A point-to-point course from the Glenwood Horse Trail (Big Hellgate Parking lot) to Camp Bethel, mixing steep gravel-road climbs with technical, leaf-covered singletrack, crossing the Appalachian Trail and Blue Ridge Parkway four times. Starts at 12:01 a.m., so the first several hours run entirely by headlamp; sunrise does not arrive until roughly 6:30-7:00 a.m.
COURSE DISTANCE DISCREPANCY: the application's own course-description paragraph sums to 62.5 miles at the finish, while every independent GPS-era source (Wikipedia, UltraRunning Magazine, ITRA, a fan-plotted route) converges on 66.5-67.2 miles. The VHTRC 20th-anniversary piece explains this directly, quoting founder David Horton that the course was originally estimated pre-GPS at 'approximately 62 miles,' with a later editor's note that 'GPS now measures the course to be between 66.6 and 70 miles.' This is very likely the source of the '++' in the race's name and is recorded here rather than resolved -- see _meta.notes for full detail. ELEVATION: sources disagree slightly on gain/loss, all in the 13,000-13,900 ft band -- ITRA's 2022 race page: +4071 m/-3970 m (13,356/13,025 ft, used as the primary figure above); UltraRunning Magazine's course stats: 13,849 ft listed for both gain and loss; a fan-plotted route on plotaroute.com: 13,753 ft ascent / 13,418 ft descent. WEATHER: from the 2025 application, verbatim: 'The weather at this time of year in Virginia is very unpredictable. It could be 30-40 at night and 50-60 in the daytime or 20-30 at night and 30-40 in the day... In 2003 we had a foot of snow... with temperatures in the teens!! In 2005 we had a couple of inches of ice on 4-8 inches of snow... very cold temperatures in 2006 (11 degrees F). Beware of frozen eyeballs. If it is cold wear some type of glasses or goggles. In 2016 it got down to 8 degrees. In 2021 there was a cold, freezing rain for the first 10 hours of the race.' No formal mandatory-gear checklist exists; this advisory prose is the entirety of the race's cold-weather guidance.
A 66.6-mile (per independent GPS measurement; the race brands itself '100K++' and its own application arithmetic sums to 62.5 miles -- see _meta.notes) point-to-point trail race from the Glenwood Horse Trail at the Big Hellgate Parking lot, near Natural Bridge Station, to Camp Bethel near Fincastle, VA. It starts at 12:01 a.m. on the second Saturday of December, deliberately, so most or all of the first half runs through the night in winter cold.
Founded in 2003 by David Horton with Charlie Hesse and Dr. George Wortley. Connects sections of the Promise Land 50K and Terrapin Mountain 50K courses. The first running had 71 starters and 40 finishers (62% finish rate) in 20-degree temperatures with iced-over trails. The name and the 66.6-mile figure are a deliberate reference to the Number of the Beast.
| Mile | Station | Cutoff | Crew | Bag | Pacer | Med | To next |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.00 | Start: Glenwood Horse Trail / Big Hellgate Parking Lot | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | 8.00 |
| 8.00 | Petites Gap | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | 5.60 |
| 13.60 | Camping Gap | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | 8.90 |
| 22.50 | Floyd's Field (Headforemost Mountain) | 6:40am | ? | ● | ? | ? | 6.50 |
| 29.00 | Jennings Creek | ? | ? | · | ? | ? | 6.10 |
| 35.10 | Little Cove Mountain | ? | · | · | ? | ? | 7.40 |
| 42.50 | Bearwallow Gap | 12:30pm | ? | ● | ? | ? | 7.10 |
| 49.60 | Bobblett's Gap | ? | ? | · | ? | ? | 7.20 |
| 56.80 | Day Creek | ? | ? | · | ? | ? | 5.70 |
| 62.50 | Camp Bethel | 6:01pm | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
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