The Team




Key Crew

Mrs. Skrapple - aka Amy Reeves - forms the heart of the aid stations, transportation, moral support, and cook.  Without her, no TarDevil.

Mimi Skrappette - Has volunteered for every TarDevil and continues to show the type of enthusiasm and appreciateion for the outdoors, camping, hiking, and trails that makes her father proud...wait..now she is 15 and will have nothing to do with her father unless it involves transportation.

Ava Skrappette - Has evolved past her TarDevil volunteering role for other teenage pursuits but her father is grateful for her previous participation and their periodic trail runs.

Lily Skrappette - Is off in college but periodically checks in on Dad's running addictions.

HOW DID YOU GET INTO BUSHWHACKING, SKRAPPLE?
A San Francisco native, Skrapple got his first set of stitches, exploring his back yard, off-trail, while climbing hills after he moved to Marin County at age 5 in the early 70's.   From there, the family moved to southwestern Oregon, near Azelea and Crater Lake, lived off the grid, and for two years Skrapple rock-hopped with his Dad on Cow Creek, missed out on kindergarten graduation, and enjoyed the functioning minimalism of outhouses and hen houses. The real adventures started when the family moved to Rose Brook Farm, in Greene County, VA,  with 200 head of cattle and 400 acres just below the Shenandoah National Park.  With only three TV stations and a parental-instilled seven-hour weekly TV time limit, life outdoors became the norm. Daniel Boone was the inspiration for paths and forts and wandering through the Blue Ridge mountain foot hills paradise became entertainment and education. 

After a decade of global exploring, Skrapple married and settled down in Durham, NC in the late 90's and started walking, exploring neighborhoods daily and eventually entered a 5k, which he struggled to complete and was nearly last to finish.  He started running serioulsy when he and his wife Amy  moved back to San Francisco, shortly after their first daughter, Lily Louise was born in 2003.  The many city parks and consistent climate offered plenty of days and dirt trails to explore, even if sandwiched by various neighborhoods and hills.  From his house on Liberty Street near Dolores Park, Skrapple could run in many directions, and ultimately hit trails at Golden Gate Park.

Shortly after Skrapple and fam moved to Carrboro, North Carolina in 2005 a neighbor, Peter Lee, showed Skrapple the 1000 acre Horace Williams tract, now called Carolina North, an essentially undisturbed paradise of a green space, with a trailhead just a block away from their homes.  Soon after, Skrapple shifted running from pavement to trails almost entirely.  

In 2006, a colleague, Joe Lea (Marmot), an ultra runner for the TrailHeads, a local group of extra-ordinary and ordinary trail runners, took Skrapple on an off-trail adventure near Perimeter (Ocaneechee). In 2009, Kurt Rosenkrantz (Snuffy) finally convinced Skrapple to join the TrailHeads and the trail running addiction exploded to new levels.

In 2015, while running near forbidden, a renewed off trail interest drove Skrapple and fellow Trailhead Dropkick, to start exploring old still sights.

Then, one day in 2017, while questioning how to get across I-40, well, let's just say a few culverts solved the route obstacles and the idea was born: 

Run from UNC to Duke on mostly trails, crossing a few creeks and rivers, going under I-40, and respecting every step of the way. 

With permission granted from a few very kind private land owners for a once a year passing, a 'non-event' was created.

Giving Back

A few old stills still remain

Skrapple has led multiple clean-ups with his daughters, their friends and fathers, having cleared nearly 50 bags of trash and 5000 pounds of dump sites, including abandoned water heaters, aluminum roofing materials, tires, and thousands of old glass and plastic bottles and cans over the course of the past seven years. This photo is from the 2018 clean up, one of four we have completed around Carolina North. 


What about that rascally TarDevil?

The TarDevil,
the actual one.

Un-named as of yet, the original concept image was created by Lily Louise Reeves, during her junior year of high school.  An update for the five-year running sees a more buff, slightly faster, and clothed version with help from Lane at The Splinter Group.  

The TarDevil is the rascally runner representing the mash-up off-spring if a Duke Blue Devil and UNC Tar Heel ram conceived a bushwhacking ultra runner. 

The Run

I've changed the name a few times but have landed on "Bushwhack" since in it's essence, that is what we are doing.  But depending on who may be listening, you may see the run defined as: