Twas the morning of March 6th. Ryan mountain stood across the valley of joshua trees. Saddleback rock sat below it. I had heard of the Right On FKT set by Jason Hardwrath two days before. I had climbed the route many times, and after seeing Jason had accomplished it in 38 minutes, I was fairly certain it could be done faster. At approximately 7:40am I drove to the Hall of Horrors parking area jamming to Underdog by Alicia Keys. The song was fitting for the adventure because Jason is an idol of mine.
I began the run at 7:58am. I opted to solo the climb as I had done many times before. I threw on my La Sportiva Mythos at the base and climbed to the top. I downclimbed, put my Altras on, and then ran back. I finished the FKT in 23 minutes and 4 seconds delighted in my effort! And I made it back to Hidden Valley Campground just in time for climbers coffee.
Comments
Travis!
So stoked to see someone give this route a pure, clean rip!
You cleaned up every single minute of "soft time" that I wrote about and even went 2 minutes faster than that:
Psyched that this has a real time now! This is awesome.
Your inclusion of me in your write up (and comparison to Alicia Key's "Underdog") gave me a smile for sure!
With Stoke,
Jason Hardrath