By BILL O'BRIEN

Features Editor, Republican-American
Reprinted here from the May 31, 2024 paper release in the Accent Section

Would you like to experience what it feels like to climb Mount Everest from sea level -- all 29,032 feet of it?

Or how about Denali in Alaska, the highest peak in North America? That's about 20,300 feet.

Heck, why not shoot for the moon, or in this case Mars, by climbing the mysterious Olympus Mons, aka Mount Olympus, the tallest mountain in our solar system at more than 72,000 feet. That's 13.6 miles -- a full 2½ times higher than Everest's 5.5-mile elevation.

If you've got the stamina, you can try your hand (and feet) at attempting just such a challenge this weekend at Mohawk Mountain Ski Area in Cornwall.

Starting Saturday at 10 a.m., 29 people will start scaling the ski slopes in a unique event called IronHike. They've already chosen the goal they hope to accomplish: climbing the equivalent of several different mountains, from Clingmans Dome (at 6,644 feet the highest point on the Appalachian Trail, on the North Carolina/Tennessee border) to the ultimate challenge, that former volcano on Mars, Olympus Mons.

It's not a race to the top and back. There are no records to break. And there are no age-group awards handed out on a podium afterward. The challenge is between the individual athlete and his or her personal limits of endurance.

“We built IronHike to give people of any fitness level, of any skill set the opportunity to push themselves beyond what they're used to,” said John Kolker, 61, an A.T. end-to-ender and Army veteran who is the founder of the event.

”We accommodate the average, mediocre, exercise-a-little-bit-here-and-there person with a relay of a 15-mile event, so they basically do a 5K each up and down the mountain.”

To accomplish the goal of, say, climbing Clingmans Dome on the A.T., a participant (or a team) would have to go up and down Mohawk Mountain 12 times, covering a hiking distance of 15 miles and an elevation gain and loss of 7,140 feet. It probably means trekking after sunset, since the estimated time for completion is 12 hours. No problem: through arrangements with the owners of Mohawk Mountain Ski Area, the athletes are allowed to camp right alongside the trail or in the tent city that will be set up at the base. (It's BYOT: bring your own tent.)

There are different registration levels available -- from individual participation to having a partner or bringing a whole team of hikers -- and each level has a different entry fee. The individual level ranges from $400 to $1,200, depending on which “mountain” you want to climb -- in other words, how many laps you want to do. At the higher end of the scale, the trail team option ranges from $1,024 to $3,072.

Kolker noted that while the fees may seem high, they are small in comparison to other similar events, some of which charge an individual close to $6,000, with an overnight sleeping accommodation adding another $2,000.

“We went a different route because we're more of a grassroots organization,” he said.

Included in the fee is one meal per athlete each day on the mountain, a support station with shade, hydration and snacks, tenting privileges, summit tokens, hats and medals for the finishers and a personalized event bib. There will also be ski patrol-type medical assistance available 24/7 over the course of the event.

So far only one person has signed up for the biggest challenge -- Olympus Mons. It's the most elevation gain anywhere in other similar endurance events around the country, Kolker said. It will take about 3½ days, or 84 hours, to accomplish. By the end, if successful, the participant will have logged an elevation gain and loss of 72,590 feet, covering the equivalent of 152.5 miles. In short, it means going up and down the 1,600-foot-high Mohawk Mountain 122 times.

Scott Festa of Fayetteville, N.C., attempted the Olympus challenge at the first IronHike event last fall, but five days of rain leading up to it turned his feet to mush and he had to stop. For this weekend, he has made some adjustments to his gear and believes he is good to go. Also, the forecast this weekend is excellent.

Festa thru-hiked the A.T. during the pandemic and was one of the fastest finishers the year he hiked, even though he didn't set out to break any records. At 5'7” he does not have a long stride; he just goes at his own pace and hikes all day until he's ready to retire for the night, he said. Also an Army veteran, Festa was in special forces and served as a medic, said Kolker, who called Festa the Clark Kent of endurance hiking.

Kolker himself is something of a marathon man. An Army veteran, he suffered sudden cardiac arrest in 2011 but made a full recovery, vowing to improve his health by tackling extreme endurance events all around the country.

After 15 triathlons, his four-year section hike of the A.T. (his trail name, “Ironheart,” is a testament to his recover) and end-to-end hikes on other long- distance trails, the Pennsylvania native went to sign up for a dayslong elevation-based endurance event, only to discover that it would cost him at least $7,000. That's when his fellow hikers and Army buddies suggested he start his own event at a much more grassroots level -- aka, much cheaper -- and that is how IronHike was born.

”What's nice about this is everybody's on the same course at the same venue and right now starting at the same time of 10 a.m. on Saturday,” he said. “It's an all-inclusive, totally controlled, relatively safe venue where people get an opportunity to just focus on pushing themselves beyond their usual limits, wherever those limits are.

”You get to choose your summit, and you get to choose something you're accustomed to.”

It's not too late to register for this weekend's event, Kolker noted. The website, ironhike.com, is chock full of information, motivational messages, photos, testimonials and other background information.

If you already have plans this weekend or need to get in shape, IronHike will return to the Cornwall ski area in the fall, from Oct. 5-8, the weekend before Columbus Day.

Features editor Bill O'Brien is himself a two-time A.T. thru-hiker but has since “retired” from endurance events and is now just a weekend warrior.