What did they tell you nine years later about this? [13] That mark was the fastest girls' U18 time in the world in 2020. But anything could have happened. Prior to the race this year, former race director Chuck Echard had written a letter to the Seward Phoenix Log expressing his opinion that the race field should be decreasedthe event, he contended, wasnt for everyone. And that question has not been answered. Competitors must now meet specified time milestones or they will be forced to drop out, a rule designed to avoid risks to stragglers. Contact Craig Medred at craig(at)alaskadispatch.com. Throughout my running, I have maintained a passion for travel & climbing, and combine them all whenever I have a chance, Zalokar, who had visited 137 countries, wrote on his website. He was just taking it slow and intent on finishing the race.. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. But according to OutsideOnline, its tough: The race, which has been run as an organized event since 1915, is a beast, with a 3,022-foot vertical gain and loss over icy and treacherous mountain terrain, where runners pick their own way upand downthe average 38-degree slope.. His disappearance was especially striking because he had been participating in an event that each year draws tens of thousands of spectators to Seward, and hundreds of runners onto the mountain itself. [10] At 16, she took the women's 5000 at the Five & Dime Athletics Meeting in South Carolina with a time of 15:34.47. In 2014, the Seward Chamber of Commerce settled with the family for a payment of $25,000. On July 7, with no progress made and resources dwindling, search efforts were scaled back. What happened to LeMaitre? Once you get to halfway, theres no more brush: its just exposed rock and loose shale. The 65-year-old was competing as a rookie in the. It was the talk of the town: Two people falling off the waterfall. She flew to Seward on July 5. People have to promise theyve been up the mountain before. A missing runner. Despite extensive searches, his body has never been recovered, and the details of his death remain a mystery. THE STARTBibs have typically been limited to 350 men, 350 women, and 200 juniors, but this year the race was expanded to accommodate 400 in each of the mens and womens races. It could predate modern record-keeping on the missing or belong to someone with no dental records on file to match. Alyse Bondi, Jenna's close friend from Cornell, said Jenna loves to run. There have been promises of changes to the race, but the danger is an undeniable feature of a century-old tradition that had never seen this kind of trauma. In the women's race, rookie Allie McLaughlin from Colorado separated from the field early and held on to smash the women's. Michael LeMaitre (66) disappeared on his way up the mountain and remains missing to this day. While he was still heading up the mountain, the officials at checkpoints along the way were packing up. Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! In the 1980s, when Echard was director, the senior mens and womens field was capped at 200; this year, it was 375. Still, Echard echoes the advice that newcomers can cut their risk dramatically if they simply check out the coursein personahead of time. Im surprised that for such a technical race they didnt already have anyone sweeping at the end, but maybe this isnt as common for trail races as I believed them to be. While injuries arent uncommon at Mount Marathon, three unusually serious accidents marred this years event. Unfortunately, it was not to be! He was seen near the ascent and with only 1.5 miles to go, downhill. The area is heavily used by hikers. He was definitely physically fit. Hed kind of pick a goal and go after it hard.. Her husband of 43 years, Michael LeMaitre, was last seen on July 4, about 200 feet from the top of Mount Marathon in Seward, south of Anchorage. And now, if you do Mount Marathon, you have to attest publicly, you have to sign something like in a public room full of other racers that says that you have been up and down the whole course. He was never seen again and his body was never located despite extensive searching. If my dad had fallen in one of those chutes and a snow bridge had collapsed over him, the infrared helicopters wouldnt have been able to find him. P.O. A partial human jawbone was found near Tonsina Point, a few mountainous miles away, in 2014. Alaska Public Media is our partner station in Anchorage. It was about 8 p.m. local time on July 4 when Seward, Alaskas Fire Department received word that 66-year-old Michael LeMaitre of Anchorage, was missing. "We haven't been able to rule out anybody,'' Alaska State Trooper spokesperson Beth Ipsen said Friday, but she admitted that distance and topography alone make it unlikely the jawbone is that of LeMaitre. When youre in Seward, on 6th avenue, 7th avenueat almost every point, no matter what youre doing, you can see Mount Marathon. The second wave of the race which included LeMaitre started at 3.15 pm. 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It was about 8 p.m. local time on July 4 when Seward, Alaska's Fire Department received word that 66-year-old Michael LeMaitre of Anchorage, was missing. 