“Ten weeks ago, was the storm. Nine weeks ago, we started planning.” These words were spoken by one of the organizers of the Old Fort Strong Endurance Festival (OFSEF) in early December and capture the ethos of the ultra-style event that sprang up in western North Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Helene.
A colonialist stronghold during the Revolutionary War and later a trading outpost, the town of Old Fort was once seen as a “gateway to the West” in the foothills of North Carolina’s Appalachian Mountains. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, as that romantic western frontier was pushed ever further, Old Fort lost some of its initial shine. And although the arrival of a railroad line largely kept the town connected to the wider region, Old Fort never took off in the same way as did its upslope neighbor, Black Mountain, or—looking further west—the region’s cultural capital, Asheville.
That’s been changing over the past decade. A collective of individuals and organizations have been working to reposition Old Fort as a modern gateway to the mountains in its own backyard and outdoor recreation opportunities. Through the joint efforts of several local organizations—including race organizers Tanawha Adventures and the non-profit-turned-race-venue Camp Grier—the town with a population of less than a thousand has been gaining attention as an outdoor recreation destination. Just last year, the region’s Hellbender 100-mile race was designated as a qualifier for the Hardrock 100, a move that surely poised Old Fort to turn some heads. But whatever momentum Old Fort’s initiatives had been acquiring in recent years came to a swift halt in late September 2024 when the unprecedented path of Hurricane Helene brought the category 4 storm down on western North Carolina.
“Just prior to the storm, the Old Fort team was about to cut the ribbon on 10 new miles of multi-purpose trails,” said Jason McDougald, director of Camp Grier, which sits at the center of the burgeoning trail network. That addition would have nearly doubled the number of new trail miles built since 2021, and the town had been experiencing firsthand the positive economic impacts. To illustrate the point, McDougald cited the 17 new businesses that have opened since the trail building started.
“[Before Helene] Old Fort was being touted as a best-in-class example of how to do equitable economic development around outdoor recreation,” continued McDougald. “Helene really dealt a blow to that momentum […] Old Fort had been kind of stagnant for a couple of decades and this was really the first signs of life that had come to the town and people had a lot of hope. The devastation [of Helene] has been significant and the recovery is going to be difficult and slow.”

Damage from Hurricane Helene. Photo: Old Fort Strong Endurance Festival
Rebuilding will undoubtedly take time, but the community’s move to catalyze the process was nearly immediate. Just two weeks after the storm, while many in Old Fort were still without running water, Tanawha Adventures and Camp Grier announced registration for the Old Fort Strong Endurance Festival. Set for early December, the event offered 6, 12 and 24-hour race categories for trail runners and mountain bikers on (separate) looped courses to minimize the need for widespread trail maintenance. Participants were also encouraged to act as individual fundraisers in the weeks leading up to the event, with a suggested donation goalpost of $1,500 per racer.
Brandon Thrower, founder of Tanawha Adventures, also hoped the event would provide the community with a “sense of normalcy” and a way to gather that felt supportive, but also celebratory.
“Almost every outdoor endurance-related event in western North Carolina was canceled or postponed following the storm,” said Thrower. “Lots of folks still had goals for the year and this race provided them not only an opportunity to support our local community, but also to give them a physical goal that they could set for themselves with the timed format. We also hoped that this event would be a celebration of two of the largest user groups of the trails.”
The event kicked off at Camp Grier on Friday night with the pre-race meeting, athlete panel, a food truck court and lots of brave huddling around heat lamps as the early December temperatures dipped below freezing. One panel member, John Kelly, an ultrarunner known for his impressive finishes at the Barkley Marathons and a resident of nearby Boone, North Carolina, spoke to me about Helene’s impact in his area. “It’s really kind of the plot of the movie, A Perfect Storm, except in the mountains instead of New England,” said Kelly, describing how the hurricane had collided with a low-pressure system that was parked over the mountains of western North Carolina, unleashing 2 feet of rain in a 24-hour period in some areas.

