The First Annual Bolton Mountain Fun Run

As a finale to the trail running season, Dan and I decided to squeeze in one more long run: a long-awaited attempt to tackle our twisted brainchild, the Bolton Mountain Fun Run. The Fun Run is an incredible link up of snowmobile, hiking and back country ski trails running from Richmond village to the top of Bolton ridge- and back again. We had originally planned to organize the run as an official race, but both of us have been too busy with our families, work, and procrastinating to manage the logistics. Anyway, this year’s run was an “unofficial invitational,” which basically means that I sent my friend Nick an email the night before to see if he would join us. He was busy.

Dan had to drop his son off at daycare in the morning so we weren’t able to get an “alpine start.” I used the extra time to sleep in a bit and drop a couple of cache bags. I dropped one bag at Rich’s house- roughly at mile seven of the course; the other I hid behind a rock on the far side of the Winooski River. Our plan was to ford the river at about mile 24 and run back on Duxbury road. It being mid-November, neither of our wives considered swimming in the Winooski an indication of a particularly well-conceived agenda. I’m still not sure if I’m thankful or disappointed that this crossing ultimately fell out of our plans for the day; but one thing I do know: that water looked pretty damn cold.

Driving back from the river cache to Dan’s place, I followed our planned course along Duxbury road. With each turn of the road, the idea of running all of this asphalt became increasingly less appealing. And, I must admit, I did have some doubts about the “swimming” part of the run with 40 degree temps and a river swollen with melt-water. For the rest of the drive I thought about alterations to the course that might eliminate this section.

When I got to Dan’s place, I was greeted by the Elephunkin’ sounds of The Black Eyed Peas blasting on his stereo. Knowing Dan as I do, it was clear to me that he had just prescribed and imbibed a clinical-strength dose of RedBull. As he shouldered his enormous Camelback I noticed that he was running with more-or-less everything he and his wife owned. I mentioned this and, subsequently, expressed my concerns about his ability to carry me after I collapsed in the latter half of the run. He responded with a grunt, which I took to mean, “Travis-never-comes-prepared-and-he-will-pay-dearly-as-his-hypothermic-half-starved-body-is-devoured-by-rabid-squirrels.” In retrospect, we probably would have not completed our run without the extra food and headlamp he had. Crazy, mad props to the man…

Full o' spunk at mile 1

The first part of the course follows VAST snowmobile trails past Richmond pond and across Snipe Ireland, Stage and Bolton Notch roads. Trail conditions were somewhat muddy, but surprisingly good considering the time of year. An early snowfall in October had compressed the fallen leaves and most of the underbrush was taken out by frost. We made great time on our first leg and comfortably bagged seven uphill miles in about 90 minutes. At Bolton Notch road, we considered running a quarter mile to Rich’s place to pickup the first cache. In hindsight, I have no idea why I didn’t drop the bag where the trail crosses the road. All I can say is that it was a fairly dumbass place to leave the drop. Now I was feeling annoyed by the prospect of running down the road and back; I felt good and wanted to keep our momentum moving forward. At this point, I recalled Rich complaining about the noise of snowmobiles in his back yard. From this I reasoned that the VAST trail must run, more-or-less, down his driveway and over the roof of his house. We pressed on deciding to take a short-cut down to Rich’s place as we passed by it on the trail. A quarter mile later, we were easily 500 feet above his house looking at a horrific bushwhack down to the cache. We took an inventory of Dan’s massive, blue-whale of a pack, and when combined with my Spartan supplies, we decided we could make it to the Bolton base-lodge.

Dan pressing on to Bolton

A few minutes later we hit the junction with the Long Trail. At this point we decided to alter our original plans in favor of the road-and-river-free variation I’d come up with that morning. Instead of our original course heading up the long Trail, we followed the VAST trail around the shoulder of Bolton ridge. This section gave up some excellent running and we made good time to the Sugar Shack on the Bolton Mountain Access road. We crossed the road and picked up the Catamount cross-country ski trail and easily found our way to the endless climb up Broadway to the base lodge.

