The Porch to Pinnacle challenge is a fulfilling personal challenge for people based in the Hobart area. The difficulty of the challenge varies for every person depending upon where they live relative to the mountain.
The challenge is to run from the front porch of your house to the summit of kunanyi / Mt Wellington. Then run home again if you are want to go hard mode. The core tenets of the challenge are outlined below.
- Run from the front door of your house to the summit of kunanyi
- Avoid roads as much as possible
- Recruit friends and make a big day mission out of it
Ziggy and myself made a video of our experience and it is documented here for inspiration. In this post I have outlined the origins of the Porch to Pinnacle idea.
Origins of the Challenge
First Attempt
My first porch to pinnacle attempt occurred after a joking remark that was taken too far. At the time I was living in a share house in Sandy Bay. Myself and the other housemates were fledgling trail runners with great aspirations but minimal experience. I suggested that we should try run to the top of the mountain from home. The idea percolated for some time till one Saturday we were all free and I suggested that we attempt the run. We convinced ourselves it would be alright because we could turn around whenever we wanted.
So the four of us living at the house at the time set off on our run. We got to Waterworks Reserve and we were all still feeling good so we continued onto Ferntree. At Ferntree we agreed to push on to the Springs and see how we were feeling when we got there. By the time we got to the Springs we were all quite exhausted. But by this stage we were too close to the summit to turn around so we all pushed ourselves to the top. The zig zag track was a major struggle but we all made it to the top. We were completely cooked at the summit trig point but also revelling in the peak bagging feels.
Ziggy didn’t even bring a running pack or any warm clothing so was freezing at the top and was begging for lollies. We were all at a stage where we would have contemplated hitch hiking back down but we were too cold to spend any time on the summit so we began our run back down to the Springs purely to warm up. Then at the Springs we were all feeling more energy and kept pushing on. Gravity now on our side so we continued to cruise down to Ferntree. Once we were at Ferntree we were so close to home that we all decided that we might as well run it out.
The final kilometres home were a struggle for all but the feeling of fulfillment upon reaching the house again easily justified the pain. I think this may have been mine and the others longest run to date. It was a great day out and we all had great memories of it.
The Anniversary
A year passed on by and a global pandemic begun. Ziggy, Miranda and I had since moved to Lutana so we thought another summit mission with an entirely new route was in order to solidify the tradition. The year was 2020 and we had been in COVID lockdown. Wellington Park had been closed for months. Our planned run coincided with the first weekend that Wellington Park was reopened.
This time around it was just Ziggy and I running it. The route was much longer and steeper but we were both up for the challenge. We had to run on a lot more road before we could get to trails. Along the way both of us were filming and taking photos. This attempt was much smoother than the last as we both had a lot more running experience and knew how to hydrate and fuel properly. Although Ziggy’s fuel of choice was LCM bars but at least he actually brought something to eat this time. We got it done but Garmin freaked out and got confused.
Garmins Route
The Video
I had the Monday after the run off work so decided that I would make a video of our adventure up the mountain. Before starting I asked Ziggy what I should call the video and he threw out a few ideas but the one that stuck was “Porch to Pinnace”. In Hobart we have a popular half marathon called the “Point to Pinnace” so the name is a play on words but also an exact description of what we were doing so it stuck.
The video was finished in a single day, it took about 10 hours to edit. I had to learn how to use editing software then somehow clip up heaps of content and make it a short enough length that people would bother watching it. The Porch to Pinnacle challenge became a core theme of the video.
The Call to Action
After finishing the video I decided to share it with only people that I knew that might actually want to watch it. I went straight to the Hobart Trail Runners Facebook group and uploaded the video along with a call to action to others to attempt the challenge. The video received plenty of engagement with people commenting to plan their runs or sharing previous porch to pinnacles that they had already done.
The Hobart Trail Runners Event
A week or so after posting the video I was on a run up the mountain with Ziggy, Miranda and Dom and we ran into Lincoln and Gareth at Junction Cabin. They recognised us from the video. We got talking about the concept and how it would be a good idea to plan a rendezvous time at the top on a certain day and have a large group descent on the mountain from all directions. After this I didn’t think much more of it. I didn’t have the time or inclination to organise an event.
The folks from the Hobart Trail Runners on the other hand did have the motivation to plan an event and a Facebook event appeared. The concept was Porch to Pinnacle to Pub. As the name suggests it’s the original concept with a finishing line at the Pub. Such a great addition to finish at the pub. There were to be prizes at the pub at the end for a variety of categories.
As the date of the event approached Ziggy and I felt obliged to make an appearance. This time we decided to razz up a crew so we got Miranda and Jared on board to leave from our Lutana house. Lauren got on board and ran from her house in town. We followed our original route up and left with plenty of time to get to the top by the planned time of midday. As you can see Ziggy was extremely keen on the run!!
I took a huge amount of photos and videos from the day and I think I was intending to make a sequel to the original P2P video. Maybe one day I will edit it into something but in the meantime I will leave you with a few photos from the day. Meeting at the top with such a large group on such a glorious day was kind of surreal.
We all ran down the mountain in a large running convoy back to the Cascade Brewery. There was an impromptu aid station setup by a HTR member who wasn’t able to run on the day. We all gathered out the back in the gardens for a beer, some lunch and the awards ceremony.
The event has now gone on to happen again for a second year. I would like to hope that it is now solidified on the Hobart Trail Runners calendar
and becomes a yearly occurrence. I know that I will continue to do these challenges with my housemates for years to come. I’ve even modified it and done a P2P of Collins Bonnet to add another level of difficulty to the challenge. I think the challenge captivates trail runners because we love running up the highest thing we can see from the front door. I look forward to seeing how the concept evolves as the years go on.