Back in the summer, I came up with an idea. There are three mountains in Old Forge that are a part of a challenge called the Fulton Chain Trifecta. If you climb all three mountains, you can submit a form and receive a patch. They call it a family friendly challenge, because none of the hikes are too long, and the mountains are located conveniently close to each other. Instead of keeping it family friendly and driving between the parking lots, I wanted to run the peaks, and run to the other parking lot and back. (There are only two parking lots, Rocky Mountain and Black Bear trail heads are in the same parking lot, and Bald Mountain has its own parking lot.)
My dream of completing this run during my summer break fell through. I wanted to camp close by, but the weather was crappy all week, and I was sick. Plus my knee was still recovering from my fall on the Tinker Falls trail, and I did not want to risk another trail fall so close to Berlin, so despite my craving for completing this idea, I had to put it off. It sat in the back of my head for a while, popping up occasionally, but it was never the right time. I had to get through Berlin, then I had to recover from Berlin, then I had a couple of races I wanted to do, plus it would be packed during fall foliage season. Finally, the perfect weekend opened up. I decided on going just a few days before I actually did it, but I put a good amount of planning into it.
I used the Coros app on my phone to create the route, and I did it a couple of different ways to figure out which way that I wanted to do it. I think the easiest way would be to start in the Rocky and Black Bear parking lot, run both of those mountains to start, and then to run to Bald, run it, then come back with no mountain to finish, but since when do I look for the easiest route. I wanted the mountains spread out! So after a few variations, I decided to do Black Bear first, the longest, then run to Bald, then run back, and finish with Rocky, the shortest.
While doing all this research, I started to wonder if anyone had done it before, and there is a place to go to find running challenges and trail records. FKT or Fastest Known Time. There is a website online where people submit routes typically in the mountains or that cover long distances, and they set the fastest time on the route. So when I looked up the Fulton Chain Trifecta, two routes came up. One was submitted by a guy, who did all three mountains, but he drove to the other parking lot. So he did all the mountains, but not the middle distance, so it was like 6 miles total. The other was two women, who did all three peaks, and they ran to the other parking lot, but they stopped once they had completed all the mountains. So it was just 13 miles. The route I envisioned was projected to be closer to 19 miles, because I had to run back to where I started, and I am thinking that due to the other one having two people that they had two cars, so they had the luxury of leaving a car in each parking lot, so they did not have to run back.
So I had my goal, and sometimes you have to find out what you are capable of, and there is only one way to find out, do it. On Sunday November 17th I woke up at 5, did my core work out, packed up my cooler, and by 5:30 I was on the road. I decided to wear my racing shirt. I had not trained like I was racing during the week, I had actually run pretty hard, but I wore it as a sign to myself to take this silly task seriously and to try hard.
When I started running just before 7:30, it was a brisk 27 degrees, but it was not windy, so it was okay, and it actually worked out in my favor on Black Bear that it was so cold at the start, because a lot of the ground was frozen, and if it had not been frozen, it would have been a muddy mess. At one point, I was climbing, and it was like going up a frozen waterfall. The whole ground was ice, and it was going up a slant. Thankfully there were protruding rocks and some dry spots on the side, so it was not a struggle to get up.
The struggle came close to the top. It started with a steep section that had a yellow rope to help climb up that incline, and then there were a few other sections, where I had to literally climb like use my hands to get up some of the boulders. Once on top, I got a beautiful view, and I searched around on the summit for the geological survey pin, so I could step on it to signify my summit, but there was not one to be found, so I wasted a few minutes doing that before deciding that a random nail that almost looked like the survey circle would have to do, and then I headed back down.
Now I had my chance to move, I was at a little over 4 miles when I got back to the parking lot, and next part was six miles of rolling hills with no extreme inclines. I tried to stay off the concrete that the path initially started on, because I was in my trail shoes, so there was grass right next to the path, and after a mile, I crossed the street to a snow mobile trail, which was basically a dirt road. Perfect for running on. Right around that point, I hit mile 5, so it was time for a snack. I had half of my honey stinger waffle, but it was so hard to even get it out. At this point, my hands had frozen. My fine motor skills were minimal. I had to use my mouth to open it, and despite breaking it in half, I could not pull the piece out. It literally took me half a mile to open it, get it out, and to start eating it. The waffle was very hard due to the cold weather, but I enjoyed it anyways.