12 Sep. 2015. People choose their own route on the mountain, and you cant babysit everyone. All rights reserved. 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There hasnt been any wish to change things unless its a safety concern. The following transcript was lightly edited for clarity. Clock says LeMaitre was last spotted race day by on-course volunteers around 6 p.m. Every year on the 4th of July, hundreds of people descend on the town of Seward, Alaska for the Mount Marathon race. Race organisers take no responsibility for Michaels disappearance: Missing mom & baby- Gabriella Harkness Located, Bizarre Stories from the Alaska Triangle Successscan, Bizarre Stories from the Alaska Triangle Mid American News. LeMaitre: The biggest factor was the record snowthe trail conditions were unlike anything they had seen beforeice underneath. Michelle Theriault Boots: During that race, it was terrible weather. Signs posted on the lower mountain, site of the most dangerous cliffs, point out alternate descent routes and rate their difficulty. [The race] was never meant to be a fundraiser for the chamber, he wrote. [5][6] In 2019 she earned All-American status for a second straight year at the national Foot Locker Cross Country Championships.,[5][10]. That means one of every 161 people goes missing in the . He had already navigated the most dangerous parts of the course. The 2012 race saw broken bones and lacerations for some competitors. MaryAnne walked the mountain for weeks, looking for her dad. Im never going to be a professional runner, and Im never going to be a racecar driver or a rodeo person, but this is my chance to push that edge. I had to go down, but before I did I looked over the slide area and saw a black bear. Outdoors she ranked first at 3200m, running 9:49.83. But crews found no sign of LeMaitre. Replies analysing and speculating over the mystery and possible explanations are encouraged. The chutes had snow bridges on them that have been collapsing all summer. 4.2 (8) Rate. Michael LeMaitre could have taken just a few wrong turns, and then very quickly was in the thousands and thousands of impenetrable, mountainous wilderness in the Kenai mountains. Weve never had anything this severe. At around 5.45 pm on the day of the race, Tom Walsh, a race steward, saw Michael ascending to the turnaround point with about 200 feet to go. A team of hikers will sweep the mountain after the competition to look for potential laggards. But he hadnt been on the mountain before.. No trail, an Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman said at the time. The top finishers are under 45 minutes. We've received your submission. Later in that year of 2012, he was declared legally dead through a court proceeding called a presumed death trial, which is a way for families whove lost someone in a fishing boat accident or a plane crash, where remains are not going to be recoverable to have their loved one legally declared deceased so they can move on with settling estates and insurance and things like that. There was an extensive search, his bereaved family also continued to search. One thought I had was, what if a glove had gotten washed down a stream? Or remains need to be found.. Distance runner Sarah Thomson has been found safe and well after she went missing at the weekend. A member of the LeMaitre family said Alaska State Troopers told him it did not appear the partial human jawbone found in the mountains above Tonsina Point south of the city belongs to the 65-year-old who disappeared during the Mount Marathon Race on July 4, 2012. At this point, the area was getting foggy and cold but Walsh saw no reason to be concerned about the condition of the runner. An extensive search turned up nothing. See also. Welcome to Seward for the 93rd running of the Mount Marathon Race, the oldest mountain race in North America and possibly its craziest! The mens race was also foggy, but the trail had dried some. But according to OutsideOnline, it's tough: 'The race, which has been run as an organized event since 1915, is a beast, with a 3,022-foot vertical gain and loss over icy and treacherous mountain terrain, where runners pick their own way upand downthe average 38-degree slope.'. Download the app. Runners from around the world join Alaskans in pursuit of a common goal: to safely complete this iconic footrace, whether on the podium or in the pack. Nine years on, what happened to LeMaitre is still a mystery. Despite speculation about whether the remains might belong to LeMaitre, DNA testing found they instead belonged to a 39-year-old man whose last address was in Arkansas, troopers said. Missing in Alaska (2015) Mystery, Reality show | United States. An accomplished runner and mountain climber was found dead in Yosemite National Park days after he went missing, officials said. But theres also a trail that continues, and it would have been very easy for him to keep going on that trail. I have spent a lot of time on the mountain; I know my route very clearly. In December, as a sophomore, Hutchins finished fifth in the Footlocker national cross country championship race. I know its fascinating to me, the overwhelming scale and power of the wilderness and how close we live to it and how close we all tried that line. Participants who dont make it a halfway-point within one