A Postcard From Steep Camp Sunrise

Scout PhillipsRace Report

In my youth, during our mandatory quiet hour at summer camp, I would struggle to compress the activities of one day into the 3×5 space of a postcard to send to family and friends. Once again, I find my mind so full of things I want to share about our inaugural Steep Camp Sunrise weekend, that I simply don’t know where to start. Perhaps the best place to start is with gratitude. I am incredibly grateful to the White Mountain Apache community for inviting us to their land to create this event. I am equally grateful to all of the runners, families, and friends who chose to make this a most memorable experience.

Did you take the time to look behind you as you made this climb?

We promised you vertical gains, and everyone who went out on course found them. Whether it was a single 10K loop, with approximately 1,965ft of vertical gain, or 12 loops (12!!!!!) like our overall 24hour winner Drew Frehs and his approximate gains of 23,580ft, everyone managed to get steep! The race course itself was both rugged and majestic, the weather really couldn’t have been any more perfect, and there were high fives, fist bumps, and bus selfies galore.

The bus got the best of Ben Lee
Drew coming in to complete his 12th loop

I keep circling back to my experiences with summer camp, and perhaps I should give you a little more context. I lived for camp. I still have friendships from summer camp. I loved camp enough to be the director of a summer camp in Vermont, which is actually what I was doing before moving back to Arizona and joining the Aravaipa family. Camp is more than just something to do in the summer time. Camp was, and is, a place where I felt I could do anything. A place for discovering new things, for getting outside of my comfort zone, for staying up late and watching the stars. To put it simply, camp always was, and is, magical.

Photo by Derrick Lytle

I saw that magic throughout the entire weekend of Steep Camp Sunrise. I watched runners encourage one another up and down the mountain, cheering each other on as time limits came to a close, and hanging out in the sunshine sharing their favorite, or hardest, moments with another. I watched a community grow. New connections were made, old connections were strengthened, and with the help of everyone I’ve managed to find most of my marbles!!

The Sunrise course has so much potential for growth, I truly can’t wait to see what we are able to do in the future. And while I’m sure I could ramble on and on, and wax poetic about all things camp, I need to get on the road for our Colorado races coming up. Truly, my stories from this event are much more from the perspective of the outside observer. While the Race (camp) Director is an integral part of the process, they are often so focused on keeping things running smoothly that they miss out on some of the best highlights of the whole camp experience. So, if you were one of our Steep Camp Sunrise runners, will you leave me your “postcard” in the comments? To be sure, your memories are what will continue to make this event awesome in the future, and I think it would do the race more justice to hear from y’all what still has you smiling, in spite of some potentially sore climbing legs.

Thank you so much for being a part of this experience!!!