The next problem came from my stomach. I had gone to the bathroom before I left home, and I hoped that that would be good enough, but sadly it was not, so by the time I finished the first mountain, my mind had already started to think about it, so after about 7 miles I had to pull off to use the bathroom, and when doing an FKT, the watch does not stop, so that was another minute or two wasted! But then I was back on the trail feeling so much better, but I still had one more mistake in me.
I had looked at the map over and over again, and driving in I had scouted it out, and I knew that the snow mobile trail veered off and took the long way to Bald Mountain, so I needed to switch to the road. I knew it was 6 miles from the parking lot, but I forgot that the fork would come before the sixth mile. So I kept going when I needed to get off onto the road. By the time I realized my mistake, I had gone over half a mile in the wrong direction, and I wasted another couple of minutes trying to look at the map to see if the mistake could be salvaged, and it could not, so I had to turn around, so that was almost ten minutes wasted.
This was a serious blow to my psyche. I thought about coasting for the rest of the route. I messed it up, so now it was no good. So my pace slowed slightly, but not by much, but by the time I was climbing Bald, I was back in the right mode for the most part. I think this was my favorite of the climbs. It was probably about a mile, and when I got close to the top, the rocks were poking up like the spines of a dinosaur, so it was like running on a very skinny ridge, if it was not so cool, it might have felt dangerous. At the top of Bald, there is a fire tower, so I wandered around again for a minute looking for a geological marker, and I did not find one, so I went to the top of the tower, and on the way up three dudes came down, so I had to wait.
I took my pictures quickly, and then I was flying back down the mountain. This was the spot I saw the most people. There were the three fire tower dudes, two people on a cliff, and two more climbing up, and I exchanged pleasantries with them all, which helped improve my mood again, and this was much needed because at this point, my hands were so frozen that they hurt, so I needed anything to take my mind off that.
The road back to the Rocky Mountain parking lot was tough. I had decided that I needed to keep going for it despite my mistake. On the way out, I tried to keep the pace around 6:30, and besides the mile where I used the bathroom, I was able to do this, but despite the gel I took at the bottom of the mountain, I was still feeling the fatigue of 14 miles and 1,700 feet of gain. I was mostly able to keep the pace where I wanted it though, and as it turned out, if I continued to run as fast as I was, even if FKT did not want to create my new route, I could still beat the women who went one way. So when I got back to the parking lot I had over 30 minutes to beat their time. I did not really remember what to expect from the climb up Rocky Mountain, but I knew it was short.
On the way up, there was an older couple, and when I was passing them, the guy said, “You need to pick up the pace.” I gave a laugh, or at least as much of a laugh as I could while huffing and puffing, and the only thing I could muster as a reply was, “I am trying.” Little did he know I was over 19 miles in and in an actual race against the clock.
Once at the top, for the third time, I failed to find a geological marker, but there is a tree that stands alone on the summit, so I used that as my marker this time, and I touched it and headed down. As long as I did not die going down the trail, I would be able to go sub 3 hours no problem. When I was going down the final stretch of the trail I did a fake celebration and had my arms out wide and pretended I was an announcer calling me in to the finish line, at least until I was part of the way through the parking lot, and another car pulled in, then I touched the door of the shed where I started and stopped my watch. 20.12 miles wuth 2,316 feet of gain in 2:53:43. Good enough to beat the women by almost 20 minutes, but hopefully a good enough route to create a new FKT altogether.
Owning an FKT in itself is cool, but I think what I really want is to be the one who created a route, and not only that, but I want to be the creator of a route that other people want to do. If I get the route created, and someone much faster than me comes and takes it, I will be more than okay with that, because I know I am not the fastest runner, and that there are plenty of people capable of beating my time, especially if they do not stop for the bathroom and get lost. However if my course does not get ratified as its own unique challenge, I will be back and competing on these mountains again.
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