If anybody ever told Jeff Hunter to get lost, he'd have a tough time complying.
His sense of direction is about as good as it gets.
The ultra-marathon aficionado will need all his senses working overtime to get him through the next few months on his off-road adventures.
Fresh from an 81-kilometre jaunt on city paths Sunday in the Queensway Auto Dick Voneugen Birthday Run, the 37-year-old Hunter is plotting out a self-guided trail run in the southern Chilcotin region west of Lillooet in early July, which requires a flight from Tyaughton Lake to Taseko Lake. The route crosses the Coast Mountain range and 60 of the 80 kilometres involves ridge running above the treeline as they traverse 12 mountain peaks with as much as 20,000 feet of elevation gain.
"It's kind of in the middle of nowhere, we really like the long alpine running, it's very scenic," said Hunter. "At that time of year the snow's receding into the mountain enough that you can do those kind of things. It's country that nobody goes into and it's testing the limits, for sure."
Hunter is the ringleader of a local off-road ultramarathon group that includes Reid Roberts, Aaron Bond, Geoff Mulligan, Steve Staves, Nicole Rishaug, Cindy Hartford, and Robyn Kaplan. Of that group, Hunter, Roberts, Bond and Mulligan will join Colin Miller of North Vancouver and former Prince George resident Kurtis Olineck of Salmon Arm on the Chilcotin run.
"You want to make sure you have enough guys to deal with a situation but not too many that you're going to create one," said Hunter.
The June trip replaces the Scorched Sole Ultra race in Kelowna as a training run for the Canadian Death Race , Aug. 3-4. Hunter and Roberts finished 1-2 respectively in the Scorched Sole 50-mile run in 2011 and had hoped to go back this year but the Kelowna event was cancelled when race organizer Dan Crokatt was injured in a road bike accident.
Hunter, Roberts, Bond and Staves are entering the Death Race as solo competitors. Hunter is the only one of the four who has raced the challenging 125 km race over several mountain peaks near Grande Cache, Alta. He finished fifth overall in 2011 and was 10th in 2010.
"Jeff convinced me to do the Death Race because it's a lot more single-track and a lot nicer running," said Roberts. "It's shorter than the Sinister 7 [a 148 km ultramarathon he and Hunter ran last year in Crowsnest Pass, Alta.] but it's harder."
Since winter, Roberts, Hunter and Bond have been sticking to a serious training schedule, running six days per week, at last two hours a session. Roberts, 43, ran 750 km on outdoor trails in January alone.
The untimed Voneugen Run last Sunday on city trails drew 65 participants, who had the option to run 81 km 50 km, 42.2 km, 25 km, 19 km and 7.5 km distances.
"A lot of folks that aren't familiar with the trails are maybe a bit intimidated to go on the trails, so to go with a big group relieves that angst," said Hunter. "We're trying to bring out the demographic that's more into a fun run."
At the end of August, Hunter and Roberts plan to tackle a 300 km self-guided three-day run on the Alexander Mackenzie Heritage Trail, part of what used to be known as the Blackwater (Grease) Trail, a 420 km trade route over the Rainbow Mountain range, which roughly connects Quesnel with Bella Coola. Mackenzie, the explorer, used the trail to to avoid impassable sections of the Fraser River and reach the Pacific Ocean while making his historic crossing of North America in 1793.
The two runners plan to start at Titetown Lake at the end of the Pelican service road southwest of Prince George and run three full days over the Rainbow Mountain range to Highway 20, 40 km east of Bella Coola. A support crew will drive in on a 4X4 to set up the first camp and a friend with a float plane will bring in supplies for their second-day camp at one of the lakes in Tweedsmuir provincial park.
"I've been in there in years before and the east side is forested and wet and some river crossings and you can get a lot of (tree) blowdown in there," said Hunter. "The first sections are pretty rough. Once you hit Tweedsmuir park the trail is pretty good, but you start to hit some big alpine. We're still working out the logistics, it's a bit complicated because it's hard to get knowledge about the trail."
