BOW VALLEY – Standing at the top of the colossal Cascade Mountain, a little crew of hikers and runners took in a bright yellow sunrise, impressively peeking over the mountains from the east.
As the morning light and promise of a new day occupied them, one of the crew, Adam Mertens, laid on his back on a pile of rocks, eyes closed and snoring away peacefully, with the hoodie of his blue windbreaker covering his head.
The Canmore trail runner napped for a few minutes longer before waking, but his tiredness that morning wasn’t a result of being dragged out of bed super early to see a sunrise.
In fact, Mertens had barely shut his eyes over the previous 30-plus hours in order to push his limits and finish an extremely rare achievement that, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, has never been done before.
What’s tentatively being named the “Bow Tie”, Mertens is, on record, the only person to have completed the giant jaw-dropping trek that goes up and down some of the most famous mountains in the Bow Valley, in a single push. It's so rare that Mertens had to brainstorm what to actually name the mountain feat when completed.
Starting at 2 a.m. in the dark of night outside the Canmore Rose and Crown on June 30, Mertens’ piled on the miles by first doing the Canmore Quad (Grotto, Lady Macdonald, Ha Ling and the East End Of Rundle), which led into the Rundle Traverse, and then finished off with the Banff Triple Crown (West End of Rundle, Sulphur and Cascade). The finish line was at the Banff Rose and Crown on July 1 at around noon.
The remarkable effort took Mertens 32 hours, 10 minutes and 22 seconds to complete the entire 115 kilometre feat, which had a 9,500 metre elevation gain.
Mertens praised the people who had helped him and said it was a team effort that pulled off the incredible feat.
“So, you know, sometimes when you go for a long run, all you can think about is how much you hate running,” said Mertens. “I think the only place that I was ready to pull the plug was starting up [the last mountain] Cascade. I kind of was questioning my decision to do this. But at that point, there were enough people rallying behind me and I was able to use it.”
The wild idea of the Bow Tie came up two years ago during a time when most people were bored out of their minds and itching for a little excitement: the COVID-19 pandemic era. That awful time. During then, most endurance races and travelling were cancelled or under heavy restrictions, which caused a tidal wave of mountain runners to crush fastest known times (FKT) in the Rockies.
Particularly in 2020, there was a massive abnormality of record-breaking FKTs in the Bow Valley compared to previous years, with at least 23 new top times.
Mertens, who holds several FKTs including the Goat Traverse (2:30:11) in Kananaskis Country and the Rundle Traverse (5:35:04), said planning the Bow Tie was a way to stay motivated during uncertain days.
“I think, for me, I went back and forth about whether this is something I wanted to share openly beforehand,” Mertens said. “I shared it on the Facebook groups … I knew that there was gonna be people joining for different legs, so I felt accountable to them and it was just a pick me up every time I saw them.”
Mertens was fortunate enough to travel light for the entire length because of a mob of mountain marathoners supporting him at every stage. A team of about 30 friends and members of the Canmore Trail Culture and Bow Valley Dirtbag Runners ran sections with Mertens, gave moral support, and had treats, water and other equipment ready for the peaks crusher.
“I think it really, at least I hope, it kind of galvanized the running community within the valley, which is so special,” he said. “It just really had that community feel.”
Prior to running the Bow Tie, the longest trail he’d done was the Canmore Quad, which has a FKT of just under eight hours.
From Nova Scotia, Mertens moved to Canmore in 2017. He works at Howl, a organization that connects youth, communities and ecosystems to each other through programming. Mertens said he’s dabbled in running before, but not competitively. His connection to the trail running community began during COVID-19.
“I am definitely not a professional athlete,” Mertens said.
“The big key takeaway for me is just trying to have fun with it and not take anything too seriously.”
The Rundle Traverse is a bit trickier than others because it requires rock climbing and rappelling. Although, having done that portion six times already, and holding the FKT, Mertens is a bit of an expert when it comes to it.
The trail runner, who’s also a mountain guide, emphasized the safety precautions he took prior to the trek, which included someone he trusted in the mountains to call it quits for him if he wasn’t able to make that decision.
“When running these mountains, there's always the possibility for things to go wrong,” said Mertens. “I think it's important that people are approaching it with humility and respect … that's why, part of the reason why we're so fortunate, is that there is a huge [local trail running] community and there's so many ways to build those skills gradually.”
Feeling relatively good for most of the Bow Tie, Mertens said there had been one only one section where he nearly called it quits.
“When the second night came, that was starting up Cascade and that's kind of where the wheels came off a little bit,” he said. “But there was good people around to pull me through.
“We got to the summit of Cascade … and I just napped immediately. I think it was about 10 or 15 minutes and it was one of my best naps."
Of the following 24 hours post-Bow Tie, Mertens slept 18 of them.
