During the early days of my ultra career, The North Face Bear Mountain 50 was one of few 50 milers around. While the course included some scenic trails in the park, some of the course was not all that enjoyable. To give the course designers credit, there were surely limited by the State Park and the fact that there were several race distances over two days, with the festival growing to hundreds of runners. After moving on to other races and focusing more on fkt’s, I was able to run the Suffern Bear Mountain trail, which confirmed my suspicion that there are miles of fine singletrack in Bear Mountain State Park that I was missing out on. I don’t spend enough time in that area to map out an fkt, but fortunately Kim Levinsky put together a greatest hits route with 7500 feet of climb over 27.5 miles that traverses the 7 major summits around Bear Mountain.

The fkt when I ran it earlier this year was held by Justin Kousky, who has revised several of my fkts and soundly beat me at the Blue2Blue 50k in CT last year. I figured I was going to have to bring my A game, and was looking for a good test of my fitness to gauge my ad hoc run/bike training. One of my biggest concerns was navigation, as this area is quite the maze of trails and confusing intersections. Even after running the North Face races for years, several of us would still miss turns on the well-marked course, and most of this fkt route would be new for me, not to mention I haven’t done the TNF 50 for many years.

I started out from the trailhead aggressively, but felt surprisingly good on the first climb that hits you in the face. Some of this trail leading to The Timp is rugged, and although it did not include the infamous Timp’s Pass from the 50m, I was starting to get some PTSD flashbacks from the race. The fkt route definitely takes advantage of the ridge running around the Timp which allowed my legs to recover from the initial climb.

Descending from the Timp was rather abrupt, and I was soon faced with the stiff climb up West Mountain and some even finer ridge running. I was doing well in terms of my split times as I made my way over the first road crossing and on to some faster miles of the route. While I was only 7 miles into the route, I knew Justin would be cruising these miles, so I tried to make sure I was holding a solid pace.

Like West Mountain, Popolopen Torne was new to me, and I was shocked at how steep the trail was. Definitely did not expect 50% grade and a rope on the trail. This was definitely one of the confusing parts of the route, with a turn off the back that reminded me of the turn on Twin Mountain on the Devil’s Path. The miles following the Torne are flat and fast, but there is a short, brutal climb to get up to the Bear Mountain Bridge and over to Anthony’s Nose.

I tried not to overcook the legs on the bridge with three big climbs still ahead, but it felt good to open up the stride on the walkway. Anthony’s Nose is another steep climb, but it gets more gradual towards the summit and I was able to run the entire climb. From looking at the profile of the route, I thought this might come back to haunt me. The new trail up Bear Mountain is an even more consistent and runnable grade, and I settled into a moderate effort up the AT and tried to recover from Anthony’s Nose.

My quads were definitely tired of the monotony of the stone stairs by the summit, and it was nice to have that two mile climb followed by a runnable downhill. I made sure not to blow any of the turns over the next two miles, as I had no idea where I was in the park at this point. I ran into another runner in a similar state, and was able to point him in the direction of Bear Mountain.

The ascent of Bald Mountain is not the most enormous climb, but this is where I paid the price for failing to mix in some hiking on the previous summits. This climb is the inverse of Anthony’s Nose; it starts out moderate and gets steeper and steeper, and slower and slower, as you go. I would have been in trouble if there had been another couple hundred feet, my quads were shot by the time I reached the ledge at the top.

There is another 100’ climb to Dunderberg Mountain, but this is much more gradual, which I completed in damage control mode. My legs recovered quickly, or at least I thought they did as I started to accelerate down what I expected to be a fun, fast, runnable trail back to my car. Nope. Someone had moved Timp’s Pass and put it on the descent from Dunderberg. That thing is an eroded, ankle breaking mess, not to mention the bonus climb on the ridge along the way. I think I made better time on the initial climb up to the ridge at the start than on the descent. My quads could not take the steep pounding, my feet were done with sharp, loose rocks, and my brain was exhausted from focusing on the 10ft of trail in front of me for 5 hours. Although I had a good lead on Justin’s splits at the top of Bald, that descent seemed like it would never end, and I started to wonder if I was going to be able to get in under his time. I was thoroughly relieved to reach the trail back to the parking area and take 8 minutes off the fkt.

I was happy to have a solid run after being concerned about my run mileage given how I now have to balance run and bike miles. Hard mtb miles are good training for climbing (I was surprised at some of my climbs on this run, which really doesn’t happen often these days), but I have found that I need a 60/40 split at least in terms of time spent running vs. biking. The relatively low run mileage was surely felt in the last 5 miles, but it was far worse with less running last year at the 50k in CT.

I wore my trusty Inov-8 Terraultras for this effort, which had to be getting close to 1k miles at this point. The traction with the graphene rubber was excellent, even with worn down lugs, and the midsole offered a welcome lack of proprioception and plenty of protection. No one really wants to feel what is on many of those trails: no point in proprocepting broken glass and/or turning your ankle upside down every other mile. Despite a tight fit, they also saved my toes from a rare, violent meeting with one of the millions of awkwardly angled rocks that sent me sprawling in the first 2 miles of my run. I highly suggest this route as a long run, fkt attempt, or broken up into shorter hike and/or runs. Bring a map, wear plenty of shoe, take your time at intersections and on the early climbs to keep the suffering to a moderate level over the last few miles, and don’t expect a carriage road over the last couple of miles. If you are prone to falling, pads might not be a bad idea.