Wish Upon a Lone Star
Lately I have been consumed with some thoughts on a nearby trail run. When I first started to learn we were moving to the Houston area 2.5 years ago I was just getting into ultrarunning and I recall reading up on some the trails nearby to the area when researching for our move. The one that stood out was the Lone Star Hiking Trail because of it obvious Texan name, and because it was located in large National Forest (the Sam Houston National Forest). I never really gave this trail a thought until again earlier this year when the thought of perhaps of doing some FKT’s at some point. This is when I remembered about the LSHT. A local fat ass event back in July I attended really peaked my interest in the LSHT as we ran the first 20 mi of the trail during that event. Ever since then I’ve been slowly gaining knowledge of the full route.
I have looked over the route, and done a lot of research and reading up on hike reports and the few run reports I could find. There are a lot of hiking videos on YouTube for the LSHT as well that give some useful information. My biggest concern with committing to running the full Lone Star Hiking Trail was this vaguely discussed San Jacinto East Fork River crossing. Some accounts had this as impassable, and other said you’d be wet no matter what, fording in waist-chest deep levels. Today I have just returned from a recce run of this portion of the trail and am happy to report that the river crossing is no big deal at all. I could see how it would be an issue after a large rain or flooding (which does happens a lot in Southern TX area).
Now that I have cleared my mind of this river crossing section I have the intentions of pursuing the Fastest Known Time (FKT) on the entire Lone Star Hiking Trail (LSHT). I will run the full 96.5 mi route in hopes to better the previous time of 24:27:43 by Marcy Beard in 2017.
I will post on the FKT site later this week and declare this ahead of time once I work out a few more logistic items. Stay tuned...
UPDATE: I have to delay this attempt. I was planning on running this here in mid-Sep. The Stubblefield bridge (mile 19.8) sustained damage during Hurricane Harvey back in fall of 2017 and has required to have permission to cross it legally due to the closure. Since I was going for the FKT and if I had a good day I would have to publicly claim the record if all went well. If this was the case i would not want to promote crossing something closed or not having the proper permits/permission prior to the run.
ReplyDeleteI heard back from the forest service at the end of last week and they have denied my permission to cross this 250ft section of damaged bridge. I am a little disappointed, but i respect there decision. I will be keeping the LSHT on my radar, and it gives me a better opportunity to fully scout out all the sections of the trail better.
Here is a like to a news release on the repair if the bridge:
https://newwaverlycommunitynewsandevents.wordpress.com/2019/09/14/stubblefield-bridge-replacement-project-set-for-summer-fall-of-2020/?fbclid=IwAR2m2u7P1-Mwld8Ni7D1kVMkyzzYnwBfqZiHN4dVu9jhV7IJAaVhNojyswM