing
1800 lumen head lamp
Nike Wild Horse 4
Garmin Forerunner 220
Lessons Learned
Biggest Lesson - The last two time I've done this section I've been going the other way and both times it took me about 14 hours, both where in the dark. I should have taken this fact into account as I was estimating my time going the other direction. Apparently heading north is not the same as heading south at night on this section, something I would be wise to remember in the future.
Gear – So I realized that my vest was way too small to carry everything I need to carry, next time I’ll use the 12 set from Salomon. The Katadyn water purifier was another gear related set back. It was way too bulky to fit into my 5 set, which didn’t leave room for anything else. The only other gear issue was my shoes, I should have gotten a new pair about a week before the run. I have several issues with my feet right now of which the biggest is Haglund's Deformity this is basically a growth on the back of the heal that can be very painful. New shoes would have minimized foot issues. The watch is useless on these long runs, I can't change important setting that effect battery life. So I'll just need to use the app on my phone and remember to keep it charged.
Course – I knew better, every trail is different when run the opposite direction. I heard that it was going to be harder. I should have really focused on it being a new trail and not relied on my experience from last year.
Nutrition – I wanted to try something different. I have used Spring Energy many times during races and it had always worked really well for me, so I thought I would try it as the sole fuel source for the run, that didn’t work out so well. This may have been the biggest factor in my not doing so well only because I didn’t eat enough of the Spring Energy during the trek. I was worried about not having enough to get through all 73 miles, plus I got a little tired of eating the same consistency of food. I should have stuck to my normal of buffalo jerky, cliff bars AND Spring Energy. You will not hear me put down Spring, I will continue to use it. I just have to balance it with regular food. One of the reasons it does so well for me during races is that I stop at aid stations and eat there as well as eating my Spring between aid stations.
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