My friend (who did not want to be recorded for the FKT) and I started just after 3:11am on Saturday October 4th. We each carried our own supplies. We started at the Old Barn Shelter Parking Lot just off hwy 462. This is the tip of the stick from the lollipop for this route. This adds to the distance of the route by quite a bit so I am unclear if that is technically part of the requirement for this FKT route. But I have photos with timestamps of the start of the route, where I hit the actual loop, where i came back to the loop for the second, where the 2 loops ended and then the final end to again the tip of the lollipop stick.
We walked for about 5 hours in the dark to start, and about halfway through the first loop got lost for a bit, went back and forth trying to figure it out. The trail was marked AT one way and then 'wrong way' the other but ultimately this 'wrong way' was actually the pioneer descent that is per the FKT page the official route, but since it said wrong way it took a few tries to figure this out. You will see this on my trackers - so unfortunately lost some time here. A second time towards the end of the first loop we turned too early and had to backtrack-again losing time. I felt great after the first loop which was about 27ish miles back to the end of the lollipop stick where I got more water and food that I had left at the parking lot. After a short time doing this, approximately 15-20 minutes rest, we began the second loop in reverse. I felt great for the next 10-12 miles but the last 14ish things were hard but I pushed through, dug deep into the pain cave and finished beating the current self-supported men's time. If the lollipop isn't part of the loop my time is even faster. Ultimately this was longer than excepted coming in closer to 54 miles but I'm super proud of myself for completing this and coming in under the current time. My longest hike to date was about 28 miles so this was almost double.
I do have a video that I will be sharing on YouTube - my channel is Hiking_Heather but I won't share it until I know if I actually got the FKT. Here is the link to my YouTube channel. https://youtube.com/@hiking_heather?si=mnqbEwnzIIV0_q2h
Editor's note: Azure agreed to be listed on the FKT so that it could be classified as team self-supported instead of solo supported. -NB