Keweenaw Trail Running Festival

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Speed. Strength. Endurance. You’ll need all three if you’re going to tackle the Keweenaw Trail Running Festival.

The event, held July 12-13 on the trails around Copper Harbor, Mich., in the state’s Upper Peninsula, is an unusual three-part competition designed to test all the skills in a trail runner’s toolbox.

You need to be fast if you want to do well in the opening race, a 10K lung-burner along deeply wooded, hilly single-track. It starts at 8 a.m., Saturday July 12, at the parade grounds of Fort Wilkins, a restored 19th century military post that’s now an historic park.

Then at 6 p.m. that same day, there’s a knee-bending test of leg strength, a hill climb competition—a rarity in the Midwest. The starting line is on a beach in the town of Eagle Harbor, Mich. The finish is 3.5 miles away and 711 vertical feet up to a hilltop called Mount Lookout. After they catch their breath, racers have to hike back down the rocky trail they just ran. There’s no road up to the top and no shuttle buses.

The endurance challenge starts the next morning at 7 a.m. with the festival finale, a 25-kilometer ankle-twister that features steep up and downs, windy turns, rocks, roots and mud.

Competitors can do just one or two races. There are awards for the top finishers and age class winners in each event. But most runners opt to do all three races and contend for the overall title for the festival weekend.

Now in its ninth year, the trail festival is the creation of Jeff Crumbaugh, a high school science teacher and trail runner from Clintonville, Wis., who used to live in Hancock, Mich. The event led Crumbaugh to create an event-management company, Great Lakes Endurance, that now puts on six other trail running competitions in the Upper Midwest, including the Grand Island Trail Marathon, held on an island in Lake Superior on July 26.

Only about 300 people compete in the festival, but they come from about 25 different states in the country, apparently drawn by the event’s unusual format. Another attraction: Racing through the wilderness in the remote but scenic northernmost point of the Upper Peninsula, the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula jutting into the middle of Lake Superior, where competitors are advised to keep a lookout for bears and wild-blueberry sightings.

Like many trail races, the event has a friendly, laid-back vibe. Competitors often strike up friendships after facing each other three times over the weekend and eating together at the organic post-race breakfast provided by Crumbaugh. 

Crumbaugh strives to make the race as eco-friendly as possible. He doesn’t hand out disposable cups. Instead, competitors are asked to carry their own water bottles to get refills at the water stops. The T-shirt is made from organic cotton and the proceeds help environmental organizations like the Nature Conservancy.

Race winners are awarded technical gear from companies like Vasque, Patagonia and SmartWool. But the prizes also include a lot of handcrafted goods from local artisans, including pottery and organic honey. The winners of the hill climb, for example, get jars of fruit preserves made at a local monastery. Third place gets wild strawberry, second gets wild blueberry and first place gets thimbleberry.

The fee to do all three races is $105 until July 11. For more information, see www.greatlakesendurance.com.   

Comments & Feedback

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