I decided to give this FKT a shot after ascending Lone Eagle by the Solo Flight with a round trip time of 6:25 on Sunday, September 15. After seeing the mark to beat was 4:40, I kind of thought that it might be possible to beat- a thought I've never had before when looking at FKTs as I'm not a particularly fast runner. So, I was excited to give this a try!
The forecast for the following weekend (September 21-22) called for snow Friday night, so I decided to wake up early and hit the trailhead at sunrise Friday and squeeze this one in before the weather moved in.
I departed the Monarch Lake trailhead and started timing from the gate around sunrise after saying hi to three large moose hanging around the trailhead. I ran ~7.5 miles and 2000' vert up to Crater Lake in 1:28 and felt good when I hit the lake. I did not stop for water as I was carrying ~3 liters and had plenty left at this point, but I did take a quick photo for verification. I downed some caffeine at Crater Lake, where the route becomes much steeper and a little scrambly as it rounds the East side of Lone Eagle Peak. The route sticks very close to the base of the near-vertical rock fin that is the Southeast face of Lone Eagle Peak. After traversing Southeast, the route turns Southwest and moves up the fairly steep face of the peak. The route is somewhat poorly marked in places and a bit hard to follow, but that's the nature of these scrambly routes. The GPS track jumps around a bit on the steep face but the route I followed to the summit included maybe 5-10 moves of 4th-class downclimbing on great rock with bomber holds.
I stayed a little too high on the ridge traverse to the summit of Lone Eagle (not actually the highest point on the ridge, but the striking precipice that towers over the lake) which cost just a few minutes meaning I summited in 2:27 narrowly missed out on the ascent-only FKT by about 4 minutes. Bummer! But I was still keen to try for the round trip FKT.
At the summit are two pipe sections that contain summit logs. I snapped some photos of these as well as myself at the summit for verification and quickly turned to head down. The route down is easier to follow as cairns are more visible from above. This is an out-and-back, so the route back is the same as the route up. The boulder field on the East side of Lone Eagle is not terribly loose so it's possible to cruise down it pretty quickly. I descended back to Crater Lake with the watch reading 3:08 elapsed and 10.8 miles traveled. Once back off the boulders and on the footpath, the last ~7.5 miles went down in 1:15 for a final time of 4:23:33. The trail is pretty easy to follow with some short rocky/gravelly sections scattered among mostly flat, easy miles. A fast road runner could probably blow this time out of the water.
I just wore tights and a sun hoody as the forecast was pretty good: 35 °F and clear at the start and maybe 55 °F and sunny when I finished. I drank only about 2 liters of water and probably should have cracked open that 3rd liter I carried the whole time as I was feeling a little dried out by the end. I basically did not stop moving except once for a bio-break and a handful of quick moments to evaluate route options on the scrambly bits. Did not see any moose after the trailhead, which I was a little nervous about.
Overall this was a fun morning and I'd encourage any fast runner to go out and break the 4-hour mark on this one. I spent about 60% of the time on this one basically running on easy terrain, 35% climbing sections too steep for me to run, and maybe only about 5% of the time truly scrambling. Lone Eagle Peak is an incredible feature and this route has some absolutely amazing views with easy scrambling on great rock. Extremely fun, highly recommend either as a run or just a relaxed day hike.