As always running this trail in a day is more than just an adventure. It will kick you in the nuts, chew you up and spit you out. It will more than humble you. It will help you find god, whatever you think that is. It will help you find yourself. It will help you through hard times, good times, find both joy, pain and sorrow. And deep self reflection.
I went into this with three different goals. “A” goal - sub 9 hours (very ambitious but not impossible to do one day). “B” goal - sub 10 hours (reasonable). And “C” goal - run this faster than my time from last year. I hit my B goal and I am pretty happy with that. I know I could have done better, but given the trail conditions after all the rain last weekend, I am pretty proud of this. My feet got wet almost instantly. It was muddy, wet, slick rock, you name it.
This trail is funny. Very little of it is actually runnable. Maybe only ten miles of it at most. The descents are steep, technical and challenging by nature. On paper it doesn’t look like it would be that hard, but it is. It is extremely remote, very little used and very little maintained. Which also adds the challenge of “where is the trail” or bushes so grown into the trail you can barely see where you are stepping. Which makes running even that much harder. I got lost/off trail on the same two sections that I did last year. However I DID save myself on two other parts that I got off trail last year that I did not today, so that was nice.
The ascents are broken into five major climbs, then three other bullshit small climbs and some rollers in between. It kicks you in the ass at the end. Just when you think the climbing is over, nope. Here’s 200 feet for a quarter of a mile just to ruin the last bit of feeling you had in your quads. Like I said before, it will humble you. But oh is it beautiful, so damn beautiful out there.
About 8 miles of the trail is also shared with the AT. Once you summit east baldpate mountain you are on the AT going southbound all the way to the summit of old speck, the steepest climb of the whole loop and at mile 20. I saw 8 total people today on the AT section of the grafton loop. I did not see a single other person on the grafton loop trail itself. It was an overcast and cool day, which did not make well for views but it did save me from overheating which was great. The sun came out right as I was summiting the Sunday river white cap (last major climb) which warmed things up, however I loved it because the views on the whitecap are by far my favorite for the whole loop. It was breathtaking. I will always love this trail, for so many reasons. I think running it every year is now a goal of mine that I plan to do!