Laura Gould and I started out on the Press route at the North Fork of the Quinault on 7/18/20 just after 5 am, no one else ran with us. We made good time up to Low Divide, tree'd one bear on the Quinault side and crossed many streams. From Low Divide down to almost Chicago Camp there were many downed trees and the trail was very overgrown. That portion of the trail is also more technical so it took us longer than expected. However we made good time along the Elwha. We each carried our own food and filtered water 4x from streams/rivers using an amazing MSR water filter!! I wore the Altra Timps and a pair of running darn tough socks and while my feet were very tired and sore at the end i only had one small blister. I mostly relied on Skratch nutrition (bars and gummies) and consumed 1770 calories. Laura consumed approximately 2500 calories.
We had our second bear sighting on the Elwha side. He was headed towards us on the trail so we moved out of his way! We also lost the trail once due to downed trees, which slowed us a bit.
We used my husband's Inreach for the GPX track which shows the entire length of our trip, including walking out from Whiskey Bend to the Madison Falls parking lot. My Strava time also includes the last stretch we walked out after reaching whiskey bend TH at 44 miles. We reached the Whiskey Bend TH with a time per both of our garmin connect watches of 12:08:14.
It was a beautiful, hot and sunny day!
Comments
Oops - should be “sighting” in second paragraph.
Hey guys, congrats on the record! As it turns out, I SAW you guys at Low Divide on Saturday Morning! I had walked southwest out of camp to get water, had a small pack with water containers, wearing a green hat and swim trunks. I stepped off the trail as you ran by just 200 yards before the campsites. I too some amazing pictures that morning in the meadows and on the previous evening.
I'm writing a lengthy blog about my group's 7 day hike along the exact same trail you ran in stunning time. I told them that there were insane speed records for this traverse but had no idea we would see one right before our eyes, much less a record time. It was indeed a hot sunny day, and I don't know how you got up and down those ridges so quickly. Well done!!!