Start time: Saturday, August 9th, 4:52am (based on watch track)
Unsupported: I traveled solo, carried all of my food from the beginning and filtered water along the way. I stored my food in a bear canister, which is required in most of the areas.
Tracker: Garmin Inreach Mini (full track) and Coros watch (for first 166 miles before watch died) and then using strava on phone.
Day 1: Similar to previous attempts my overall goal was to make it to Woods creek Bridge, knowing that the first day will have a lot of elevation gain at high altitude. I was intimidated but took it easy up Mt Whitney and got to the top after around 4 hours and 12 minutes. Dropping down from Whitney I could see and smell the smoke from the LA fire and was hoping it would move out.
I was making good time, eating and hydrating well and had otherwise just a lovely long day out there. I got to Glen Pass right by sunset, which was nice to have a bit of sunlight left to cross the pass.
I made it down to Woodscreek and slept for about 1.5-2 hours.
Day 2: I got going again around 3am on Sunday morning to begin the climb up Pinchot pass. Both Pinchot and Mather pass were harder and lower moving than I remember. Climbing up Muir Pass was a slog and in my mind I was behind schedule but I was still plenty ahead of FKT time. My terrible blister management skills led to a ripped open heel early on which was a throbbing pain with every step going up Muir. Once again, I made it to the top of my last pass of the Day 2 right by sunset. It was beautiful and I had the pass and hut all to myself.
I dropped down and made to about 3-4 miles out from Muir Ranch Junction before I took another 2 hour nap.
Day 3: Day 3 started off with a nice climb up Selden pass. I dreaded it based on previous reports but because I got to climb it in the sunrise hours it was lovely and felt easy compared to the previous days. I saw a cute little bear on the e way up.
I noticed my left knee had swollen up like a cantalope and was trying to mitigate it with compression, which did not do much. I wrapped it in a soaked bandana which felt nice but I’m not sure it did anything. Eventually this would go away throughout the attempt.
I felt motivated to move ahead because I knew the passes would be lower from here on and I had passed the halfway point.
My goal for the day was to get just passed Red Meadow turn off/Devils. The decent into Red Meadows feels forever (although it is fairly runnable), but my shoes got filled with kitty litter every mile, which I’m convinced contributed significantly to the status of my feet at the end of the FKT. I made it to the set goal later than I thought around 3am and decided to take a 30 min nap.
The 30 min nap was interrupted by a mouse being very interested in my backpack filled with food. So I got up earlier with less sleep enjoying my morning horchata with instant coffee!
Day 4: Garnet Lake and thousand lake area was extremely dry and I ran out of water a few times. It felt like a hot sauna that day. Any interactions I may had with hikers did not feel very real due to sleep deprivation. It felt more like an out of body experience and a person next to me saying hello to other hikers vs myself.
The last big pass of the trail: Donahue pass. I thought it was all in the bags and I had to just keep going to get the FKT. Boy was I wrong! The climb up Donahue was significantly harder with big boulders than I remember. On the top is started to rain (to me out of nowhere), which felt nice but the downhill has the tiny inconvenient rock stairs which got very slippery and slidy with all the dry and now wet dust on it. I noticed to doze off and being very sleepy on the downhill and decided to take a 30 min Power Nap when I hit the bottom meadows. A group of women was very concerned and woke me up to make sure I’m ok. The 30 min nap felt great but I entered a first hallucination episode thinking that I had decided to be done and someone will pick me up. I believe I remember I thought I had to walk backwards and so I think I walked back and forth for a while, realizing that there is no road close by unless I get to Tolumne Meadows and nobody will pick me up and I’m still in this. I woke out of this first episode and continued to Tolumne Meadows, which felt forever.
I started the last few little climbs up before dropping into Yosemite Valley. There was nobody out there and it was a nice night. However, my thoughts and mind started to really drift off into craziness. Getting closer to John Muir Sierra High camp, I was drifting off to the side multiple times while accidentally closing my eyes. I remember sending a satellite text to my crew who was waiting at Happy Isles, saying that I think it’s safer if I take a quick nap before dropping down.
From there, I don’t quite remember what happens over 4-5 hours. What I can put together is that I walked off trail into the woods, I saw people, cars, moving bark and whatever else. I said that I have to get down into the valley but whoever was “there” assured me they can give me a ride down. I must have wondered around in the woods and eventually sleep for a few hours before waking up on the ground. I wasn’t sure where I was but the cars and people were gone.
I finally decided to check my map and noticed I’m still close to sierra high camp and just a bit off the trail. I satellite texted my crew assuring them that I was ok and alive (they almost called SAR on me) and on my way down. Being more and more awake and Starting to move, I realized: even though this party in the woods cost me almost the entire time, I had enough buffer before to still get the record.
That meant to run the last 12 miles to happy isle in less than 3 hours. I started to book it down the mountain, apologizing to other hikers knowing that I must look insane. I lost my water bottle having to crawl under a tree at some point and so I did not have any water until the end.
I made it down to Happy Isles in tears, exhausted and in disbelieve at 9:50am on Wednesday, August 13th leading to a total time of 4 days 4 hours and 58 minutes.
I would like to thank my coach Joe "Stringbean" for the incredible support and advice to get me ready for this and to my partner and friends who welcomed me at Happy Isles