Beginning at the Georgia end of the Bartram, I completed the "Out and Back" course in a little under 4 days. Including getting lost and retracing steps a few times, I ended up running a little over 226 miles with a little over 50,000 feet of total elevation gain. The route I ran differs somewhat from the previous FKT. The Bartram conservancy has added a new section of trail to Hickory Knoll Road and reroute the road section through the center of Franklin. While this makes it a little longer, the aesthetic is much improved and the road sections feel much more safe. My crew included 9 total pacers and an additional 5 non-running crew (two helping remotely). Logistics were simplified by the fact that I am local and the Bartram runs through the center of my town of Franklin, NC.
We had a smooth first 50k with my first pacer, which included the climb up Rabun Bald. I changed pacers at the NC/GA border and my wife paced me up Scaly Mountain into the first night. With wildfire smoke in the area I struggled the first night, considering dropping. My crew on the ground, though was able to find a rescue inhaler and we made it into the Hickory Knoll parking lot around 1am, where I slept for the first time (about 1 hour).
I ran the newly re-routed road section through Franklin starting about 3:00 am, arriving at Wallace gap at daybreak. A friend with whom I generally run this section as it is our hometown hill, joined me for the Wayah climb through the Nantahala section. We arrived at the bike path ahead of the Cheoah Climb around 8pm. My wife jumped back in for the Cheoah section and even in fog and rain ran into AT through hikers where the two trails connect. I slept for about 30 minutes at the base of Cheoah before the return.
The Natahala section was extremely cold the second time through and we worked through some hypothermia symptoms, eventually making it back to the backside of Wayah around 9am. I changed pacers again, climbed Wayah, and picked up another pacer. Having two on the steep descent from Wayah to Wallace was incredible as the day warmed up. By the time we reached Wallace branch, a sizeable portion of my local run club had arrived to celebrate and join me for parts of the second road section through Franklin. We had something of a homecoming celebration on main street at my local brewery and outdoor store came out to cheer me on. One of the Outdoor76 owners linked up to pace me back to Hickory Knoll Road where I slept for around an hour and warmed up.
I picked up a fresh pacer Saturday night for the climb back up Scaly mountain. Despite the cold, we made good time, completing the section in around 9 hours and hitting the peak of Scaly around dawn. We arrived at the NC/GA border mid-morning and I switched pacers again for the final 55k. We had an uneventful run through the GA section, completing the climb up Rabun in about 1.5 hours. But as the sun went down, my energy dropped and the final 6 miles out of the bottomland and up to the GA trailhead were excruciatingly slow. I finished about 10pm.
I have tremendous respect for the person that set this ahead of me who appears not to have much used pacers. There is no way I could have completed this in 87/88 hours without pacers and a pretty dialed plan for shepherding food and electrolytes between stops. Some of the longer, colder night sections would have been dangerous without help. We carried Salomon filters, but only used them once or twice in the heat of the day. We ultimately opted to break this up into 15-20 mile sections using Brent Martin's Bartram Trail guide. I highly recommend that strategy. Local knowledge also helped tremendously as I had either run or was running with someone with specific Bartram experience. Still, this was easily the hardest thing I've ever done.