Building a Running Community in Silverton By Margaret Hedderman
Photos courtesy of Aravaipa Running
I
t was 1908 and a couple of miners were sitting at the bar in Silverton. One of them looked over at Kendall Mountain, a towering massif with a steep, rocky summit. The miner said he knew a guy who could run to the top and back in an hour and a half. That sounded just crazy enough, so they made a wager—$200— and Neil McQuieg, a local 53-year-old miner, was recruited. Kendall Mountain rises 13,066 feet above Silverton, occupying its southeastern skyline. To reach the summit, McQuieg would have had to run directly up an avalanche chute, eventually scrambling to the top. When he did reach it, McQuieg sprinted back to town, arriving just one minute and forty-two seconds behind schedule. Though he lost the bet, a summer tradition was born.
60 Durango Magazine Summer/Fall
Today, hundreds of runners come to Silverton each July to participate in the Kendall Mountain Run, a 12-mile out-and-back race. It coincides with the Silverton Alpine Runs—a race with three length options—the same weekend. The back-to-back races are organized by Aravaipa Running, a trail and endurance event organizer based in Arizona. “You definitely can’t beat the summit
of Kendall,” says race director Julie Haro. “Looking down at the town of Silverton, you really get a 360-degree view of the area.” Runners informally raced up Kendall Mountain for years after McQuieg’s inaugural run, but it took several decades to become an official race. In 1978, local runner Bill Corwin founded the annual event. Nearly 35 years later, the race experienced another evolution when it was taken over by Aravaipa in 2012. Now, paired with the Silverton Alpine Runs, the two-day event attracts over 800 participants from around the world. “It’s really neat being able to run through the history of Silverton,” says Haro. “You’re running through all of these old mining towns like Animas Forks and Gladstone.” On Saturday, July 9th, the Silverton Alpine will take participants into the
