Highlands Sky 2004 – Hunt Bartine

West Virginia and the Highland Sky 40 was also pretty wet, wild and wrocky. Dawgs, Hunt and Phil Nissen traveled to the picturesque Canaan Valley State resort area to run the second year of this challenging trail run/ climb in the Dolly Sods National Park and Canaan National Wildlife area.

The run starts in a high mountain valley of about 2500 ft and climbs to 4500, in some of the nicest, prettiest and unique areas i have ever been to on the East Coast. There were about 150 starters in the run coming from at least 20 different states and Canada. The first 8 miles are climbing to a ridge which is at over 4000 ft and is actually the Eastern Divide. The trails were primitive wet and boggy, but with 8 super aid stations, spectacular vistas, nice people, great awards, meals and prizes, this will be on my to do runs for the future, for sure. Typically, i started a bit fast, but slowed down soon enough,( about mile 10 ) to not have too dramatic a slow down in second half and finished reasonable 10+ hour time. Phil, apparently had an even better second half than first and finished in 11 hour segment.

Buzzard/TrailDawg Diana Stump, who was joined by 5 other Lancaster Buzzard folks had another great top place run. Diana finished as 4th woman overall with an 8:54 and although no official age group would have been 2nd in her group. Buzzard Marsha Peters placed first in womens masters with a time of just over 9 hours. Other Buzzards, joining Marcia and Diana for the caravan/trek getting there were David Halblieb, Jeanine Standish, Megan Clark and Kathi Franco. Below is a link for more picts and brief write-up and attached are some pictures of dawgs and buzzards on the run.

Author Hunt Bartine