I noticed on the FKT website that there hasn’t been a submission for a women’s unsupported time, so figured I’d give it a go after Nate and I tried the Infinity Loop earlier this week.
I started at 5am and almost immediately got a little frustrated with the trudge uphill through the resort. Once above the resort though I started to get into a better rhythm and feel more optimistic and psyched to be back on Hood. Once at the saddle below the hogsback I threw on my crampons, ditched the poles and grabbed my axe. The hogsback, traverse and Pearly Gates all felt super fun and casual. On the way down there was predictably a bottleneck at the Pearly Gates. People were pretty friendly about letting me pass, but I did slow down quite a bit here to add to my security and to not knock anything loose. It was then smooth sailing back to the saddle. The snow was still pretty frozen, so I kept my crampons on until one of the lower rock bands above the resort, where the snow abruptly turned to slush.
All in all this felt great and pretty casual. I had hoped to get this under 4 hours and fell a little short of that goal. If I were to repeat it in identical conditions I’d probably go with spikes and keep them on the whole time, but with the current climate of things I was happy to play it safe and conservative with my gear choices.