I slept in my car at the Museum Trailhead and got started at 4:37 am. It's pretty hard to follow the initial trail by headlamp; there are several different overlapping switchbacks that are all marked by white paint. After bumbling around for 20 minutes or so, I got in a groove and was able to run all the way up to about 7000', with some hiking on real steep and rocky sections. I hit Grubbs Notch at 2:27:05, then ran to the ranger station to quickly fill out a permit. It was closed on account of being so early, but filled one out because it's required to enter the wilderness area. I was glad I started early because I felt cool, even chilly all the way up, and filled up two of the three bottles I started with in Long Valley Creek after the ranger station. The rest of the way to the summit is much more runnable and nice trail than Skyline, but is still very rocky and there were several sections of ice the last three miles up. I clambered up to the summit at 3:36:56, which I believe is an uphill FKT.
After a couple pictures I headed right back down and cruised down the ice towards Long Valley. Right before the campground where I filled up all three bottles (I would need them) using the spigot next to the trail, I fell really hard on my right knee and hands. I rubbed some dirt in it and carried on, hoping it would just fade away. Finally, I started to head back down Skyline, which as Brett Maune (the previous FKT holder before David Hedges said "is a serious endeavor and should not be taken lightly." Very true. This is an 8000' downhill back down into the heat, with extremely technical and steep terrain that requires focus the whole time, with no water sources and hardly any shade. I got lucky with conditions this year, because usually in the springtime it is too hot to attempt this by the time the snow melts up high. This year the range has been plagued by nonexistent snowpack. Either way, I ran through all three bottles on the way down, and almost fell a hundred more times. I was forced to run as hard as I could the last couple miles down to the museum because I was so close to David's roundtrip time, and ended up hitting the trailhead at 6:10:15, only 21 seconds faster than David.
This is a true American classic, one of the biggest climbs in the whole country, and requires a lot of good timing, luck, focus, and prudence with fueling and hydration. Very psyched to pull it off! I had tried before in the summer and retreated with fear of dying.