Information from the Walker North Country Marathon Website
The red, orange and yellow-toned hues of the abundant fall leaves are on display every year at the running of the Walker North Country Marathon, Half Marathon & 10K, an early-fall road race that takes runners through the winding hills and backwoods forest lands of Minnesota's Chippewa National Forest, on a course that isn't for the "faint of heart," as the race organizers describe -- fewer than five miles of the course takes place on paved surfaces, which makes for a challenging race for any runner.
Run on a point-to-point course that starts at the mile 13 marker of the full marathon (which itself starts and finishes in downtown Walker, Minn.), the half marathon begins just north of Portage Lake, south of Walker and just off Highway 371. From there, the course follows a winding route through the woods and hills of the forest, taking an eastward tack for the first six miles before turning northward at about the half-way point in the half marathon course (and the 3/4-point of the full marathon course).
Along the way, the course takes runners over the "Troll Bridge" just below Anoway Lake, and finally hits paved roads for the last few miles of the race when it hits Sixth Lake Road, a stretch of roadway that runs between the Heartland/Paul Bunyan Trail and a series of lakes on the way back into town, including Long Lake and Lake May. The second half of the race features mostly flat and fast terrain, a welcome respite after the very hilly first half of the race through the forest.
The race finishes at the track and field complex of Walker High School, and features what has become the famous half-mile climb to the finish, a stretch of uphill toward the finish line. Just over 430 runners crossed the finish line in all races combined in 2011, including more than 130 finishers in the half marathon alone.