Finally managed to complete this gnarly trail in record time. I missed my goal by many hours and nothing about this attempt felt good, but I'll take the win.
The OHT is a beautiful, tough trail. While not especially long at 164 miles, it's an endless series of steep climbs and technical descents that test your quads and knees, and the trail itself is super rocky and covered in leaves which makes it very easy to roll an ankle. You can never let your guard down on the OHT.
Weather has been main my nemesis on this trail. This was my third FKT attempt, but for the first time I wasn’t beholden to my kids’ busy sports schedules so I could actually hunt for a good weather window. Online reports said it would be in the 20s the first day and then warm up, but in reality it was so much colder in the mountains with freezing winds that actually got colder each day. Stopping for more than a few minutes at a time became challenging and I slept less than 2 hours on the entire trail. My water filter kept freezing up so I had to soak it in streams to get it flowing again, while emptying out the ice slush that kept forming in the bladder. Good weather makes such a difference in your ability to stay relaxed and maintain pace, but I guess that’s just one of the challenges of this trail. Christof had even worse weather by the sounds of it, and Jeff Garmire tells a great story about his OHT adventure (I actually ran into Jeff near the end of that trip, he was so cheery you would never know what he’d just endured).
I hung in there the first two days and then hit a real low point on the third. The freezing winds and lack of rest had really worn me down. With time slipping away and another long cold night ahead, I had serious thoughts about packing it in. Somehow in all that fog though I remembered the very good advice on this podcast: never quit at a low point, because these things have a way of turning around. A few miles later I reached Fairview, which is a primitive campground but has an outhouse which offers total protection from the wind. I spent a good half hour in there making hot coffee, rearranging my pack and getting food out for the rest of the trail. I felt warm and relaxed for the first time and it turned my head around completely. There was no chance of making my original goal at that point, but the record was still within reach so I hit the trail with renewed determination (it even warmed up a bit that afternoon). Many miles later, I arrived at Woolum at 4:50 AM, 2 days, 20 hours and 52 minutes after departing Lake Fort Smith. Just for good measure the temperature dropped back below freezing at Woolum and I huddled up in my sleeping bag waiting for my ride.
I did have some good luck as well. Water levels were unusually low due to the drought which made it easy to cross the main rivers. Frog Bayou and Buffalo River were shin to knee deep, and I was able to hop the rocks at Hurricane Creek and stay completely dry. I’ve waded up to my neck in these rivers on past hikes, and once had to swim the Buffalo using my sleeping pad as a flotation device. It would have been really tough doing that in the freezing cold. And despite the drought there was usually enough flow in the smaller creeks and streams that I never went too long without drinking water.
The trail was in very good shape too, which is remarkable considering the state it was in following the freeze a few years back. Huge thanks to the OHT Association for their maintenance efforts.
Thanks also to Christof for setting such a challenging pace and for his wonderful, whacky videos.
Lastly, big thanks to Allison and the folks at Fastest Known Time for making all this possible for everybody. This was probably my last FKT attempt as I’m getting up there in age, but it’s been a really fun journey.