I want to be clear that I understand I am not the first person to do this route nor the fastest. Folks have been doing gate-to-eight laps for a long time and many of them were faster than my effort last week. I created this route and am posting an FKT for it to centralize the record, instead of having it scattered over blog posts and various commercial platforms, not to disrespect those who have come before. I am hopeful that having it in one pace will spark a little healthy competition and drive the time down.
I want to shout out specifically this effort on a different route; Brenner is a friend and a wild man in the best way. His offhand comment in the middle of that report made me search for this route and realize it didn't exist yet, but I also know folks have done it before he did.
I drove down from the city Wednesday morning to rack up at the Ferncliff lot, and I got rolling by about 9:30am. I wore a base layer shirt, shorts, a ball cap, and gloves and a buff I stashed almost right away. I had a hydration vest with a liter of water and a couple of gels, as well as some basic survival stuff in case I slipped off the trail and had a bad day (headlamp, Mylar bivy, an extra layer, a few hundred calories). Life would have been nicer if I had another gel and a little more water. The forecast for the day was for bluebird skies and chilly in the morning but unseasonably warm by early afternoon, with no chance of precipitation. It was good running weather until it warmed up, and I sweat more than I expected to.
The trail was in decent but not spectacular shape. On the way up, there were a bunch of dry leaves covering most of it and all the little footbridges were iced up although the trail wasn't. There was snow and ice on the trail from about 1/3rd of the way up the big climb past the Ohiopyle Shelter Area around mile 6.1 to the turn-around at mile marker 8. The bridges were still iced up on the way back, but with the afternoon warming the ice had started melting and had a layer of water on top. I was pretty conservative with all the bridges in both directions, not wanting to slide off and do an ankle (or worse). There were downed trees across the trail in two or three places. I was surprised that I didn't see any critters and also didn't hear any gunfire, even in the top part where the trail enters state game lands.
I didn't see anyone else on the trail on the out leg, and the shelter area seemed empty, but I passed maybe half a dozen hikers getting out to stretch their legs before the holiday on the way back. Everyone was glad to exchange a fly-by "good-morning-happy-thanksgiving!", even when it was afternoon and I didn't know yet. I enjoyed a coffee and lunch walking around a mostly deserted and very sunny Ohiopyle before heading into the holiday traffic to drive home.