LOST IN THE WOODS: Wet, brushy trail slows racers in Crow Pass Crossing

EAGLE RIVER — Weeks of hot weather followed by days of steady rain made Crow Pass less passable than usual this year, but it didn’t keep returning champion racers from running to victory.

Anchorage’s Scott Patterson won his fourth Crow Pass Crossing in five years on Saturday, finishing about two minutes slower than last year and a little less than four minutes off the men’s record of 2 hours, 54 minutes, 44 seconds, set by Geoff Roes in 2010. Patterson was the only racer to finish in less than three hours this year.

Colony High graduate Eric Strabel was the men’s runner up at 3:02:31, returning to the race after a five-year hiatus.

“It was fun,” he said. “I didn’t have any pressure put on myself, I just knew I wanted to run really relaxed — briskly, but relaxed.”

Palmer’s Christy Marvin claimed the women’s 2016 title and her third win this year with a time of 3:29:32 — two minutes and six seconds faster than last year, but almost three minutes slower than her personal best of 3:26:44.

“I’m feeling alright, now,” Marvin said a few minutes after her finish at the Eagle River Nature Center. “I had my (low) moments out there on the course.”

Marvin has been chasing the women’s record of 3:26:20 set by Nancy Pease in 1990 since she came close in 2014, and earlier this year expressed high hopes of achieving that goal this summer. But given the variability of the 22- to 24-mile trail — runners can take multiple routes in the point-to-point race — she knew anything could happen.

“That’s a technical trail on a good day, and on a poor day it’s even more difficult,” Marvin said.

The course begins at the Girdwood trailhead, where flies and wasps can be a problem on hot, sunny days. The woodsy trail opens up to a valley with low, tundra-like brush after the first mile or so, and takes runners or hikers along a high, rocky path for the next couple miles up and over the pass. About halfway to the nature center, racers must ford Eagle River at designated points, sometimes wading in above the waist.

“It was pretty high on me even, like mid-thigh,” said third-place, Wasilla finisher AJ Schirack, who stands about 6 feet tall.

Marvin said she and at least a few other women took advantage of the help offered to them at the river, linking arms with fellow racers Eric Johnson and Craig Taylor of Chugiak to get to the other side.

“They uprighted me a couple times,” Marvin said.

Taylor said he was just returning the favor, having hung onto Marvin for about 12 miles of the Crow Pass race and kept pace with her in other races.

As usual, he said, she beat him in the end.

“I’ve been chasing her for a while now,” Taylor said.

However, it’s not just speed that kept Marvin ahead of her competitors, but care. She said she passed at least six men in the race after watching them fall down in the trail before her, slipping on the wet rocks and mud.

“You just can’t afford to go down on those rocks and sprain an ankle,” Marvin said.

Her husband, Ben Marvin, managed to avoid that kind of injury — and beat Christy by about 17 minutes for a sixth-place finish in the men’s race — but didn’t escape the wrath of the trail.

“You should see the bear,” Ben Marvin said, when asked about the dried blood on his face.

Kidding aside, he said he did pass 20 feet from a black bear near the end of the trail, though an errant tree branch was to blame for his head wound.

The greenery was no small matter, either — the trail was so overgrown, Marvin said, that he could barely tell where he was going on the Eagle River side of the pass.

“I was standing in the middle of the trail wondering where I lost the trail,” he said.

Strabel’s wife, Denali, told one friend she “got lost like six times” on her Crow Pass Crossing debut this weekend, and Christy Marvin described her way of navigating the dense foliage as “breast stroking.”

She sympathized with the men who had to break trail before her.

“I was feeling bad for the first guys having to go through that,” she said.

Still, Marvin was glad for the rain for other reasons, her race aside.

“I’m glad God brought the rain to put out the fires,” she said, referencing the wildfire that started south of Anchorage last weekend. “My race is small peanuts compared to the big picture.”

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.

