By Nick Sparr

Each year, 150 high-school harriers gather in Oregon’s remote high desert for a week with Harland Yriarte, an accomplished athlete and retired track and cross-country coach. At his Steens Mountain Running Camp, Yriarte teaches runners the values of working as a group and overcoming daily obstacles to improve their running.

The camp removes athletes 13 to 19 years of age from modern comforts and places them in the erratic environment at 9000 feet of southeast Oregon for a unique trail-running experience. Junior-varsity athletes sleep in military-style tents alongside state champions. Yriarte intentionally creates a mix of backgrounds and ability levels to force team cohesion.

In 1975, the original camp consisted of 14 members from Yriarte’s high-school cross-country team. “I had a bunch of great kids who valued ‘Individualism’ above ‘Team.’ I knew just the place to take them to remove the ‘Me’ way of thinking and replace it with ‘We,’” says Yriarte.

That first year provided a fair dose of trials and tribulations including rain, hail, snow, wind that blew away tents, wet sleeping bags and high altitude. Unfortunately, the camp unexpectedly ended when Art Crook, the bus driver, was struck and killed by lightning. “We went back home and dedicated the season to our driver. Our boys won the State Championship,” says Yriarte, who re-tells this story each year to illustrate the real dangers present while running on the mountain as well as the value of united effort.

Today, Yriarte is joined by big names in the distance running community such as Melody Fairchild, University of Oregon alumni and two-time Footlocker champion with the 5K course record of 16:39, and Tom Heinonen, 2006 inductee to the US Track and Field and Cross-Country Coaches Hall of Fame and former University of Oregon head coach. Additionally, head coaches of Oregon universities including Kelly Sullivan, Matt McGuirk, Marnie Mason and Grady O’Connor regularly attend.

“Listening to all these runners … guys that accomplished so much, they have a lot of wisdom to offer,” says Nate Ellis, two-time camper who went on to compete for Northern Arizona University’s cross-country and track and field programs. “Sometimes it was overwhelming being in the presence of those people.”

Campers must quickly acclimate at Steens. On day two, they are required to complete a run of up to eight miles long. Here, the ego that Yriarte attempts to temper can cause real damage. Turning the easy tempoed run into an on-the-spot race to gain recognition from staff members and peers will lead to sore muscles and depleted energy stores just before “The Big Day.” This, the defining feature of Steens Mountain Running Camp, consists first of a 14-mile hike across rugged singletrack trail. Food and water for the day are carried on each camper’s back with brief opportunities to refill at natural sources. The hike is followed by a seven-mile run-walk (one minute on/one minute off); runners are divided into groups based on self-proclaimed ability level.

In 2003, my first year as a camper, I had been less than prepared for the Big Day. After the “elite” group had been reduced from 35 to 13, Lauren Jespersen, 2001 Oregon high school state champion and competitor for Stanford University, stopped the group to say, “Sometimes it requires more courage to admit when you are defeated.” I looked at my high school teammate and we both decided to be courageous that day. Nine campers continued onward while my teammate and two others waited at the side of the trail for a slower group to pass.

At the end of seven miles you can refill water at a stream before heading up a 1.5-mile ascent. At the top, Yriarte greets each camper that has successfully completed the trek with a choice: take the bus back to camp or travel the seven miles of rolling hills through high desert heat on foot. Pre-Big Day resolutions to complete the entire 30-miler are soon forgotten or abandoned as campers slouch into a bus seat to escape the sun and rest weary legs. Still, a hardy few accept their burden with season goals in mind and wind their away along jeep roads to home base.

That night, campers rest sore, stiff bodies by the camp fire and re-tell tales of the Big Day. During my time at Steens, two campers sitting next to me praised the generosity of another camper, a cross-town rival of theirs during the cross-country season, who saw that they were dehydrated and offered them his own limited water supply.

After The Big Day’s 30 miles through rattlesnake-infested, rocky terrain, the campers commence what is known as the Steens Mountain Olympics. Divided by tents, the campers compete in a series of events that test their ability to cooperate, endure and work through stress. “Every one is neat and tidy when they are rested and not fatigued, just like the easy part of a race,” says Yriarte. “When the body tires, the ‘Me’ in every person kicks in and selfishness takes over. Goals and teamwork are diminished or forgotten.”

One of these trying events is the Cross Canyon 5K. After buses drop the campers off at a gravel road, they must walk-jog eight miles to the crest of a hill. ‘You see that yellow dot over there?’ begins Yriarte, addressing 150 faces staring back at him. “That’s your bus. You must arrive there together with each individual from your tent.” In other words, each team is truly as fast as their slowest runner. The campers timidly eye the series of camel humps between them and the bus, hardly visible three miles away. There is no trail and no clear path–the campers must race through sage brush, rocks, streams and occasionally abandoned barbed wire.

The Cross Canyon found me screaming down the first hill and back up the next. Over my teammates flailing limbs and frantic breathing, I heard what sounded like thunder and soon found myself in the midst of a cattle stampede. The cattle only motivated tired legs; our group crossed the finish line, arms linked, within five seconds of the Cross Canyon record. The course is treacherous but the lessons learned are worth the scrapes and bruises.

Above all, campers are left with a new perspective on running. “Just going up there and knowing you can cover 30 miles in a day or race five kilometers without any course markings makes the 5K during season feel easy,” says Eric Zeuthan, two-time camper and member of Portland State University’s cross-country and track and field programs.

Steens Mountain Running Camp has been the pre-season training destination for 21 team state title holders and 59 individual state champions. Former campers include Ian Dobson and Max King, both members of the 2006 USA World Championships, as well as collegiate great Erik Heinonen, member of the University of Colorado’s 2006 National Championship team.

Registration for Steens Mountain Running Camp is available online (www.steensmountainrunningcamp.net). Session 1 runs July 22 to 28 and Session 2 from July 29 to August 4. E-mail Harland Yriarte at steensmt@comcast.net or call 541.342.2337.