The Big Sur Loop is no joke! Creek crossings, tech, thin singletrack, a fire road section above the ocean, steep canyon walls, a little of everything out there. "Runnable" climbs where the vert just sneaks up on you. 7400 ft of the total 8300 is in the first twenty miles. This makes the last 10 miles brutal! I started with two bottles in the vest, the Salomon filter bottle for all the creek crossings, 3 Snickers and 2 small sleeves of Ritz crackers. My plan was to stay relaxed as much as possible, be efficient on the climbs and flow the downs. What I didn't know before getting into this route is that there are not a whole lot of flowy downs haha! Outside of the route just being brutal physically, I had a little low point somewhere in the 28-29 mile range. Things just felt beat up, running uphill was sluggish, like more so than earlier in the day. A few bites of my last snickers later, and I closed feeling better than expected! Incredible adventure run. Do be cautious in the Ventana Wilderness though, it gets very deceivingly hot very quick back there. It is extremely remote as well, so some kind of Inreach or Spot Tracker might not be a bad idea. I wouldn't tackle this in the summer either, or at least not to push it.
Athletes
Route
Route variation
lollipop loop
Multi-sport
No
Gender category
Male
Style
Unsupported
Start date
Finish date
Total time
5h
24m
22s
Verification
Report