Remember Art Loeb: Run Gone Bad?

Well, that was a long long time ago, and I’d wanted to go back and get the full Art Loeb Trail run done since, it just never worked out. There’s been a group that has run it on or near the Winter Solstice for years, including my old AR teammate Charlie. And one of the other OG’s Matt Kirk (fool on the hill) have been talking about some adventures in 2025, so when I could make it on this year’s solstice run, I jumped at the chance. The other runner was Kevin Lane (Lane in the Woods) and Carl Laniak camped with us and drove us to the start, and then went for a hike.

I drove the van and picked up Matt in High Point, and we made our way over to Davidson River Campground in Brevard. It was quite cold and Matt would be in his tent (with Kevin), while Charlie had his conversion van, and Carl slept in his mini van. There was a lot of bantering about DALTAR — a double ALTAR, but in the end, no one was up for it. Brad Keyes started Friday night with thoughts of a double, but ended up doing a single.

We left camp early, and on the drive up and over the pass to get to the start, hit some pretty good snow coming down. The mini van made it, and we were running by 7:30. The other guys were faster so I ended up spending most of the day alone. There was another (large) group of runners, with a full support crew and aid station at the bottom of Pilot, and they were kind enough to offer me food, drink, and water, but I just took them up on the latter which meant I never had to filter water all day!

31 miles, 8000′ of climb, in a little under 10 hours:

I did see Brad as he was nearing the finish, about 1-2 miles in for me (he had run all night with a couple friends):

Lot of snow and rime ice up on Black Balsam:

I don’t know if this will become an annual run — timing so close to the holidays may not always be easy — but I would definitely do it again.