PORT ANGELES — You’ve heard of 24 Hours at Le Mans? Get ready for 24 hours at Salt Creek. Only instead of race cars, feet will be the mode of transportation.
Saturday and Sunday will see the debut of a new Peninsula Adventure Sports event, Salt Creek 24.
Peninsula Adventure Sports puts on a number of endurance events around the Olympic Peninsula, including the Big Hurt, the Olympic Adventure Trail run and the Great Olympic Adventure Trail run.
Runners and walkers will circle the Salt Creek Recreation Area west of Port Angeles for 24 hours on a 1.34-mile route, either as a solo athlete or part of a relay team of two to 12 people. People can run it as often as they want or go for the entire 24 hours.
There will also be a Last Runner Standing event summiting nearby 1,125-foot Striped Peak. This is a 3.7-mile out-and-back course that starts at Salt Creek, climbs roughly 1,000 feet with one lap each hour. Literally the last runner still going wins. If there is more than one runner left after 24 hours, one final lap will be run to crown a winner.
The Salt Creek 24 begins at 8:30 a.m. Saturday and finishes at 8:30 a.m. Sunday. The Last Runner Standing event starts at 9 a.m. and finishes at 9 a.m. Sunday (or earlier if everyone drops out).
A handful of racers are using Salt Creek 24 as an opportunity to raise funds for their favorite charities. Active charity partners include the North Olympic Land Trust, 4 PA, Ainsley’s Angeles Westsound Chapter, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and Girls on the Run Westsound. A total of $4,000 has already been raised.
Participants will have the choice during the registration process to become a fundraiser — either for one of the chosen Charity Partners, or a charity of their choice — in a “relay-for-life” style in which individual participants or relay teams can collect pledges per lap for their chosen charity, or in the case of the Last Runner Standing, pledges per summit.
So far, 118 people have signed up for this first-time event. A total of 68 plan to the 24-hour race solo, with six of them doing it as a fundraiser. Ten runners have said their goal is to go 100 miles (about 75 laps). Another 43 have signed up as part of relay teams with 10 of them raising funds.
People can register at www.tinyurl.com/SaltCreekRegister.
The title sponsor is Wellie’s ice cream and the presenting sponsor is Olympus Plumbing.
There will be a fireplace going the whole time in the enclosed picnic shelter at the park for people to warm up and there will be food out 24 hours.
For more information, people can go online at www.Salt-Creek-24.com.
