For the second year in a row, a determined group of stairway runners will attempt to traverse most of Seattle's major stairways in one day. The "Seattle Stairway Foot Tour - 2015 Celestial Edition" begins at 5:25AM Saturday, June 20th, a day before June Solstice. We asked the organizer, Michael Yadrick, to tell us more (see below the picture).
What is the Seattle Stairway Foot Tour? The Foot Tour is a 100 kilometer running route covering most of the major stairways except 2 sets each in the farthest reaches of Southeast, Northeast and Northwest Seattle, plus a few that I excluded for safety. Participants will navigate their own way to different stairways in order to traverse the suggested route at their own pace, and with minimal to zero support.
What Do You Mean by 'Major Stairways?' The Foot Tour adopts Doug Beyerlein's method for counting 'major' public stairways, which are considered the ones with 100 or more steps. (Doug's map of all of Seattle's major stairways can be found along the right banner of this page.)
What Are The Specifics of the Route? The route for 2015 is mapped here. I hope to update the map with turn-by-turn instructions soon. It's about 65 miles, with at most 11,500 feet of up-and-down elevation change. We'll start at the farthest Southwest stairway of the route, at SW 98th Street and 51st Avenue SW. We will gather at the street end and beach access.
So This is Year Two? That's right. The Foot Tour has a very short history - our first one was summer solstice last year. A small group of us set out complete a 100 kilometer route that promised 11,000 feet of elevation change over 15,000 stairs. It was epic, but everyone fell short of completing the planned route.
The running group (me and Jean-Michel Fouard) stuck to a daylight schedule with a total time on our feet of 15 hours 38 minutes, at a pace of about 17-minute miles. We completed 55 miles with 8,167 feet of elevation gained over 66 stairways.
A two-day trekking group, with Andrew Lichtman and Vivian Doorn, completed 50+ miles over two days. They ended their journey in Magnolia’s Discovery Park.
Why a Foot Tour? We want to mark the first days of summer in the northern hemisphere together, by traversing the biggest stairways in The Emerald City. We look forward to moving through the neighborhoods on our own two feet, exploring the City and its history. It's a big place, and we're going to see a ton of great stuff in one big day that will take most people a lifetime to explore.
How Can Folks Get More Info? People can email me at michael.yadrick@gmail.com, and I can provide more information about how to join or coordinate.
Blaine, 