After considering, thinking about, scouting and planning this run of the entire Skyline Trail #251, from south to north, it all came together for me to run it on September 4th-5th, 2020. I chose south to north for a couple reasons. First, it made sense to run it in the direction with a net uphill gain--it felt more legit that way. Second, the southern/eastern part is notoriously more difficult to navigate due to downed trees and sections of "missing" trail. Doing that half during the daylight made for far better navigation.
I've talked to a number of local distance runners and hikers and no one knew of anyone ever completing the entire Skyline Trail, even broken up through multiple trips/outings. This really added to the appeal of me trying to do this in a single push but also added to the uncertainty.
I did this run solo and enjoyed the solitary experience. Water is the major challenge on this route as it stays on the ridge crest, at least for the southern/eastern half, so access to water is non-existent unless one wants to do some significant descending and return to the ridge. That being the case, this was a self-supported outing for me--I stashed one liter of water along the trail around the mile 20 mark. I had hoped not to actually have to use it and keep it a purer unsupported outing but, alas, I was thirsty. Still, I'm pretty proud I did the entire 70 mile run with a single stashed liter of water as my only support.
I was "onsighting" the route from about mile 35 to mile 60ish and much of that was in the dark. As such, I made a less-than-ideal water stop off the ridge down to a pond about 400' down off the trail that chewed up a bunch of time. Then, adding insult to injury, on my return to the ridge I passed by the spring that is feeding the pond. Had I seen that on the descent, I would have saved a couple hundred feet of descent and at least 30 minutes. Next time I'll be faster with this knowledge. I didn't hammer this run and for sure this FKT is a low-hanging time for someone organized, motivated and well-planned. It's a worthy, logical route.