I picked the location where I camped for two reasons. One it was close to most of the other things I wanted to do while I was on vacation. Two it had a trail leaving directly from the campground to a nearby mountain, Scar Face Mountain. I wanted to have a place I could go without having to really travel anywhere. That way I could hike or run a trail whenever.

I scouted out the trail and asked for information regarding it from the staff at the campground on the day I arrived. I wanted to go check it out early the next morning. I was determined to go for my first mountain run. I woke up early grabbed my GoPro and headed for the trail. After getting a little confused finding the trail head I was on my way.

The beginning of the trail was perfect for a run. According to the park staff it was 3.5 to 4 miles to the summit. So I knew approximately the distance I would be running but I did not know how high the mountain was. I knew it wasn’t exceptionally high because it was not one of the 46 high peaks in the Adirondacks. So I would just have to find out what the elevation of my run would be the hard way, by first hand experience. Turns out the mountain was 3062 feet tall. I had 1621 feet of elevation gain and it was all essentially packed into the last 2 miles or less.

The climbing was tough. Tougher than I expected. Despite my experience with trail running. I had never done anything quite like this. Running up a mountain. I have had lots of runs with more elevation gain over this distance but it usually consists of multiple ups and downs. This was 2 miles of lat followed by 2 miles of up up up. Climbing is not my strong suit as it is. It is even worse when there is no relief. My heart was pounding with the exertion.

I was spent when I finally reached the summit. I rested for a few moments taking in my surroundings at the summit, which wasn’t much. It was completely forested. No spectacular views to be had as a reward for my climb. I headed back down. The decent at the top was almost as slow going as it was going up. By the time I got to the flat I was getting tired. That last mile back to the camp was tough. I was drenched in sweat. I probably looked like a crazy person to my fellow campers.

I did not utilize that trail as much as I thought I would. This was my only time on it. The views were not what I had hoped for on a mountain climb and there were so many other options to explore, so I didn’t want to commit any more time to a mountain that didn’t really fulfill me.

This run taught me two things. First I am not yet a mountain runner. Second maybe it is best to save an 8 mile mountain run for more than 1 day after you take on 27 trail miles.

Check out my Relive video from my run here: Relive Scar Face Mountain

Check out my Strava account of this run here: Strava Kyle Reynolds Scar Face Mountain