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Sept. 18, 2005
By JOHN CHARLES ROBBINS
Staff writer
To conquer the stairs of Mount Baldhead during the annual 15K run is to know a new and profound level of pain.
It's no stairway to heaven.
Grueling torture, the runners will tell you -- after the cattle prod stitch in their side eases up.
The running contest which begins and ends in downtown Saugatuck will turn your lungs into a blast furnace, your face into
a fried beet and your legs to wobbly rubber.
Self-inflicted agony.
Yet every year, hundreds line up to tame the beast called the Mt. Baldhead Challenge.
A foggy Saturday morning quickly surrendered to bright blue sky, not a cloud in sight.
From the summit of Mount Baldhead the view is breathtaking in more ways than one.
Even people who take their time walking the 282 steps to the top of the wooded dune are taxed and sucking in gobs of air.
But the panorama that awaits climbers is spectacular, looking eastward over Saugatuck and Douglas and the Kalamazoo River,
and westward through the trees is the white-blue of Lake Michigan.
Looking out on this particular brilliant September morning, you swear you can see the curvature of the Earth.
For most of its days each year, Mount Baldhead is a welcoming, tranquil place. The weather-worn wooden stairway beckons
all to enjoy the sanctuary, the peaceful plateau at the top.
But on race day, the scene is hurried and loud and nasty.
The top of Mount Baldhead serves as the half-way point in the annual 15K run, and by the time the runners reach that first
step to begin their ascent, the running soon becomes walking for most, and for some it takes both hands and arms planted firmly
on the smooth and worn wooden railings to pull themselves to the top.
The steep and uneven wood stairs creak and moan, leaving some runners wondering if it's their bones giving way.
Any attempts at decorum are forgotten.
Sweat and snot and saliva become one. The runners groan and grunt, and some lapse into inhuman sounds.
Men go bare-chested. The elastic of underwear peeks over the top of soaked running shorts. Hair is drenched and pasted
to scalps every which way. Women spit with abandon.
The runners wheeze and cough and gasp. Some try to talk in complete sentences, missing the mark.
"... can't ... believe ... I did it."
God's name is employed often, and in many ways.
This year's race sees a Wyoming man, David Vandermeer, 27, reach the top of Mount Baldhead first.
He has the look of a person with fuel yet to burn and he keeps moving. Vandermeer would continue his pace and cross the
finish line first with a time of 51:24.
On his heels, at the top of Mount Baldhead, is Craig Spoelhof, 37, of Holland. He grabs a cup of water from a volunteer,
takes one sip to wet his parched mouth and dumps the rest onto his head. He finishes third overall.
The first woman to crest the dune is Renea Walkotten, 31, of Holland. Wearing a white ball cap backwards, a look of determination
on her damp hot face, she never slows down. She ends the race in the 15th spot.
Waiting at the top is John Dyer, in his assistant Scoutmaster uniform (Troop 29 of Saugatuck), handing out water and words
of encouragement.
"Good job it's all downhill from here," he says.
Also working the cheering section, and helping to steer runners the right way is Wendy Colsen.
"Good job! Excellent work! Keep going ... woo hoo," shouts Colsen, her words as strong for the last runner up
the hill as for the first.
Runner Ryan Vander Poppen, 33, of Hamilton, slows at the top and grabs a paper cup of water in each hand. With the dragon
on his T-shirt now glued to his back, Vander Poppen forces out two words, "Made it," then downs both cups and moves
on.
Empty paper cups polka dot the dune.
Some runners try to be wise-guys. "Are we done now," says one man reaching the 282nd step, huffing and puffing
tunefully.
Rick Bos, 43, of Hudsonville, squints and smiles.
"What? That's it? Where's the other hundred," he says. Bos later finishes 60th out of a field of nearly 300.
The last runner up the hill is Gail Skiver, 40, of Holland. Later, with the race over, Skiver's face is as bright pink
as her shirt.
This was the first year she's attempted the 15K.
Spent, proud and hungry, Skiver says she's training for a marathon in Grand Rapids next month.
"The steps are the worst part of the whole thing," she says laughing. "Grueling, nauseating."
Asked if there was a point when she doubted herself, Skiver nods her head and says, "About half-way up the stairs
I just wanted to cry."
But she knew her husband, Jeff, and her friends were waiting for her at the end.
She reached way down and willed herself to the top of Mount Baldhead, telling herself, "I just gotta finish it ...
I just gotta finish it."
And she did.
Contact John Charles Robbins at (616) 546-4269 or john.robbins@hollandsentinel.com.
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