hour are disqualified, and race sweepers now follow the last runner to the top of the mountain and back down, said race director Matias Saari. Correction: The photo caption on this story has been updated to correct the year Michael LeMaitre went missing to 2012. South Africa at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics And theres just never been a trace of him found. "There are eight people missing'' in the Seward area since 1993, she added, and trooper files hold an unknown number of cases of people who disappeared before that date. There was no one there to give him any direction. It was especially rainy, foggy and slick that day. Theres a rule that if youre much slower than then most of the runners you have to make it halfway up in one hour, or youll be disqualified. "Oh my god, Jenna's kicking a**!" Bondi said as she checked Jenna's location from her phone. For the first few minutes, its a very steep grade up a rock facequite technical. montanawomensrun . Fink: A few minutes down, theres Denali Falls; it has a 10-foot drop. not a marathon, definitely intense! For the next 24 minutes or so, its just steep. Park officials said in a statement that the body of Fred Zalokar, 61, from Reno . 2023 Anchorage Daily News. Details. There was plenty of daylight left and Michael asked if he could continue on to finish the race. I think there was a healthy debate about how is this race unsafe, and they added some pretty sound safety measures, it sounds like. Around 1 p.m., the sun shone through the trees and leaves crinkled under huge crowds of runners' feet. The Mount Marathon Race in Seward took place Wednesday, after a year off due to the pandemic, without reports of any major trouble. Tonsina Creek is along a trail that begins near the end of Lowell Point Road south of downtown. It was rainy, it was foggy, and he just never came down the mountain. -, http://rw.runnersworld.com/selects/last-man-up.html. The 93rd Mount Marathon race will be held Wednesday in Seward after a year off because of the pandemic. 65-year-old Michael LeMaitre was competing in the Mount Marathon race in Seward, Alaska, which is south of the city of Anchorage. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Since all the snow hadnt melted out from the creek bed, there were some snow bridges that you had to cross that were really creepy. I think there was a healthy debate about how is this race unsafe, and they added some pretty sound safety measures, it sounds like. . The junior race, for runners ages 7 to 17, had already taken placethe kids went only halfway up the broad, triangular mountain that . She was never found and remains among the missing in the area. Firefighters and police, state troopers, National Guard helicopter crews armed with infrared technology, mountaineering experts and search dogs scoured the mountain for days in torrential rain, but found no sign of Michael. "There are eight people missing'' in the Seward area since 1993, she added, and trooper files hold an unknown number of cases of people who disappeared before that date. 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The volunteers, who had been on the mountain for 10 hours, had completed their duty and were descending when they encountered LeMaitre, who was in last place, just approaching the mountains summit. The body of Fred Zalokar, 61, was recovered Tuesday near the 11,527-foot summit of Mount Clark, a press . There is an entry limit, with around 90 percent of the participants being returnees and with a coveted lottery ticket system in place. And that question has not been answered. I wanted to do something at the top of the mountain, so I brought a Dremel tool and left a message: I love you dad. I engraved that on a rock. Mount Marathon is the superbowl of Alaskan mountain running, the ultimate 4th of July celebration, one of my first experiences with competitive running, and . Its in your mind every single day. The Alaska State Troopers announced that they were able to positively identify a body that had been classified as 'missing' for 32 years with the use of DNA evidence. It's not uncommon for racers to be injured, running to the. Is The High Lonesome 100 The Future of Ultrarunning Equity? This year, the weather was good enough to fly in aid station water by helicopter, but you cant always bank on it. Finally, I came to my realization that I needed to figure out what had happened to my dad. Mount Marathon towers over the community of Seward at the head of Resurrection Bay about 125 miles south of Anchorage. Then participants go downhill over snowfields and rock fields,waterfalls and crags until they reach the finish line, back on the streets of Seward. Montana Women's Run is a proud member of the Road Runners Club of America. Over the next several days, the search parties grew to almost 70 people, according to Seward Fire Chief David Squires, and included helicopters, technically trained volunteers from the Alaska Mountain Rescue Group, dogs and support from the Alaska Air National Guard. [14] Hutchins was selected as Athlete of the Week by USA Track & Field as a result. Its not uncommon for racers to be injured, running to the top of 3,022-foot Mount Marathon and back down again.
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