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South Mountains State Park is located just south of Morganton, NC. It's NC's biggest state park with a postman route of 70 miles and 14,000' climb! I got permission to link up Clear Creek and Jacob Fork Access Areas to run this route. I also got permission to run after hours by reserving a campsite.
The route's distance and complexity intimidated me. One wrong turn would lengthen what was already the longest I'd run nonstop in over a decade. There'd be bushwhacking, there'd be navigating trails at night, there'd be the challenge of hydration and nutrition going unsupported...
Although I had permission to run thru the night, plan A was sub 15:00 to finish within the official park hours: 7 am to 10 pm. Plan B was sub 17:00 to finish by midnight. Plan C was just to finish! I carried a 14 min pace sheet (16:20) along with visual cues for the latter 2/3 to help my fried brain:
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| prelim pack dump |
For this longer run I designed a hydration postman pack featuring an accessible "fanny pocket" with room for 3,500+ calories (mostly drink mix, gels and bars). It felt heavy with food, 2.5 L of water, PPE (explained below), two phones (one for backup GPS), water filter, headlamp and batteries.
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| Fit as a camper? |
Three months had passed since my last postman run. Hot humid days discouraged me from doing runs past 20 miles. If I needed another reminder that summer wasn't over, Brandon had warned me how the bushwhack above Clear Creek would be chock full of poison ivy up to my armpits?!
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| at the start |
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| Lake View |
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| 900 ft in 0.7 mile |
Brandon got me to Clear Creek by 7:00 am. After briefly fumbling to start GPS tracking on both phones I set off on a 1.3-mile clockwise warm-up around Lake View. Clear Creek was next. The bushwhack began as a wall of vegetation. The steep climb was mostly choked with nettle, not poison ivy.
I opted for stings rather than fuss around with PPE. It took longer than expected to get to the gap. From here an overgrown roadbed contoured westward south of Buzzard Roost deeper into the undeveloped interior of the park... and through small ankle-deep swaths of poison ivy.
I sped up on Roper Hollow Road to find a culvert with flowing water. I used a small piece of soap to wash off my arms and legs and continued quickly on through a refreshing mist fondly remembering the Sultan 50K. Soon I was ahead of 16:20 pace and feeling mostly good.
My left hamstring was making its tightness known. While stopped several times for a quick stretch, I'd go ahead and address feet etc. Inspired by my good luck with the overcast and breezy weather, I wanted to give myself the best shot with body maintenance early on and often.
I kept up a careful, but honest effort down Raven Rock and Saddleback to the park office at 22 miles. Here I refilled with 2.5 L water and gladly got rid of my useless pound of PPE before continuing on into Hidden Cove. I passed a few equestrians along Little River and Upper CCC.
Hidden Cove
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| Horseridge |
The equestrian double track made for easier running. I felt good at sub 16 hour pace at 30 miles with a pleasant breeze and views of the surrounding South Mountains along Horseridge. The hourly gel, bar or whatever was still going down pretty easily. I kept up with the salt.
At Murray Branch I decided to take time to strip down for a creek bath. Sub 16 would be the best I could hope for here at 40 miles. But that was perfectly fine by me. I ate a ham and cheese wrap on the climb back to Jacob Branch and began thinking about the night ahead.
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| Murray Branch, 42 miles |
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| Jacob Branch |
Big Bear Falls was a welcome treat following a technical descent along Shinny and a grind back up H.Q. I was running out of daylight and losing my grip on 16. I thought it would be great to make Horseridge or Sawtooth by sunset, but ended up enjoying the golden hour most along Possum.
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| Big Bear Falls |
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| evening along Possum |
I caught glimpses on Sawtooth of the Harvest Moon's orange orb low in the eastern sky. The headlamp came on and I nearly stepped on a copperhead lying across the trail! I'd be startled a couple more times over the next few hours by these predators. Were they going after all the hopping toads I saw?
Without time or energy to investigate further, I ran down to Jacob Fork parking area with decreasing agility. I needed to switch out the battery on my light. I also noted that the live tracker app on my phone had stopped working. I scrambled to start it back up since my older phone had already died.
Soon I was climbing the stair master up High Shoals Falls. I wasn't sure on the mileage that I had left, but hopeful that 16 was still in play. When I saw the sign at Raven Rock, I knew it was gone. Nevertheless I ran the 2 miles downhill with just about all I had left to the campground and finished in 16:06:23.
A special thanks to park superintendent Jonathan Griffith for allowing this run to happen. I hesitate to call it the grand finale of my NC state parks "every single trail" tour as there are still other parks I'd like to run, but South Mountains will likely remain the toughest of the bunch.
NC state park postal runs:
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