Ashley Barlow

The infamous Palmerton Super, located on the Blue Mountain Ski Resort in Palmerton, Pennsylvania! The Palmerton Spartan Super is an 8+ miles and 32+ obstacles course located right on the black diamond ski slopes of Blue Mountain! This race took place July 8-9th and is definitely one of the harder Spartan Super courses around! Not only did I complete in the Elite division of the Spartan Super, but I also signed up for my first Hurricane Heat that same afternoon!

This was my second year running the Ragnar Trail West Virginia race and it was good to be back in the beautiful Appalachians of West Virginia! For those who not heard of a Ragnar Trail race, Ragnar Trail is an all day and night team relay race consisting of two days and two nights of camping out in the great outdoors and best of all, RUNNING! Teams consist of 8 people (or 4 for ultra teams) and each person has to run the red, yellow and green loop for a total of around 15 miles (sometimes more). I started my first loop running the green loop and was excited that my team, the Donner Party, saw me off!

The waterfalls of Havasupai are by far the most beautiful waterfalls I have ever seen and definitely rank the list of must see waterfalls in the US. Permit reservations became available February 1st 2018 through their new online reservation system at HavasupaiReservations.com Sites available for up to 350 campers per night Available in campground, drinking water, restrooms, and picnic tables Pricing for 2018 is as follows and includes all necessary permits, fees, and taxes: One Person, 2 Days / 1 Night: $140.56 One Person, 3 Days / 2 Nights: $171.12 One Person, 4 Days / 3 Nights: $201.67 Weekend nights (Friday, Saturday, Sunday), Holiday weekday nights (February 19, May 28, July 4, September 3, October 8), and Spring Break weekday nights (March 5-8 and 19-22) are an additional $18.34 per night. We had most of our items carried in from a pack horse which made our hike that much easier since we had to hike 10 miles in the desert beating sun to the campground. The trail into Supai begins at the Haulapai Hilltop More info on the Havasupai Indian Reservation from the National Park Service For those who don’t want to camp, there is a lodging option located in the Supai Village.

This was my second Spartan Sprint race for the year. I really wish Spartan took pictures of us at the barbed wire crawl, because it was one of the muddiest spartan crawls I’ve ever had to do! This race was on a farm and very different compared to other Spartan Sprints I’ve run. This race is definitely a good starter race for anyone who has never done a Spartan before.