Rachel Carson Trail Challenges Strength and Will

It may seem hard to believe that someone would want to hike 35 miles in one day through the woods—including poison ivy—up and down muddy hills, through creeks, and over hot asphalt, but Saturday more than 600 people will do just that.

They'll be taking on the Rachel Carson Trail Challenge, an event that is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year.

For good reasons, the trail is known as “The Bloody, Muddy” Rachel Carson. Hikers and runner navigate from North Park in McCandless Township to Harrison Hills Park in Harrison Hills. Although the trail is listed at 34 miles, it's closer to 36 miles because of the difficulty in measuring some of the trail through creeks and small paths through the woods. The course travels through local and county parks, private property and about 10 miles of roadway.

The Rachel Carson Trails Conservancy Inc. is the organization behind the challenge. The non-profit preserves the Rachel Carson and Baker trails and is named after Pittsburgh-native and mother of the environmental movement, Rachel Carson. Every year, the challenge is held on the longest Saturday of the year.

Steve Mentzer, events director, said the event is a lot more sophisticated than it was in its first few years.

“The trail wasn’t well-marked and wasn’t very well maintained. The first year, it was a challenge just to find the trail,” he said. Now, close to 8o percent finish the event, even last year despite unbearable heat and humidity and a late-afternoon electrical storm.

The reasons people do the challenge are as varied as the folks themselves.

This will be the first challenge for Catherine “Cassie” Neff of Dormont and the second for her husband, Anthony.

On a date away from their baby in January, Cassie asked Anthony what was the hardest thing he had even done.

“I was surprised when he said the challenge because he has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro,” she said. As the two talked, they both decided to take on the challenge this year.

“I wanted something to use as a goal to get back in shape after having the baby,” she said, “Then I talked my twin sister into it.”

Cassie, 30, and Anthony, 31, completed an extensive video workout program, and then she started running three days a week. The two vary their workouts so that one is watching their 13-month-old son, Holden. Anthony has continued the video workout to maintain his fitness and ran the half-marathon at the Pittsburgh Marathon this year.

Cassie is “excited, but nervous ... I don’t know if I will be able to do it—since we live in Dormont, the trail isn’t that close and I haven’t been out on it yet,” she said.

She and her sister, Maureen “Mimi” Spagnolo, have vowed to stay together, especially since Anthony is nursing an injury that he developed while training for marathon that may prevent him from completing the hike.

The first time Anthony did the challenge, his mother, JoAnn Neff, of Moon, hiked about 13 miles before dropping out. Anthony didn’t blame her.

“I really think that hiking the challenge is harder than any one day that I did at Mount Kilimanjaro. On that, we did five days in a row, but none were as hard as the one day of the challenge,” he said.

The couple has their in-laws watching their son the day of the event and Anthony urged Cassie to hire a baby-sitter for the next day.

“He told me that it would be hard to walk the next day,” she explained, “I took his advice.”

Two shorter hikes are offered: the Homestead Challenge, an 18-mile hike, and the eight-mile Family and Friends Challenge. Two-hundred people have registered for the Homestead and about 75 have registered for eight-mile course. In all, there are nearly 900 total participants and another 100 or so volunteers. Most of these 900 are from the greater Pittsburgh area, but some come from other states including Virginia, California, Oregon, New York, Ohio and Maryland.

The success of the event depends on the volunteers behind the scenes. Mentzer alone spends hundreds of hours preparing for the event and trail maintenance throughout the year.

There are four check-points approximately seven to eight miles apart along the trail and each hiker has an electronic tag that's scanned at each check point. Official times are registered through the tags. Drinks, including water and Gatorade, along with food, facilities and minor first aid will be provided.

Most of the hikers and runners have trained for the event—after all, who can wake up and decide to hike 35 miles in one day?  Most participants start around 5:30 a.m., when it starts to get light, and they must be finished by 8:59 p.m. or 15 hours, 4 minutes from their start time, whichever comes first.

According to Mentzer, about 10 percent of the participants run the event. Some walk and run and others hike the whole trail. Runners tend to finish in about seven to nine hours; combination hikers/runners in about 10 to 12 hours, and hikers in about 11 to 15 hours. For comparison, driving from North Park to Harrison Hills Park takes about a half-hour.

 The Neffs figure even if they don’t finish, it'll still be worthwhile.

“Anthony will give it a shot and my sister and I will do it for fun and if nothing else, at least we are spending time together," Cassie said.

 Anthony added, “You meet the nicest people on the trail. I enjoyed it the last time just for that aspect alone.”

The Rachel Carson Trail Challenge begins at approximately 5:15 a.m. in North Park and finishes at approximately 9 p.m. in Harrison Hills, Springdale. Nearly 900 people will be on the trails and roads in McCandless, Hampton, Indiana, Fawn, East Deer, Springdale and Harrison Townships. Drivers should be aware and alert for increased pedestrian traffic during this time.

Note: The author and her husband, Paul Sauers, have completed the Rachel Carson Trail Challenge three times and serve as volunteers for the conservancy.