Wow. What a silly thing to do. But at the end of the day, we create the meaning in our life and to me, this was very meaningful. I tried to keep it as brief as I could, but a rather long write up is ahead…
My trek would begin back on September 5th when I first arrived in Crescent Meadow to drop off my van, planning and hoping all should align such that I would return at some point via the High Sierra Trail on what would be my longest run to date. Usually, a run or through hike of the High Sierra Trail would require either a very time consuming car/runner drop or an expensive private shuttle from one end to the other.
Knowing it would help to have some time to acclimate, I resolved to get to the eastern terminus by as much foot, hitch-hiking and public transit as I could.
From Crescent Meadow, I set off with my backpack, through the Giant Forest toward Road’s end, to start the Sierra High Route. Over the next 11 days, I would hike north roughly 200 miles, with over 70,000 ft of elevation gain/loss, most of which being off trail navigating. A rare and intense Sierra summer snow storm made the mountain passes too dangerous for me to continue, so I would bail just 15 miles from the northern terminus. The High Route, in and of itself, was a lifetime achievement and the hardest thing I had ever done by myself.
From Tioga pass I would hitchhike into Mammoth where a box full of my running gear and the food/fuel I would use for my attempt of the High Sierra Trail aawaited me at the Post Office.
The Sierra High Route (the two routes have annoyingly similar nomenclatures, but are aptly named) would properly beat me up, so I took a week to relax and recover in Mammoth Lakes (pro tip for anyone looking at hotel rooms in Mammoth, the Shilo Inn has a very hot sauna and is reasonably priced for the area).
I would end up getting back out for one more backpacking trip with buddies and my partner before returning to spectate the last bit of the Mammoth Trail fest.
A quick and easy bus ride would take me into Lone Pine and the famous Lone Pine Brian would bring me to Whitney Portal.
Had I been less precious about starting at 3:19am exactly (more on this later), I am sure I could have got a ride to the portal, but this I was committed to.
The Mount Whitney/Tumanguya summit, also the highest point in the contiguous United States, is the official terminus of the High Sierra trail, but the east to west FKT route begins ~11 miles east at Whitney Portal. I have not fancied myself as a great uphill runner so this climb to the summit was the thing that occupied my worries above anything else. I would ask anyone who had been on it before for their take and would spend hours in my hotel room watching videos on the climb, including a short documentary on the first continuous effort from Badwater -> Whitney Summit (84 hours in total) that is worth a watch.
Leor Pantilat, the FKT holder, would tag the summit in 3 hours and 1 minute, a time that would put him 32nd on the Strava leaderboard. My mind would be twisted in knots on this. How much time could I realistically give up here? Would it be worth burning a number of matches to try and keep up with his time? I hated the idea of making it up later, but sometimes you have to play from behind.
Ironically and most surprisingly, I would end up summiting in 2 hours and 50 minutes with the help of many well wishes from the other summiters along the route, and one that would mutter “lunatic” just loud enough for me to hear. I guess those steep mountain passes of the high route readied me well. Still, it was honestly hard to believe and I knew I had no time to reason it out, so I had someone snap a few pictures of me holding the summit sign, and off I went.
As they say, it was all downhill from there, you know other than the rest of the ~8,000 feet of climbing still ahead. The section from the summit down to Kern Canyon felt as slow and brutal as it was beautiful. I am always good for a few good falls and so I would take a couple that left me tentative on the technical aspects of the trail.
My stomach had been a mess leading up to the go and that did not let up here. I would have to pull of the trail several times and hike up far enough to dig a cat hole to relieve the pressure building up…no one said ultra running was glamorous.
Kern Canyon would provide a good stretch of runnable trail, that would mix in some fun downed logs to hop and crawl under, as well as gushing creeks that would cover the usual rocks available to hop across. I had read Marcia Rasmussen’s very well written FKT trip report, where she mentions dipping into the Kern Canyon Hot Springs. Unfortunately, I had not banked enough time to do the same.
I would be about 14 minutes up on the FKT splits leading into the second biggest climb of the trail that leaves Kern Canyon and brings you to the base of Mount Kaweah. A full 21 miles would go by without seeing another hiker on the trail.
The day’s heat would start to take effect here, although all in all it was pretty mild, and I did my best to lather up with the creeks’ flows whenever I would come across them. Luckily, water would be plentiful most of the day thanks to another year of good snowfall and the recent storm.
After Kaweah, I would catch a very nice second wind and did my best to push down the flowy section that leads to a smaller climb up to Kaweah Gap. At one point I would think I was up almost an hour on the FKT splits. This would fill my sails for a short time only as the reality was that I had not made up much time at all.
I would reach Kaweah Gap (50 miles in) in 11 hours and 19 minutes (21 minutes ahead of Leor’s splits). I knew most of the way would be downhill from here. While the legs felt ok, they had certainly lost a gear or two. I was familiar with this section and was hoping to cruise down to Bearpaw meadow with relative speed, but the trails are fairly rocky and would bring me to a careful walk at times. This section is absolutely spectacular and I cannot wait to return at some point to take it in from a seated position.
The last 20 miles were filled with me counting up on my breaths from 1 to 20, dozens of times, something I had never done before this run, and simply thinking to myself, “you have to keep pushing.”
I managed to give up only 1 minute in those last 20 miles and reached Crescent Meadow in 15 hours and 26 minutes.
The reason I was adamant about leaving at 3:19am exactly was because that is when Leor started his go some 12 years ago. This was my little way of acknowledging the man and his excellence.
Simply put, Leor Pantilat is a living legend of the Sierra and the West Coast at large. If you have perused a summit register in the Sierra, you will have likely seen his name accompanied with some absolutely wild details of the run he did to get there. Leor is in a league of his own, as documented by his many trip reports, course records, and veracious penchant for exploring.
In reading his trip report of the High Sierra Trail, while it was his biggest run at the time, he does make it sound like a very casual day out in the mountains. He stopped to take over a 100 pictures on the day, about 90 more than me. I haven’t seen any videos of his day, so I may have gotten him on that front. 😝 all in all, it took most of what I had on the day to best the man’s jog. And that will do just fine for me.
Thank you to Tim Hunt for documenting the run live on my instagram and all those sending me words of encouragement via my inreach. Thanks to Luke Garten (you were right, that third flask was unnecessary) and @thomas, and everyone who shared beta on the route. Thanks to my coach, Martin Benes // MVB Coaching , for all the advice and guidance. And a huge shout out to my partner, Ingrid Roorda for supporting me and my whacky goals that often take me away longer than ideal. I love you so much.
I don’t really want to think about running for some time and based on the state of my toes, I don’t think I’ll be doing any anytime soon. But I know the gremlins on my shoulder will start filling my head with some other ridiculous scheme soon enough.
For now, I’ll do my best to rest, recover and focus a bit on something other than running. Wooof I’m tired. They say we stand atop the shoulders of giants in all that we do and tonight I feel worthy of laying my head down among them.