With the USA Trail Marathon championships a little over a month away, I wanted to put in a really solid effort on Stuart Peak. I've been to the top of this mountain many times, but never given a round trip speed attempt an honest go.
I started at the main Rattlesnake Trailhead and followed the main corridor trail to Spring Gulch. For the first two miles, spring gulch has a trail on either side of the creek. I took the northern trail (second left on the corridor). Either trail takes you to the same point after two miles, but the northern trail is a little wider and faster, in my opinion. I followed the Spring Gulch/ Stuart Peak Trail all the way to the Rattlesnake Wilderness boundary, and continued on the Stuart Peak trail all the way to the Stuart Peak ridge. From there, I took the climbers trail to the summit of Stuart. I went the exact same way down.
My ascent time was 1:19, and descent was just under 49 minutes. I felt okay on the way up, but not amazing. The first 3 miles aren’t especially steep, the next three are the steepest, and the final 3 aren’t very steep until the very end. During the middle section I felt pretty exhausted and was worried I wasn’t going to have my best time, so I tried to keep the effort really consistent and knew that when the grade lessened I would feel better. Sure enough, the final 3 miles felt smooth and I was able to get my heart rate down before the descent.
On top, I summited and turned around immediately. No time to enjoy the view today!
The downhill section isn’t very technical, so I was able to keep the pace right above 5 minute miles. Since it was October and the bears start getting more active in the lower country, I made sure to make plenty of noise on the descent. As my effort increased my hoots and hollers for the bears started turning into yells and howls that sounded more like I was at a rave. I saw one hiker who had definitely heard me howling, and we just laughed when we passed each other.
With 3 miles to go it got pretty tough, but I hammered it out and finished just under 2:10. Running downhill like that was a lot of fun, but it definitely took a while before my legs felt okay again. The previous FKT was 2:33.