Clint Grabhorn and I ran the Sioux Hustler trail on Friday, October 16th starting at 8:35 AM. Conditions were below freezing at the start which made for pretty good trail conditions. Within an hour the snow started to fall and the trail got super wet and slippery. The Sioux Hustler is a lollipop trail so once we reached the split we decided to take a right and run the loop counterclockwise. We made a few wrong turns which cost us some time and the slippery rocks made it pretty tough going. We were on track the whole time but were definitely cutting it close. We both started to slow down pretty significantly the last few miles but kept pushing.
With feet soaked and exhausted bodies we made it back to the trailhead at 7 hours and 13 minutes which bested the current fastest known time by only 7 minutes. After an hour recovery, we put on packs and headed back out on the trail as our plan was to take the next few days and backpack the Sioux Hustler loop to really go back and experience all the beauty. On our way back out we saw a runner fly past us towards the trailhead seemingly on his own FKT attempt. Turns out it was Lane Johnson who bested our FKT time by over 43 minutes. Given the conditions, that was flying! Crazy that we both planned our attempts on the same day in late fall in the BWCA. What an awesome day!