Bartlett Fun Run
Trail Notes

The race starts out heading up Bear Notch Road. This is a very wide road which is where you are going to see the most snowmobile traffic. The first 4 miles are all a gradual uphill climb. When you hit the top of the road, you start a gradual descent.

At around 6 miles into the race there will be a right turn onto Meadow Brook Trail. Meadow Brook trail is narrower than Bear Notch Road and very curvy. Watch carefully for other mushers, especially for head on passes.

In the first mile or so of Meadow Brook there are 2 places to use caution on. The first is less than 1/2 mile down the trail. This is a short and steep downhill that curves sharply to the right just as it begins to descend. At the bottom of the descent is a short bridge followed by an incline.

The second caution area is closer to a mile down the trail and curves sharply to the left, descends, and at the bottom of the very short hill the trail makes a right turn.

At that point the trail widens out a little bit for the next few miles. You’ll pass the beginning Owl’s Nest Loop trail on your right, then shortly down the trail you’ll pass the second trail junction to Owl’s Nest Loop. Right after the second Owl’s Nest Loop trail junction the trail once again curves sharply to the right. Less than another mile down from there it again curves sharply to the right, and the trail becomes narrower at that point.

This section of trail up until Swans Junction is very curvy and narrower. This is most likely where you are going to wind up doing quite a bit of head on passing so be on the lookout.

The trail gradually climbs uphill for about a mile. Shortly after it starts to descend again you will be approaching another caution area: a sharp right turn followed by a short bridge over a river.

After that there are 2 more bridges to cross (easy ones). Most of this section is either pretty flat or a gradual downhill all the way into Swan’s Junction, which is the turnaround point. The trail widens again just before you get to Swan’s Junction.

Swan’s Junction is a large open clearing with multiple trail junctions coming into it. We will have trail help here and orange fencing to create a loop to make it easy for teams to circle around and then head back. If you want to give your dogs a break here, pull off outside of the loop and out of the way of incoming and outgoing mushers.

Obviously the way back is a reverse of the way in, but there are 2 areas of caution to look for: one is after you’ve crossed back over the 3 bridges and climbed back up the incline. After you start downhill watch for a caution marker – this signals a rapid descent with a sharp curve to the right around a huge rock.

The second caution area is near the end of Meadow Brook trail - that same one that you hit when you first started off on the trail. This time you’ll be coming downhill and curving sharply to the right before going over the bridge. Once you start uphill the dogs will tend to cut that corner around the tree at the top very sharply and you’ll probably have to run or pedal to get them around it.

When you get back to Bear Notch Road you’re going to take a left and then climb for about 2 miles, then it descends the last 4 miles into the finish line.
 

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