The 37-mile Rachel Carson Trail Challenge includes total elevation change of 8,000 feet.

SPRINGDALE, Pa.—This was going to be Doug MacPhail’s comeback.

The 72-year-old rarely quits anything. But last June he was rubber-legged and dry heaving in 95-degree heat when he bowed out of the 37-mile Rachel Carson Trail Challenge outside Pittsburgh. It had nagged at him ever since.

“This is my revenge year,” said MacPhail, a financial adviser. “I’m going for it again.”

The challenge, run by the Rachel Carson Trails Conservancy, traverses woods, roads and steep utility-line corridors. It passes the farmhouse where the famed environmentalist was born in 1907. Total elevation change: 8,000 feet.

Held since 1996, on a Saturday in late June, the event is limited to about 600 people fit (or crazy) enough to go for the “full Rachel”—hiking 37 miles between dawn and sundown. About 75% finish in most years. There is no prize, just glory, for completing the challenge.

No whining

This past Saturday, hundreds gathered in the predawn darkness for this year’s challenge. When it was light enough to see trail markers at 5:35 a.m., Jim Crist, 71, a volunteer, signaled the start and reminded everyone jockeying for position on a muddy slope to stay hydrated.

“No whining today,” Crist said through a PA system. “Whoever you’re hiking with, they don’t want to hear it.”

Hikers line up before sunrise waiting for the start of the event.

Sadie Stoltzfus, a 41-year-old Amish mother, ran the course in a long skirt.

Sadie and Monroe Stoltzfus, a 41-year-old Amish mother and her teenage son from Lancaster, Pa., planned to run the course in sneakers, a long skirt and black pants.

Meanwhile, 10 men in their 70s were just trying to finish without bonking out.

Bob Reiland, 77, a retired high-school physics teacher, was vying to become the oldest finisher ever—by about two months. He leaned on old ski poles with a blue washcloth safety-pinned to the back of his ball cap.

“Adequate,” Reiland said, when asked how he felt.

MacPhail, Reiland and other trail stewards whack weeds and trim branches year-round and consider their local knowledge to be an advantage on challenge day.

Joe Kostka, 71, a retired machinist who paints the trail markers, lined up with his 42-year-old son Tim, who flew in from North Carolina.

Bob Reiland, a retired high-school physics teacher, was vying to become the oldest finisher ever.

Before the start, participants were told that nobody wanted to hear their whining.

Bob Webb, 74, a chief operating officer at a Pittsburgh law firm, lives near the trail and ticked off its hills and swerves until his brother from Maryland interrupted.

“Don’t get him started,” said Tim Webb, 68. “He knows every blade of grass by name.”

MacPhail woke at 2:20 a.m. and applied toe caps, duct tape and Vaseline to his feet. He chased peanut butter-and-banana toast with coffee, two Tylenol and three Ibuprofen.

He had completed 19 challenges, though twice he hiked it solo, once when Covid canceled the 2020 event and another time when he missed the actual day.

Today, MacPhail hung back at the start, to let the runners go and avoid bottlenecks from “trailgaters.” Then he set off.

Mud and heat

Hikers carry fobs and must scan in at four checkpoints 7 miles apart and depart by a certain time or quit. Volunteers there fill hydration packs and pass out hundreds of peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches, bananas, watermelon slices, potato chips, fruit pies and boiled potatoes dusted with salt.

At mile 7, the first trail runner burst from trees glittering in the early sun to the applause of volunteers and family. Everyone who followed was mud-splattered and dripping with sweat.

By the afternoon, the mud and heat had begun to take a toll.

Hikers carry fobs and must scan in at four checkpoints 7 miles apart.

“I’m geezer No. 1!” shouted Joe Kostka, the first 70-plus hiker to emerge. A bead of blood down his arm didn’t concern him.

Tracey Johnson, a 69-year-old healthcare professional seeking redemption after she quit at mile 20 last year, felt feverish in the medical tent. “It’s so hard to turn in your fob,” she said as she handed it over to a volunteer.

MacPhail pressed on. So did the Webbs. Reiland was still feeling “adequate.”

But the mud and heat began to take a toll. By 2 p.m., it was 86 degrees. Diane Kostka planted a sign at each checkpoint for her husband and son and misted them with a spray bottle.

For an emotional boost, MacPhail’s daughter, son-in-law and four-week-old granddaughter met him in front of the Carson homestead in Springdale, the trail’s halfway point. He downed a Diet Mountain Dew, then revealed his secret weapon—three cans of Red Bull in his backpack.

The trail passes the farmhouse where Carson, an environmentalist, was born in 1907.

At the mile-22 checkpoint, hikers picked their way down a nearly vertical hill. A 30-year-old cabinet maker, Karl Kroll, was overcome by heat exhaustion and had to be rescued. Medics put ice on his chest and gave him an IV, before he was slid into an ambulance, the day’s only transport.

A few days later, he was eager to try again: “I’m going to train a little harder.”

Reiland called it quits, too. “Can I get you anything?” a volunteer asked. “How about a new body,” he quipped.

The finish

A few miles later, the Webbs dropped out with muscle cramps, a pulled quadriceps and an injured knee between them.

Some hikers, like Terri Thompson, 69, had to quit when they couldn’t reach the 29.5-mile checkpoint to leave by 6 p.m.

MacPhail made it with 10 minutes to spare but he wasn’t looking good. “I’m wasted,” he said. “I hope I get a second wind.”

A hiker who couldn’t continue had to be rescued from a steep hill.

Doug MacPhail, who had to bow out of last year’s challenge, said he was out for revenge.

Two miles shy of the finish, Joe Kostka decided he was done. “Darn tough getting old, but plan to try again next year,” he said the following day.

In the final minutes of the longest day of the year, several hundred people in a clearing cheered every hiker who came out of the woods. Some cried when they crossed the finish line. A refreshed and showered Reiland greeted old friends.

At 20 minutes before sunset, or 14 hours and 50 minutes after the day began, MacPhail emerged to more cheers and pumped a fist in the air.

He had a look of astonishment on his face and three empty Red Bull cans in his backpack. “I won’t look at another PB & J sandwich for a year,” he said.