Festival venue, Camp Grier. Photo: Old Fort Strong Endurance Festival
Kelly continued, “On top of [the rain], the high winds ripped trees out of ground that was just mush, the roots couldn’t hold them, so it was just grabbing those trees and tossing them into tiny creeks that were by then raging torrents… Most of the time, the roads follow the rivers and the creeks because that is where a natural path through the mountains has been carved, and of course, the houses follow the roads.”
Kelly and his family lost power for five days and water for three. But as soon as their utilities were restored, he started looking for ways to help. Despite an outpouring of positive response from the community, Kelly said that he found himself feeling frustrated by the slower bureaucratic channels of some of the larger relief organizations with greater resources. “There were a lot of really critical, immediate needs that couldn’t wait on somebody to fill out the proper form… I knew of two elderly people who were entirely cut-off and had no power.” Kelly went out and bought a generator to deliver to the couple, and then heard about another family in need.
“I thought, “Well the costs here are really going to start adding up, maybe I’ll just do a ‘gofundme’ to cover part of it,” he explained. In a matter of days, Kelly’s fundraiser had raised $30,000 and he assembled a small team to help gather and distribute supplies as promised: fast. Kelly and his impromptu team covered eight counties up and down the NC/TN border, “to find those people who had slipped through the cracks and couldn’t wait for the larger organizations to get moving.”
“There were so many people desperately wanting to help, and I think what I put out really resonated with a lot of people, in that I was putting this money immediately and directly into good use,” offered Kelly. “A lot of people worried, ‘If I donate to this organization, is it actually going to cover anything and do it quickly?’ So, I think a lot of people saw me as a channel to get their cash to where it was needed quickly.”
That same direct action principle was the foundation of the Old Fort Strong Endurance Festival. In its capacity as a non-profit, the race venue, Camp Grier, would act as the distribution vehicle for the donations, which would all be funneled directly back to residents of Old Fort: paying for home repairs for those in the area without flood insurance or, in some cases, paying off remaining mortgages for residents who completely lost their home, to give them a fresh start.
The day of the race seemed to reflect the event’s hopeful mission. At the mass start line, 241 runners and 106 riders formed a jovial crowd before setting off to lap their respective loops. The run loop clocked in at just under 4 miles with 607 feet of elevation gain.

Views from the course. Photo: Old Fort Strong Endurance Festival
By the end of the 6-hour race, the top male and female runners, Robbie Harms (M), Tory Grieves (F) and Marisa Romeo (F)—both female runners tied at the finish time—had all logged nine laps for a total of approximately 35 miles. Winners of the 12-hour race, Tara Jordan (F) and Bradley White (M), tallied 15 and 13 laps for a total of approximately 60 miles and 52miles, respectively. Both the female and male winners of the 24-hour race completed 100-mile distances, with Brian Beal winning the men’s category with 25 laps for 100.06 miles, and Jill Dennes (F) winning overall with 26 laps for 103.5 miles.
With costumed runners, live music and a rotating cast of volunteers serving up hot food at the start/finish aid station, many participants saw the race as an opportunity to push themselves for a good cause. One 24-hour runner, Kevin, more than doubled his previous longest distance during the race, completing 16 laps for a 100k distance.
Though he and his wife had little damage to their home in Asheville, Kevin said that everyone they know in the area has been impacted in some way by Helene, “Impact can be so much more than physical. Everyone who has lost, knows someone who has lost, has seen the damage… has been deeply affected and continues to be affected. I signed up for the race because it gave me an opportunity to use an ability I have to help people who needed help.”
By the end of the weekend, the Old Fort Strong Endurance Festival had raised nearly $960,000. “I’m absolutely floored and encouraged by the outpouring of support from the endurance community for our small little town,” said Thrower. “Old Fort could have been easily forgotten with all the destruction in the area and to have not only the local western North Carolina community show support, but folks from all over the country getting behind the cause either in donating or racing was incredible.”