Matthew Shepard and Brandon Lott began an FKT attempt on the Columbia Plateau Trail beginning at approximately 9:10AM PST on February 13th, 2021. We started at the Ice Harbor Dam Trailhead near Pasco, WA and headed north to the Fish Lake trailhead near Cheney, WA. The weather was unfavorable at -8°C and approximately 6-8" of fresh snow on the ground. Brandon Lott would join as a pacer for the majority of the route, opting to skip the Tressel bridge sections.
All of the Tressel bridge crossings were barricaded or impassable, which forced me to drop into each canyon and climb back out. This is reflected in the additional distance I have recorded.
Additionally, I made a route error and had to backtrack off course approximately 1 mile from Kahlotus to the Devil's Canyon Rd junction. The route passes under this road in a tunnel and my crew was parked on the overpass. Once I was resupplied, I ran back to the point where I left the trail and continued on.
We had a single person crew driving a vehicle to meet up at several of the possible road crossings for food and water resupply.
Weather conditions increased the difficulty of the already unstable footing, requiring tremendous focus to avoid tripping or kicking rocks.
Comments
I was checking out routes around the Tri-Cities and came came across this. Hell yeah, Shep!