Location
Connecticut,
US
Distance
0.8 mi
Description
GPS Track
Quarry-View.gpx134.02 KB
FKTs
Male
Mixed-gender team
| Mark Turpin | 10m 39s |
| Lee-Stuart Evans, Shona Evans | 18m 21s |
Comments
Seriously?! The first guideline of an FKT is that the trail is notable. There is nothing notable about this trail, nor the dozen other little trails around the state that you are leisurely exploring.
It is true. I have not submitted some of the things around my home state just because they aren’t quite notable enough on a regional, national, or international scale.
This being said, there are one or two on my list that are renowned classics in the climbing world where I linked up free soloing and running...long to short I wonder if I could have done them in a better more globally aesthetic way.
Peter Bakwin made a deep impression on me when I started down this road when he said,”FKTs are like art, you know it when you see it and you know it when you don’t.”
I am not out on your trails, so you really could be choosing amazing classics of your state that draw people in to see them from all around. So all I encourage is this...when you want to put it here, keep it artful out there!
much love and encouragement to your future adventures!
In a similar vein, but less... let's say "artfully" ... spoken: A friend of mine joked that he set an FKT running from his driveway to the store. But he also didn't post the route on the FKT site.
I really like the quote from Peter, thank you for that.
While these "little trails" might not be all that notable individually, Lee is doing a couple of notable things. The first is simply documenting these trails, which apparently no one has done for many of them. The second is, as I understand, he's trying to do all the Blue Blazed trails in CT in a year or something. Given that many of them aren't documented, that seems significant. I don't know where he's at with that project, but is seems like something that someone might want to repeat.
Hey Peter,
thank you for providing insight as to the bigger intentions here.
I don’t know if you intended it with the new website design but I think you made a secondary culture for the scrappers and the grinders of this community...those stinking numbers next to our names on the athlete page. There is something motivating about that. I know I was inspired by Marcy as she has kept cracking out one after another after another (seemingly ever-finding new lines or previously men’s only lines). And so for those of us that may never take a 5 star, world-class FKT there is a pleasure in both the creative process of finding ways to solve new lines in the light and fast way. And it is fun to see those lines attached to our name, knowing that even though we may well get beat, we did it as fast as anyone knows first...
So I suppose the feelings here are those of seeing a name fly up that athlete list with super short trails because it maybe made us feel short changed on the hours of rehearsal to mix a multi pitch rock route into a new FKT effort or just the hours and suffer that go into a 30+ Mile FKT
perhaps there is no need for any solution here. perhaps we can just keep plying our creative works and realize we were putting a silly amount of value into watching our names pop up a list. Or maybe on the days where Lee and Shona do 3, 20 min trails it could be one FKT.
I am really not picky and I want to be humble. I was just trying to be an advocate for those putting in a ton of effort to make sure each of those numbers next to their name belongs there.
as always love and stoke for the projects that make us feel alive.
Jason
Yeah, but 0.4 is a Strava segment. Then again, who am I? I’ll will never have an FKT