The 50 mile starts in the finish area with one clockwise lap of the nine mile Nordic ski loop, then turns onto the Ice Age Trail at Confusion Corner. From there it runs south to the turnaround near Rice Lake and back, then north over Bald Bluff, the highest point on the course, out to Emma Carlin and home. Underfoot it is mostly single track dirt, rocky and tree rooted, through pinewoods, hardwood forest and rolling prairie. The course is marked with yellow ground flags.
The course tops numerous hills. None of them are extremely long or overly steep, but they are incessant. Expect rocks and roots on steep climbs and descents as you scramble up and over eskers, and tight single track with a few stairs south of Hwy 12. The Nordic ski trail that opens and closes the day is wide, scenic and very runnable.
The Ice Age Trail 50 has been run in Wisconsin's Southern Kettle Moraine since 1982, which makes it one of the oldest continuously running ultras in the country. All three distances start together at the Nordic trail head north of La Grange and run on the Ice Age National Scenic Trail and the wide Nordic ski loop: dense deciduous forest, tall pines, rocky ridges, open prairie, and the lakes, kettles, kames and erratics the glaciers left behind. The hills are neither long nor steep. They are incessant. The 50 mile and the 50K both close at 6:00 p.m., and the day ends with a catered barbecue in the finish area that every runner and volunteer eats for free.
The race was conceived by ultrarunner Tom Ulik and the Badgerland Striders' president Glenn Wargolet in a Milwaukee tavern in 1981. To keep the logistics simple Glenn imagined a one mile loop in a Milwaukee County park. Tom had a different idea, and invited him for a run on the trails of the Southern Kettle Moraine. That was all it took, and the first Ice Age 50 was held there less than a year later. Runners come back: the 500 mile club, meaning ten 50 mile buckles, has more than 160 members, and twenty two of them have twenty finishes. Six aid station captains have been looking after Ice Age runners for more than two decades, among them Craig and Mary Hopper, who are in their 39th year at the Hwy 12 station.
| Mile | Station | Cutoff | Crew access | Bag | Pacer | Med | To next |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.00 |
Start/Finish
None · physician on site
|
? | ● | ● | ? | ● | 3.90 |
| 3.90 | Tamarack | ? | · | · | ? | ? | 5.10 |
| 9.00 |
Start/Finish
None · physician on site
|
8:17am | ● | ● | ? | ● | 1.50 |
| 10.50 | Bluff Road | 8:40am | ● | · | ? | ? | 2.60 |
| 13.10 | Duffin Road | 9:17am | ● | · | ? | ? | 4.20 |
| 17.30 | Hwy 12 | 10:19am | ● | ● | ? | ? | 1.80 |
| 19.10 | Esterly Road | 10:44am | ● | · | ? | ? | 2.60 |
| 21.70 | Rice Lake | 11:22am | ● | · | ? | ? | 2.50 |
| 24.20 | Esterly Road | 11:58am | ● | · | ? | ? | 1.80 |
| 26.00 | Hwy 12 | 12:23pm | ● | ● | ? | ? | 4.20 |
| 30.20 | Duffin Road | 1:25pm | ● | · | ? | ? | 2.70 |
| 32.90 | Young Road | 2:01pm | · | · | ? | ? | 4.20 |
| 37.10 | Horseriders Camp | 2:59pm | · | ● | ? | ? | 3.10 |
| 40.20 | Emma Carlin | 3:40pm | ● | · | ? | ? | 3.10 |
| 43.30 | Horseriders Camp | 4:26pm | · | ● | ? | ? | 4.30 |
| 47.60 | Young Road | 5:25pm | · | · | ? | ? | 0.90 |
| 48.50 | Bluff Road | 5:38pm | ● | · | ? | ? | 1.50 |
| 50.00 |
Finish
None · physician on site
|
6:00pm | ● | ● | ? | ● | ? |
Parking. Designated Parking
Parking. Designated Parking
Nordic Trail (Start/Finish) to Bluff Rd Aid Station #3, 1.2 mi, about 2 mins. 1. Head north on Co Rd H/Kettle Moraine Scenic Dr toward Bluff Rd, go 1.1 mi. 2. Turn right onto Bluff Rd, go 463 ft. Destination will be on the left.
Parking. Designated Parking
iceagetrail50.comParking. Shoulder of Duffin Rd.
Parking. Designated Parking
Parking. Shoulder of Esterly Rd.
Parking. Designated Parking
Parking. Should of Easterly Rd.
Parking. Designated Parking
Parking. Shoulder of Duffin Rd.
Parking. Designated Parking
Emma Carlin AS 10 to Bluff Rd AS 3, drive 5.8 mi, 11 min, from County Road Z, Palmyra, WI 53156 to W6238 E Bluff Rd, Eagle, WI 53119. 1. Head south, 128 ft. 2. Turn left toward Co Rd Z, 144 ft. 3. Turn right onto Co Rd Z, 2.0 mi. 4. Turn right onto County Line Rd/Young Rd, continue to follow Young Rd, 1.8 mi. 5. Turn left onto Tamarack Rd, 0.5 mi. 6. Take the 1st right onto Bluff Rd, 1.5 mi.
Parking. Designated Parking
iceagetrail50.comBluff Road AS 3 to Nordic Trail Head (Start/Finish) AS 2, 1.2 mi, about 3 mins. 1. Head west on Bluff Rd toward Co Rd H/Kettle Moraine Scenic Dr, go 463 ft. 2. Turn left onto Co Rd H/Kettle Moraine Scenic Dr, go 1.1 mi. Destination will be on the left.
Parking. Designated Parking
iceagetrail50.com10 people have been out there with a camera or a microphone.
+ 2 more.
These are other people's work and we link straight to them. Watching costs nothing and needs no account. More of them: every race we hold, on film.
Nobody sees it until we have read it. No account, no sign-in.
This changes nothing on the page on its own. Somebody checks it against the race first.
Somebody watches it before it goes anywhere near this page. What we are after is footage of this course, on the ground. If it would be just as true of any other race, it is not this.
We want the address of the file the race publishes, not the file. We download it from there so the page can say where the line came from.
We read every one of these and we write back. Every fact here carries the source it came from, and the way a wrong one gets fixed is a person checking it against what you tell us.
Cutoffs move, races get postponed, lotteries open and close. We read the race's own sources and record where every fact came from. Put your email in and we will send you what changed, and where we read it.
No account, and nothing to cancel.
What happens to your email. Nothing else. I do not sell it, and I will not send you anything except this race changing. One click gets you out.
I keep this catalog because the information is scattered and hard to trust. Telling you when it moves is the same job.
NavRun builds your pacing from your own training, then turns it into a plan your crew can follow: when to leave and where to park.
Start free
