Vaughan announced the intention to tackle the Infinity Loop as follows:
OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: RAINIER INFINITY LOOP ONLY KNOWN TIME* ATTEMPT AND YOUTH PROGRAM FUNDRAISER. Beginning Saturday July 23rd around 4:00pm Gavin Woody and I will attempt the Mount Rainier Infinity Loop. This is a route dreamed up by iconic Washington climber Chad Kellogg, but which he was never able to complete due to his untimely passing. Gavin and I will depart Paradise, climb Disappointment Cleaver, descend the Emmons Glacier and Inter Glacier, run the Wonderland Trail clockwise back to Paradise. There we will rest briefly and resupply. We will then again climb Disappointment Cleaver, descend the Emmons Glacier and Inter Glacier, and then run the Wonderland counterclockwise to Paradise once again. Each of the two loops will be unsupported, carrying all of our gear, food, and trash from beginning to end, and only taking water from natural sources. Seventy-two hours would be a great performance for me on this project, but I suspect it will take more in the ninety-six hour range.
Our Mount Rainier Infinity Loop attempt is meant to be a celebration of the amazing and extraordinary things that Human Beings are capable of. Gavin and I are drawing our inspiration from the life and adventures of Chad Kellogg, and hope to send that energy and inspiration reverberating out into the world to inspire others as it has us. And we also hope to use this project to inspire future generations of climbers, runners, thru-hikers, fastpackers, backpackers, and adventurers of all stripes by helping raise money for The Mountaineers Youth Programs by means of the Our Parks | Your Adventure initiative. Please click the link below to learn more about the program and to donate.
mountaineers-2691.wedid.it/502
Whether you give $10 or $5,000 your donation will help introduce deserving young people to the fulfillment and enrichment of outdoor adventure, essentially helping to reintroduce them to their natural habitat. Plus, EVERY DONATION WILL BE MATCHED DOLLAR FOR DOLLAR. This means that if you donate $10 dollars, the Youth Program receives a total of $20. If you donate $5,000, the program receives $10,000. So please donate today to help train, inspire, and empower the adventurers of tomorrow. That way the next generation will be out doing cool shtuff when we're old, so we'll have interesting things to read about in our dotage.
You can follow our progress on our SPOT transponder beginning around 4:00pm on Saturday July 23rd at:
share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0tkL8TsPPZ0FdFCek5itYbKZGMHtEMiQv
We will post updates when possible, which will only be three or four times throughout the entire project, so keep an eye on our Facebook and Instagram.
Complete details of the route, it's history and design, an explanation of the OKT asterisk, and my relationship with The Mountain can be found on Ultrapedestrian.com here:
ultrapedestrian.blogspot.com/2016/07/mount-rainier-infinity-loop-only-known.html
and on the beta version of our new site here:
thegrid.ai/ultrapedestrian/mount-rainier-infinity-loop/
Please share the Our Parks/Your Adventure link (or this entire post) to your social media to help inspire the next generation of High Oder Hominids!
What a Blessing to be a Biped! Give Thanks for Life!
#RainierInfinityLoop #ZeroLimits #BeTrailReady #RunLonger #LifePoints #PureNaturalEnergy #Team7hills
mountaineers-2691.wedid.it/502
Vaughan announced the successful completion of the Infinity Loop as follows:
THE MOUNT RAINIER INFINITY LOOP IS IN THE BOOKS, and it is an amazing honor to be a part if it. Gavin Woody and I put up an official time of 99 hours and 7 minutes, sneaking it in under the three digit mark by less than an hour. We ran two unsupported loops, one clockwise and one counterclockwise, traversing the summit of Mount Rainier twice, and resupplying at our cars at the midway point in Paradise. We got all of our water, other that what we took from our cars at the beginning and middle, from natural sources and did not drop off any of our gear or garbage except at our cars. So, for all my beloved Adventure Dorks out there, technically it was a self-supported project comprised of two unsupported loops. And for the record, I did forage some berries along the route.
This project was also a big success as a fundraiser for the Mountaineers Youth Program. The Mount Rainier Infinity Loop raised a little over our goal of $5,000, plus those funds are being matched dollar for dollar, generating a total of $10,000 + to help reintroduce youths to the great outdoors, hiking, climbing, and adventuring.
An Armchair Alpinist long before I ever touched an ice axe, I've been strongly influenced in my approach to adventure by the values of climbers such as Chad Kellogg (who designed the Rainier Infinity Loop). "Fast and Light", "sustainable pace", "fair means", and "good style" are all precepts I hold dear, and they are all paradigms I have applied to fastpacking, thru-hiking and adventure running, but that had their origins in Alpinism. I was especially Blessed over the last four days to do my best to apply these values to a dream route of Chad's that he was never able to attempt. I'm certain it would have looked a bit different done by him. There were a few specifics that I didn't know about his vision of the Infinity Loop and Gavin and I made a couple small choices that are ours alone. But our goal was to complete it in a fashion that would honor and propagate the inspiration we took from Chad's life and adventures, and I feel we did that to the best of our abilities. May the circle of inspiration spiral ever onward into the endlessly amazing possibilities of future generations of adventurers.
I was also quite blessed to have the opportunity to do this project with Gavin. There are not as many people as you might think who really understand the beauty and the simple purity of carrying an ice axe, crampons, harness and other assorted climbing kit esoterica for 93+ miles simply in order to have them when you need them for twenty-ish miles of actual mountaineering. But Gavin not only understands it, he feels it, it resonates for him. This project would not have been possible without him, and it was a blessing getting to stumble around Rainier with him punch-drunk with adrenaline and sleep deprivation. Hopefully we'll come up with something else crazy and beautiful to attempt together in the future.
What a Blessing to be a Hominid! Give Thanks for Life!
Tacoma News Tribune article:
www.thenewstribune.com/outdoors/article99397247.html
Mountaineers Youth Program Fundraiser:
mountaineers-2691.wedid.it/502
Gear List:
ultrapedestrian.blogspot.com/2016/07/complete-gear-list-mount-rainier.html
Calorie burn vs. Intake:
ultrapedestrian.blogspot.com/2016/08/mril-caloric-burn-versus-intake.html