Ryan Matz and Myself broke the unsupported speed record for the timberline trail yesterday! Our official time is 7:29:56. We had three watches running including one GPS which miraculously lasted the whole time. Data here in this link.
www.strava.com/activities/342390224
Started from the Top of Spur Trail on the Northwest side of the mountain and hiked up the 1/2 mile to where this trail joins with the Timberline Trail. We chose to start here so that we could get most of the climbing done earlier in the run and have some downhill to finish. It ended up being a good choice I thought. We were moving really quite well early on, took a bit of extra time going the wrong way crossing the Sandy River (about 5 min) But we put that mistake behind us and moved really well up to Timberline Lodge. We were still moving well all the way through Meadows, but a bit after Meadows before Newton Creek I thought we had taken a wrong turn. We pulled out the map and all too quickly decided to go back. After going back about 1/2 mile we realized we had not yet made a wrong turn and were still on the right trail so we turned back around. (Rough). We were a bit demoralized, and had a rough climb up Lamberson, mostly me. Moved really slow. Once we crested Lamberson I rallied and we had to push pretty hard the rest of the way in. (I went and did the Eliot Crossing 2 days before we ran so we nailed that part).
There was some major cramping those last 10 miles, and two of those rivers were pretty scary massive, but we forged ahead. it took a waddle of a kick to get under 7:30, but we just barely got it! We are both excited to go back and try to really nail this thing!