We ran together and carried all gear and nutrition from the start. Water was refilled from streams along the way.
We started at 5:47am at Rainbow Falls trailhead. Trillium Gap Trail was followed to the lodge for the first ascent. Outside of an icy crossing behind Grotto Falls, the lower section of trail was in good conditions even with the heavy rain the day before. Above the gap, patchy snow and ice turned into continuous ice as we approached the lodge. We put on spikes and climbed up the slick final mile.
We then descended the top section of Rainbow Falls Trail to its intersection with Bullhead Trail. Plenty of traffic had been on this section making it a solid sheet of packed snow and ice! Spikes made travel a bit easier but our pace was definitely impacted. We followed Bullhead Trail and Old Sugarlands Trail back to Rainbow Falls Trailhead to complete our first descent. After leaving the ridge on Bullhead, we found the trails clear all the way down, unfortunately though our view was obscured most of the way by low clouds.
The second ascent of the day was up Rainbow Falls Trail. In the warming min-morning hours the trail was a little muddy up to the falls. Above the falls we climbed into the clouds and began to feel the cumulative miles and gain on the legs. We decided to push to the lodge before making a decision on continuing the route.
With Highway 441 being closed most of the prior two weeks, we had concerns about the conditions on The Boulevard Trail. But we decided to give it a go and see how we felt if/when we made it to Newfound Gap. Leaving the lodge, we found ice and snow but well traveled trail up to the summit and over to Myrtle Point, then things got bad…
Past Myrtle Point, the trail had not seen a soul since the last big snow. We found ourselves postholing past the knee as we made our way down the steep shaded side of the mountain. Knowing that if these conditions continued our FKT bid would be in serious trouble, we elected to push on to at least give ourselves a chance. Luckily as we reach the main ridge of The Boulevard we met a group of 4 backpackers coming up from the AT! They had done a beautiful job of breaking trail along the shallower snow on the ridge. With some serious effort we were able to make it across the ridge and up to the AT.
The AT had seen plenty of traffic which had packed the snow and ice into a relatively nice surface. A few slips and slides brought us to Newfound Gap.
To complete the Tour unsupported we elected to run down Highway 441 to Alum Cave Trailhead. Again the recent snow impacted our day. While the roads were cleared, the shoulders were not. This meant we had to run right on the edge of the busy road way making this arguably the most dangerous part of the day! But even with a few distracted and rude drivers we made it down without major incident.
Our goal for the day was to complete the Tour in 12hr30min, taking a hour off the current Unsupported FKT. Reaching Alum trailhead, we were happy to be about 10 minutes ahead of this pace but the legs were heavy. So we decided to just put our heads down and climb up Alum Cave Trail, using the extra time as needed and see where we were at the top. We moved well up to the Cave and across the ridge. We slowed on the upper climb but never stopped. Ice became more and more of an issue on the last mile of the climb but the tired legs still got us through. We had given all 10 minutes back by the time we finished our third and final ascent and then gave a few more prepping for the final descent.
As we moved down the upper part of Trillium we gave a few more minutes back navigating the now slushy rocky trail. By the gap, 12hr30min now seemed out of reach but we still wanted to finish without headlamps. Outside of a few icy patches we found Brushy Mountain Trail in good shape and we were able to keep a good pace. Nearing Porters Flats we did some quick math and realized that we could still push for our goal time. Sawyer took over the lead and laid down a speedy 2.5 miles that saw us claw back the time lost at the top and finished at 6:14pm a few minutes under our goal!
We were met at the Porter Creek Trailhead by Sawyer’s family who surprised us with pizzas!