"Unsupported" trail running

After a couple of turkey bacon sandwiches, a 20oz Pepsi, and a bowl of soup at the deli, we lumbered up steep, wet, snowy Nordic trails to the Bryant camp. It quickly became clear that a major theme in our future was going to be snow and water. We learned that moving fairly aggressively kept our core temps high and allowed our feet to stay warm enough (read: numb, but not requiring amputation). With a high heart-rate the water almost felt refreshing. Yeah, that’s it… refreshing…

Above Bryant camp

While sitting here writing this account, I mentioned to my wife that if by some chance this blog ever becomes popular, trail-running companies might give me free stuff to beat on and blab about. She said that if I want that to happen, I need to start plugging the stuff I use right away so that it starts to show up in search engines. Good call! A woman that smart certainly could have done a lot better than me. Anyway, here’s a well deserved plug for Montrail: my Hardrock trail shoes are fantastic and, from what I can tell, completely indestructible. I’ve beaten the crap out of mine and they look like new- except, of course, that they’re filthy and they smell disgusting. There’s no better way to break in a pair of trail shoes than to run for 9 hours with them full of muddy water…

My shoes before they got muddy

With slush in our shoes, we passed Olga’s Falls and gained the Long Trail somewhere around mile 15. Dan’s Garmin Forerunner GPS watch (will this plug get me one?) was a great way to map and measure the course; I don’t know if it would be practical to do it any other way. Technical hiking and running for several miles brought us to an interesting cleft in the mountain that we dubbed “Struggler’s Crotch.” Shortly after the ‘Crotch, a long gentle downhill provided some fast, dry and enjoyable running back to the Bolton Notch road. I could feel my feet again! At this point, we became somewhat concerned about the fact that we would not come anywhere near the second cache. Given the distance we had left, Dan thought it was likely that we would run out of water before we made it back. I suggested that he fill his Camelback in the Winooski River when we got there, but he grumbled something pessimistic about there being 600 dairy farms upstream, yada, yada.

Dan contemplates Struggler's Crotch

The section of the Long Trail from Bolton Notch down to the river was something neither of us had done before. On a previous outing we’d attempted to run this section but got off-route, lost the trail, and found ourselves taking an easy jog down Stage road. This time we followed the blazes, and kept the trail. We hit this section fully expecting a nice, mellow decent down to the river. Nope. Less than a mile in, we began to climb. Dan started swearing a bit and talking some crap like, “Unnecessary, totally unnecessary… Jeezus, why are we going UP?!?!? Unnecessary, totally unnecessary…” Obviously he had bonked. We rested for a few minutes on a hilltop in the afternoon sun. I traded the rest of my Mountain Dew for a Gu packet that Dan fished out of his Camelback-o-plenty. In honor of Dan, we dubbed this part of the run “Unnecessary Ridge.” We ran out the ridge which involved walking across a beaver dam, traversing a nasty double fall-line and running down some long rock slabs. Did I mention several demoralizing climbs? Yeah, there were those too, but we were just getting tired; they really weren’t particularly long or steep. We hit Stage road at its base and crossed the Winooski on the Jonesville bridge just as the sun was setting; it was 4:30PM. Dan and I cut through a field and forded the Huntington River, kneeling and soak our tired legs in the cold water so see if we could get our kick back for the last four miles.

Delerium setting in...

We followed the Richmond River Trail as the last light dwindled. At this point it became clear to me that Dan had made a wise choice in bringing his headlamp. As I ran in the dark, I kept hearing the master Obi Wan’s voice telling me to “use the force” and “to let go of my conscious self and act on instinct.” Obviously, I’d bonked and was beginning to lose it. I piggy-backed off of Dan’s headlamp and entertained (?) him for the last few miles reciting my favorite quotes from Star Wars while in a hypoglycemic delirium.

We finished our run at Volunteer’s Green in Richmond and walked up the hill to the Bridge Street Grill. It was terrific to see our families there waiting for us to join them for dinner. Dan immediately asked the waiter if it was legal for him to be served two pints of Switchback at the same time. The waiter said yes, it was legal. The decision was clear, “I’ll take two, too!” What can I say, it was a great run!

The Bolton Moutain Fun Run
Total distance: 30.56 miles (~50K)
Total time: 9.34.51
Average pace: 18:48
Moving time: 7.59.16
Average moving pace: 15:41
Elevation gain: +8119/-8399

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