Inspired by route creator Josh Hejl. We thought this would be a fun way to celebrate our seventeenth wedding anniversary, Mixed team, male-female, unsupported. We left our house on bikes around 0410 and biked a short distance to our route start-stop point on smith road. Between the two bikes and packs we had all the gear and food we would use for the day, with the exception of water refills which were obtained from various mountain streams en-route. We then rode to, and climbed Government peak in a rather cold rain, finishing our descent very wet, muddy and a little bruised from falling so many times at the 3.5 hr mark. A cold ride to Pioneer peak with lessening rain helped to dry us out and allowed a more pleasant ascent/descent of Pioneer. Round trip time on south Pioneer peak was about 5.5 hrs, with glimpses of sunshine through the clouds and fog. Fresh bear and sheep sign near the top reminded us we had more animal than human company for most of the day! That changed as we survived a busy bike ride--back out knik river road and over to the safety of the bike path on the old glenn highway--to finally arrive at smith road trailhead. Shortest route up McRobert's creek led us to our final summit (Matanuska) of the day and then the freight train got rolling as we blitzed back down McRobert's valley, finally close enough to the end that we could really run! Round trip on Mat peak was just over 3.5 hrs. We hit the bikes at the trailhead and a 32 mph descent led us to our start/stop point and we were done. Round trip 15 hrs 16 min.
Route notes: Josh started and stopped at his house in downtown palmer which is near the shortest routes between peaks. We elected to start/stop on the route itself, thinking this allows anyone to choose their own starting point anywhere between the three peaks, so long as they return under their own power to the same point at the end. The biking comprised much less than 50% of our total time as per FKT website guideline--about 3.5 hours total of the 15 plus hour trip. We had no pacers, and no company besides each other, except for passing by two hikers on Pioneer and a couple groups on Matanuska. We ate four egg burritos, a bunch of peanut butter/maple syrup mix, some chips, pickle juice and too many bottles of tailwind--all food carried from the house. Finally, due to previous bad decisions in his life, Ben was stuck riding on a single speed cyclocross bike with his children's back packs strapped to it as terrible, improvised saddle bags.