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The Mountain Runners

Released: 2012

Genre: Documentary

Duration: 90 min

Cast: William B. Davis

The Mountain Runners is the story of America's first mountain endurance/adventure foot race, which took place in Bellingham, Washington. First run in 1911, the grueling 28 to 32 mile race to the glacial summit of Mount Baker and back lasted only three years due to its intrepid dangers. Told in a docudrama style, the film incorporates vintage images, historic film, visual graphics and 3D effects, and recreated dramatizations staring William B. Davis (X-Files, Smoking man). The film is well supported by a cast of Cascadian historians, descendants of race participants and a group of world-renowned experts in their field. Interviews with multiple contemporary champion athletes and authors, including: alpine speed-climbers and climbing author, Steve House and Chad Kellogg; ultrarunners Krissy Moehl, Scott Jurek, and Doug McKeever; and Second Wind author Cami Ostman, reveal a look back at the accomplishments of their endurance-athlete predecessors with astonishment. The men who ran these races in 1911-1913 were the early ultramountain runners of their generation. They were not professional athletes, but practiced a variety of vocations, including; woodsmen, loggers, coal miners, a bedspring maker, postman, a milkman and a wrestler. All who ran the race defied death and injury for a $100 purse of gold coin. This is truly an extraordinarily and amazing true story.