My third attempt at the JMT! The previous two times, I went unsupported. I believed I could beat Francois' time with all the goodies. The first time, I came up short but ran an FKT desite some issues going into the effort a little too tired/rough (slept 6 hours, rolled my ankle the day before, just finished guiding, forgot caffeine). When Jeff beat my time, I knew I'd be back. I tried again in 2024 and was ahead of pace, except this time I hallucinated horribly wandering off trail many times. Coming down from Whitney, a hallucination told me I should go off trail for some cool views so I scrambled up and over a spire near trail crest and took a nap. When I woke up, I realized I had put myself in danger and didn't have much interest in going unsupported again. But I knew I could beat Francois' time.
For this effort, I wanted to give myself the best chance to go hard. I assembled a great crew, including Andrew Bentz, Caroline Himbert, Andy Golich, Wyatt Barrett, Noah Dusseau, Talon Hull, Sammy DeLeo, and Gus Gibbs. Everyone was AMAZING and this is as much my FKT as it is their FKT. Couldn't have done it without them.
Permits were tricky. I wanted to start on 9/20 because I needed to catch my flight on 9/24 back home to see my 6 month old and my wife, and I didn't want to extend the logistics of everyone else who traveled. I had a permit for 9/21, and we were hoping a cancellation would happen in the days preceeding the FKT but it didn't. At 11am on 9/20 at the Eastern Sierra Visitor Center, we got the good news that a permit had opened up and I could start whenever I wanted. I took a 1:45 minute nap at Whitney Portal (didn't sleep, but it was very peaceful), and then started my journey at 1:47pm.
Whitney was lovely. Hit the peak about 3:25 in, which was 25 minutes or so slower than Francois. Expected. Caroline gave me a food drop at the peak and I went off solo.
I picked up Talon Hull at Kearsarge 40 miles in. We were already over an hour behind Francois. I was still in pretty good spirits, I had already done Forrester in the dark with little fanfare. That pass can be a little intimidating but it was so nice going north bound vs south bound. Heading up and over Glen was nice - a little slow. My eyes were getting a bit tired and I took a nap at Woods Creek around 2am, I think. I laid there for 20 minutes and didn't sleep, but it was nice to rest. Climbing up Selden was a long, slow drag, but we got it done. My stomach started to bother me a bit at this point.
I picked up Andrew Bentz at Taboose. His parents were there which was really heartwarming, as they were also at the end of my JMT effort in 2024. I chomped on a meat stick which was great, because my stomach was still a little sideways. I was eating less than I wanted to and had lower energy. We met a bunch of hikers going over Mather. We met a PCT '16 hiker named party boy, and his hiking partner had set the Arizona Trail Unsupported FKT prior to Anish. This was probably my most lovely section of trail. It's such a pleasant valley and relatively friendly and open terrain. Mather is a quick bop and then the Palisades await.
At Bishop, I met Andy and Noah. Noah had the biggest stretch of trail, and would be travelling over 60 miles including miles from Bear Ridge and Bishop. Woof. Also, we had to do Muir Pass. Muir is my boogeyman. Going up has always sucked. It's always been cold and exposed and in the night. It's mildly uphill and the footing is uneven. It's always where I see my pace suffer. With my trusty steed, Noah, things were different this time. After our Bishop checkpoint, Noah and I carried forward Noah-ing that weather forecast had predicted rain and probably snow for the afternoon. And sure enough, it did. About right when we got above treeline, we experienced snow, sleet and rain all the way through to Evolution Creek. Sick. It actually was sick. We had a lot of fun. The temps were just warm enough to not freeze to death but be uncomfortably cold. This kept us running and moving all the way down from Muir Hut through a long, long descent. Our spirits were also raised when we found out we had all the sudden put 2 hours on Francois' split through Muir Pass. At the bottom of the valley, we saw 2 trees that were on fire. Weird. A river valley fire when everything was saturated with rain? I don't know what ever came of it, but Noah and I kept plugging away. We also ran into PCT thru hiker Peanut who we had hitched at Mammoth Mountain a few days prior. We hit MTR and were aware that our Francois lead was deteriorating. I had a bit of low energy at this point but the smooth terrain made it easy. We hit Selden. It had really snowed! There was probably 1-3 inches, although never more than 1-2 inches on the trail and it was mostly patchy. There were a lot of puddles though. Noah and I got up and over Selden and I could feel the big passes of the Sierra behind me. Just had to grind it out.
We made it through to Bear Ridge to pick up Wyatt. Wyatt lives in Yosemite Valley, and had to do an absurd car drop on the West side so he was isolated from the rest of the crew for the first half of the effort. Noah was grateful to be done and didn't eat as much as he should. He went down to the car, earned the trail name MIA because no one heard from him for a half day, and rejoined the crew later in Tuolumne. Wyatt and I carried on. It was early morning and I hadn't really slept so we decided to nap at the bottom of Bear Ridge. I slept for 38 minutes like a log. Silver Pass was a bit of a drag, but I felt more energized. We hit Tully's Hull and the climb up the otherside was slow, but I had forgotten how cruiser the trail was all the way into Mammoth Pass. We flew through this section.
Met the entire crew at Mammoth Pass - Red's Meadow Road was closed which was a bummer. This was the first time seeing everyone, and we could smell the finish. I dopped Wyatt off and picked up Caro. Caro has set the unsupported SOBO JMT FKT twice, and has had plenty of neutral to negative experiences on Donahue during late FKTs. I was nervous, too. Plus, we heard thunder every 10 minutes and all the clouds were over Donahue and Ritter/Banner. Woof. I was also a bit underfueled at this point and got in my own head. But Caro helped keep me going and we made it over Donahue faster than I was expecting. We hit Lyell Canyon and made it into Tuolumne.
At Tuolumne, the whole crew was there. All I had to do was 22 miles! I picked up Gus and dropped off Caro. Gus said we were going to run the entire descent from around Cathedral Pass all the way in. Sure, it's 6k of gain, but it's also like 13 miles. Is he kidding? We talked the entire time. I took 200mg of caffeine with 3 and 5 hours to go and felt so good. We ran. We ran HARD. I was flying (they were like 11 minute miles, but still). Once we hit the Half Dome Junction, I took off. I ran every little uphill and zoomed all the way into the finish.
Touched the sign at Yosemite Valley at 64 hours on the dot. I thought I was going to be finishing an hour or two later, so I was shocked when they told me the actual time. I'm so proud of this effort, and even more excited that I didn't hallucinate horribly and put myself in danger. Thank you to everyone who supported me, because being supported, in this case, requires 6 people flying or driving from all over the country, my wife solo parenting for 2 weeks and putting up with my training, and a whole lot of time and energy! That was fun. I don't think I really have the need to do it again :)