The 310-mile Superior Hiking Trail has a new Fastest Known Time. Cameron “Cam” Schaefer completed the SHT on Thursday in a supported time of 6 days, 18 hours, and 45 minutes.
The Superior Hiking Trail is a very rugged, hilly route that runs about 310 miles from the Canadian border, along the coast of Lake Superior, to Jay Cooke State Park south of Duluth, Minnesota. It’s seen numerous FKTs set and broken since about 2005 when the trail was mostly completed. Yesterday, Schaefer finished the route faster than anyone before.
“We did it!” Schaefer, of Apple Valley, Minn., emoted in a post on Facebook. To complete the route, Schaefer averaged about 40 miles a day. Making relentless forward progress, Schaefer overcame blisters and a knee injury that required a brace in the endeavor.
He did the route in supported style, meaning other people (in this case his girlfriend, Amanda Arnold-Sanow) brought in food, traced the route in a car, and generally helped with logistics along the way. Fastestknowntime.com, the de facto official FKT monitoring organization, confirmed the record.
“For those who don’t know – Amanda supported me, which means she met me at nearly every road crossing, had food ready for me, refilled my water, kept up with the maps and knew how far we had come and how far we had to go, massaged my aching muscles, and basically catered to my every need for a week,” Schaefer wrote on Facebook. “This was not an easy task, and she was basically busy the entire time and for this, I am forever grateful! With her and Charlie (dog), we had the best support team ever.”
The unsupported record stands at 7:20:56 by Ajay Pickett on Sept. 13, 2018.
2019 Supported Record on Superior Hiking Trail
Schaefer wants to use his FKT attempt to raise funds for the Save the Boundary Waters campaign. The Superior Hiking Trail begins near the Boundary Waters, a cherished wilderness area for many people. If you’d like to support his fund-raising, you can support Schaefer in the Facebook post below.
You can see Schaefer’s tracking here.
Congratulations to Schaefer on an epic run. We’ll keep an eye on other long trails as the FKT season cranks into high gear.
