Photo by Marissa Tiel
NEW CHALLENGE – Denise McHale, seen here during the 2016 Yukon River Trail Marathon, is one of many Yukoners who will be taking part in the inaugural Reckless Raven Ultra Marathon, a 50-mile trail race, on July 2.
Final preparations underway for Reckless Raven Ultra
As day 0 creeps closer,
As day 0 creeps closer, the conspiracy of ravens continues to put the finishing touches on the inaugural Reckless Raven Ultra. Named as such, the group of Erica Van Vlack, John Carson, Virginia Sarrazin, Stephan Atmanspacher, Bronwyn Benkert and Maggie Wright has been working on organizing the 50-mile trail race, which begins early in the morning on July 2 at Mount McIntyre.
The team has been taking turns going out and flagging the course which has “a lot of ups and a few downs,” said Sarrazin.
She expects runners will find the course challenging, but that preliminary feedback from runners out training on the course has them enjoying it.
The race begins at Mount McIntyre and utilizes the trails around the nordic centre before going into the Raven’s Ridge subdivision and up Fish Lake Road towards Icy Waters.
From there, the course goes up Haeckl Hill and onto Sumanik Ridge, which is an area that many haven’t yet explored.
When organizers ran it for flagging, they found no clear trail and have set lots of markers on that section.
“We want to make sure people can find their way even if the weather is bad,” said Sarrazin, who noted that both times she was up on the ridge were on opposite sides of the weather spectrum.
“Sumanik Ridge is beautiful. It’s incredible,” said Sarrazin.
“It’s for sure going to be a challenging part.”
She estimates that over the 50 miles of trail they’ve used at least 1,000 markers.
“It’s been taking a long time,” she said.
After Mount Sumanik, runners will pass Jackson Lake, which serves as the relay handoff and a gear access point for solo runners. From there, the trail veers towards Bonneville Lakes and back towards Fish Lake before joining up with the newly built trail Blown Away and back towards Mt. Mac for the finish.
As of press time, there were 27 teams registered and 36 solo runners.
The vast majority of the field is from the Yukon with some fast local faces like David Eikelboom, Dominic Bradford and Denise McHale. There are also runners from North Dakota, Ontario, Iowa, Alaska and B.C. scheduled to participate.
“We were not expecting that many runners,” said Sarrazin.
The race begins Sunday morning at six from the Mt. McIntyre Recreation Centre and the cutoff time for the finish is at 9 p.m.
Add your comments or reply via Twitter @whitehorsestar
In order to encourage thoughtful and responsible discussion, website comments will not be visible until a moderator approves them. Please add comments judiciously and refrain from maligning any individual or institution. Read about our user comment and privacy policies.
Your name and email address are required before your comment is posted. Otherwise, your comment will not be posted.
Comments (1)
Up 5 Down 0
Active Yukoner on Jun 28, 2017 at 6:03 pm
Cool event, hope the weather cooperates. Organizers, please remember to remove all your markers after the event. The events not over until the course is cleaned up.