KEWEENAW PENINSULA (7/9-10/05) - It's about the incredible vistas above the tree line overlooking Lake Superior as sunset approaches.

It's about sneaking a peak - daring to take your eyes off the snaking, root- and rock-filled descent down a treacherously-steep trail - at Lake Manganese glinting way down there in the early-morning sunlight, way down there where we're going to be soon.

It's about slipping and sliding over and through and off and around ankle-deep cobblestones along Lake Superior, on one of the toughest miles of racing any sadist ever devised.

It's about cedar bogs and flowering meadows and slogging through deep loose sand and newly-cut logging trails and steep quad-burning inclines and quad-pounding declines and eyeball-dazzling views in every direction.

And it's about the blueberries, too.

Oh, thank God for the blueberries.

It was the sixth annual Keweenaw Trail Festival, Jeff Crumbaugh's wild and wonderful brainstorm. The first installment drew 70 hearty souls, the latest during a rare unrelenting heat wave in the Upper Peninsula drew 317, ranging in age from 3 to 69, from 22 states and Canada.

Jeff changed two of the venues this year, moving all three events over the two days into Keweenaw County in the northern half of the Keweenaw Peninsula, that piece of the UP that thrusts halfway into Lake Superior.

Saturday morning's trail 10K went from a relatively flat and fast course in McLain State Park to a tough and slow loop course along the Gratiot River recently opened up by the North Woods Conservancy. A fourth event, not scored as part of the trail fest proper, was the kids' 2K held just after the 10K, which also drew a record field, of 35.

Saturday night's 5.8K hill climb remained the you'll-never-forget-it, holy- moley ascent from the beach at Eagle Harbor to the top of Mt. Baldy 821 feet above sea level, where the winds are so fierce no trees can grow. (And though the race ends at the top, what goes up must come down, and so runners can choose a long walk back to town or a tough, tricky run back down.)

Sunday morning's new course saw runners heading out on a relentlessly-tough and endlessly-gorgeous 25K at 7 a.m., starting at the first hole of the Keweenaw Lodge golf course, a scenic vista just about unmatched for the start of a road race anywhere, and taking in Lake Manganese, Lake Fanny Hoey and some of the toughest, coolest trails this side of the Rockies.

Karl Walczak, 25, the Michigan Tech University record-holder at 10,000 meters who decided to stick around Houghton after graduation, won the 10K in 39:19, beating Rick Cahoon, 28, of Blanchard, by one second and Ryan Hackett, 19, of Shepherd by three.

The course was tough, but not so tough as to result in those times. About a half-mile from the finish, on a descent in deep woods, a young volunteer forgot to have the leaders make a sharp left turn. The result? About half the field went off course, the leaders going about half a mile off track before hitting the beach again and realizing they needed to retrace their steps.

Joan Rundman, 43, a legend from Hancock, was ninth overall and the lead woman in 40:10, finishing ahead of a number of men who'd gone farther off track than she had. Margot Hutchins, 25, of Houghton, was second in 40:20, with Heather Curnutt, 31, of Madison, Wis., third in 40:38. The leading men's master was Andy McCarvey, 46, of Milford, Ohio, in 45:38.

Most runners took the snafu in stride, doing a lot more laughing than griping about it at the finish line.

Katie Crawford, 7, of Reynoldsburg, Ohio, led the girls in the 2K, finishing in 10:27, with Mac Schmidt or Verona, Wis., leading the boys in 9:31.

The hill climb began on scorching sand, temperatures still in the upper 80s at 7 p.m. Walczak led everyone to the top, his 23:18 good for a 34- second margin over Kevin Pline, 25, of St. Louis Park, Minn. Cahoon was third, in 24:13. The top master was Al Crawford, 40, of Reynoldsburg, Ohio, in 28:10.

Kristina Owen, 20, of Houghton, was first for the women and 12th overall in 28:41, with Hutchins second in 29:33 and bulldog Rundman third in 30 flat.

Because of the lack of trees, and hence shade, a big blueberry patch just short of the finish line had ripened well ahead of most of the blueberries on the peninsula. Tiny but dripping sweetness, they provided a special post-race pleasure for the runners who took time out for picking before heading back to the beach. The deep-water bay was warmer than it had been in anyone's memory, thanks to the hot June and July, and dozens of runners turned the evening into a duathlon with a nice swim.

It was 75 degrees and 85-percent humidity for the 7 a.m. start of the Sunday's 25K, nearly 90 at the finish, the steam and the heat adding two more exclamation points to a 15.5-mile route filled with them.

After a short loop around the first hole, runners headed down a 2-mile, steep, tricky descent to Lake Manganese, a trail they would run - or mostly walk, in a lot of cases - in reverse for the last two miles of the festival, a fitting finish to a test-of-fitness weekend.

Again, Walczak was the winner, the first time in the event's history that anyone had won all three races in the same year. Last year, he won the 10K and 25K. He finished in 1:40:42, more than five minutes slower than in 2004 to give you an idea of how an already-grueling course was made even tougher. Jim Harrington, 40, of Negaunee, was a distant second in 1:43:35, with Cahoon third in 1:48:07.

Curnutt led the women and was 18th overall in 2:08:50, just six seconds ahead of Rundman, with Shawn Oppliger, 43, of Hancock third in 2:14:05.

Walczak, of course, won the three-race series, with Cahoon second and Pline third. Rundman led the women, with Curnutt second and Hutchins third.

Jeff reports that the series will again be held on the second weekend of July next year, and he was so happy with the new locations and by the support of officials and Keweenaw Lodge, which provided lodging, Friday night's spaghetti dinner and Sunday's post-run breakfast, that the festival will again be held in Keweenaw County.

For information, contact him at jcrumbaugh@charter.net. MR