Hikers took on the Rachel Carson Trail Challenge on Saturday, which started at sunrise at the Harrision Hills Park in Allegheny County and ended at sunset at the North Park in Allegheny County.

A handful of Butler County residents rose to the Rachel Carson Trail Challenge this weekend.

The challenge, which completed its 24th year, is a 37-mile hike over a single day from Harrison Hills Park in Harrison Township, Allegheny County, to North Park, Allegheny County. Many who complete the journey will spend days recovering.

Ryan Gold, 37, of Summit Township, said he faced the challenge two years ago, but he fared much better in the challenge and the recovery afterward this year.

“The first time I did it, I was in shambles, I could barely walk for a week,” Gold said. “With the knowledge I have now, I'm doing a lot better.”

The event also features two shorter challenges, an 18-mile hike and a 7-mile family hike, all of which are promoted not as a race, but as challenges of endurance.

Christine Holt, 56, of Butler, and Trudy Neff, 55, of Boyers, also tried the 37-mile challenge two years ago, and they came up short, unable to finish in time. They spent a lot more hours training of the past couple years before rewriting that story this year.

“This time, we came back to make sure we finished it and completed it,” Holt said.

The pair left just after sunrise, like most of the other hikers, and they finished just before this year's cutoff at 8 p.m. For them, it didn't matter how long it took.

“My goal was just to finish it. That's it,” Neff said. “It was just a challenge to myself.”

This is an excerpt from an article that appeared in Monday's Butler Eagle.