Women’s Results

Place, Bib, Name, Time

1 1 Christy Marvin 3:29:32.6

2 21 Caitlin Patterson 3:44:23.9

3 16 Katie Krehlik 3:44:39.4

4 29 Denali Strabel 3:52:11.8

5 28 Ann Spencer 3:56:28.9

6 5 Clare Cook 3:56:38.1

7 17 Annie Liotta 4:03:55.7

8 19 Shawn McTaggart 4:07:31.7

9 15 Emily Evans 4:11:04.9

10 22 Rachael Posey 4:15:30.8

11 9 Kate Fitzgerald 4:18:11.9

12 18 Christi Schmitz 4:19:33.2

13 37 Annie Connelly 4:25:23.8

14 1 Mariah Graham 4:27:25.7

15 35 Jane Boer 4:29:17.6

16 13 Sarah Johanson 4:35:30.3

17 11 Katie Green 4:36:32.8

18 2 Hannah Booher 4:39:19.0

19 56 Jennifer Benna 4:40:28.7

20 38 Danielle Gerik 4:43:10.5

21 46 Tammy Weaver 4:51:36.7

22 41 Laura McDonoug 4:58:57.4

23 4 Susan Casey 5:00:08.5

24 104 Kimberly Rigg 5:06:50.9

25 24 Justine Reese 5:09:00.8

26 34 Amie Wu 5:14:24.2

27 45 Kristina Storlie 5:21:59.3

28 122 Leah Legate 5:28:18.2

29 40 Elizabeth Knapp 5:30:27.6

30 27 Cynthia Shidner 5:51:19.7

31 39 Michelle Hollander 5:54:44.3

Men’s Results

Place, Bib, Name, Time

1 132 Scott Patterson 2:58:26.9

2 139 Eric Strabel 3:02:31.5

3 134 AJ Schirack 3:02:43.1

4 59 Chad Trammell 3:04:12.6

5 53 Kenneth Brewer 3:06:21.5

6 85 Ben Marvin 3:12:43.3

7 114 John Novak 3:14:33.4

8 117 Forrest Mahlen 3:23:21.9

9 71 Russell Johanson 3:26:35.3

10 58 Christopher Clark 3:28:19.3

11 138 Willie Stoll 3:33:07.8

12 95 Joseph Nyholm 3:34:09.1

13 140 Craig Taylor 3:34:33.4

14 61 Franklin Dekker 3:38:08.4

15 116 Tom Bronga 3:40:27.4

16 91 Benjamin Muse 3:40:30.7

17 47 David Apperson 3:42:57.8

18 126 Erik Johnson 3:43:51.4

19 26 Michael Versteeg 3:44:35.7

20 31 Roanun Hall 3:47:24.4

21 65 Matthew Green 3:47:31.5

22 12 Ben Ward 3:47:36.7

23 99 Mike Monterusso 3:47:56.7

24 90 Jay Mullen 3:50:59.5

25 23 Scott Gage 3:53:16.5

26 96 Brian Pautzke 3:55:50.6

27 84 Will Mans III 3:56:45.3

28 135 Matthew Shidner 3:59:15.6

29 77 Lance Kopsack 3:59:21.3

30 145 Mike Wahlig 3:59:55.1

31 113 Alex Alonso 4:00:38.8

32 148 Soren Wuerth 4:02:06.0

33 121 Andrew Dougherty 4:03:23.9

34 102 John Scott 4:03:47.3

35 129 Jeffrey Levin 4:03:55.6

36 110 Jeremy Weber 4:07:16.5

37 115 Mark Brady 4:08:04.8

38 80 Tully LaBelle-Hamer 4:08:21.5

39 64 Jack Ginter 4:08:30.4

40 144 Andy Varner 4:08:39.0

41 118 Tom Callahan 4:10:14.7

42 107 David Stamp 4:12:06.1

43 75 Kevin Knotek 4:12:47.4

44 86 Jim McDonough 4:14:02.4

45 92 John Nagel 4:14:34.3

46 51 Jonathan Bangert 4:14:45.9

47 43 Charles Schlichtmann 4:16:22.1

48 94 Derek Nottingham 4:17:34.4

49 6 Mark Hansen 4:18:07.7

50 70 Fred Hveding 4:18:50.4

51 54 Francis Cosgrave 4:24:31.2

52 25 Matthew Glynn 4:24:43.4

53 8 Evan Patterson 4:26:23.5

54 89 James Mitchell 4:26:41.4

55 30 Christopher Kirk 4:28:15.0

56 74 Douglas Ketterer 4:28:43.2

57 76 Matt Waliszek 4:30:15.9

58 133 David Popiel 4:31:05.9

59 97 Bill Pearson 4:31:11.1

60 101 Mike Schroeder 4:33:30.5

61 42 Luke Duffy 4:34:44.1

62 88 Mike Michener 4:35:43.7

63 111 John Wirum 4:36:35.8

64 93 Thomas Nenahlo 4:37:07.1

65 3 Sean Casey 4:37:15.4

66 66 Dorian Gross 4:37:36.2

67 83 Benjamin Logsdon 4:41:12.1

68 103 Andy Shidner 4:42:00.0

69 127 Gavin Kentch 4:42:10.6

70 72 Evan Jones 4:43:17.0

71 67 Rick Hansen 4:45:32.5

72 109 Dan Virgin 4:47:32.4

73 79 Max Kullberg 4:49:38.1

74 78 Robb Kulin 4:49:44.3

75 147 Jeremy Weaver 4:51:37.7

76 143 Braden Van Dragt 4:51:46.0

77 82 Martin Lindeke 4:52:31.9

78 149 Sean Zumwalt 4:53:30.8

79 7 Alec Kay 4:54:12.9

80 50 Jordan Bancroft 4:55:13.3

81 100 Barclay Roeder 4:55:38.7

82 123 Jeremy Jaminet 4:55:52.2

83 146 Christopher Walker 4:58:52.9

84 63 Bob Gerik 4:59:12.5

85 14 Daniel Crumpacker 4:59:53.9

86 81 Kevin Lauver 5:04:46.4

87 128 Braun Kopsack 5:05:53.7

88 48 Dunnington Babb 5:06:51.4

89 106 Matt Soule 5:08:31.7

90 55 Marty Byrne 5:10:25.8

91 119 Antony Cook 5:15:19.5

92 112 Noah Zogas 5:16:38.0

93 32 Rodney Wehr 5:31:25.7

94 130 Michael Lloyd 5:31:29.8

95 57 Aaron Christie 5:33:33.0

96 62 Dan Engel 5:35:27.3

97 69 Ed Leonetti 5:37:10.3

98 49 Joshua Babeu 5:41:42.6

99 137 Evan Steinhauser 5:48:44.2

100 108 Peter VanDyne 5:56:19.3