Friday, May 14, 2021
We started from the bell at 6:33am on a beautiful blue bird spring day, heading to Scarface first. This was a perfect warmup for the day with a mossy, pristine, easy approach to get the legs going and a friendly ascent - we arrived at the summit at 7:40am. The run out was easy going and we zoomed back to head for Haystack next from the Jackrabbit Trail. Another relatively easy approach made for a quick ascent and we arrived at Haystack at 9:23am to a gorgeous view. Back down to the junction and we were off to McKenzie! During this ascent is when my stomach decided it was going to give me trouble for the rest of the day. The approach was somewhat muddy and I was sad to see the steep scramble section had deteriorated from erosion significantly since my last visit 2 years ago. There are a couple of tricky turns on this approach but B knows this mountain very well and made sure we stayed course to avoid losing any time. Once we reached the false summit it was easy going and we met McKenzie at 10:24am before flying back down to the car at top speed. Off to Baker as the day started to warm up, reaching the summit at 11:59pm. We were up and down this short guy quickly and it felt like a bit of a rest. Cruising over to Ampersand, I was wondering how it would feel but the terrain is so fun that I *almost* didn't notice my stomach trying to do flips every few minutes and we arrived at the top with renewed vigor at 1:27pm where we ran into Jackie, who follows us online, who we also ran into on the Winter Bob Marshall Traverse FKT in March! Now for the long drive to St Regis, I was afraid by the time we arrived my legs would protest another push but it actually felt good to get out of the car knowing we were on our last mountain. Lots of jogging got us to the base quickly but during the ascent my stomach started putting up a real fight and it was necessary to play the always fun how-hard-can-i-push-without-vomiting game. As much as I didn't want to, I was forced to take a moment on the summit at 3:32pm to let the hot mouth subside before we started the cruise down. Fighting nausea, we jogged out while B reminded me to pull back when needed even though I was eager to get us out to the car knowing she was still feeling strong. Cruising back to the bell, we arrived at 4:40pm and gave her 6 rings for good luck! Eager to attempt this one again when I'm less rusty to see if I can best my time.