On March 13th, 2023 myself and my buddy Harrison Keane attempted the Sedona Triple Crown FKT by foot. We finished with a time of 10hrs 49mins and 38seconds. We started the clock at Jacks Canyon TH and ended it at Sugarloaf TH. We ran to each spire via trails and simul climbed each spire. Unless someone else has heard of a faster on foot effort I believe this is the current FKT.
This was a supported effort. Our friends met us with climbing gear, food, and water at each spire so we could run unencumbered. We chose to do it this way because we figured it would be more type 1, but it would be cool to seem someone get after it fully unsupported!
We started the day around 6:20am at Jacks Canyon TH. Our good friend, The Legendary Hovanator aka Steph, met us at the base of Oak Creek Spire with harnesses racked up and rope flaked ready to rock! I started up the first pitch rated at 5.9, Harry belayed me and was ready to start simul climbing once I got high enough on the route. I was moving slowly but methodically. It wasn't until halfway up the second pitch I realized we had made our first mistake...
The second pitch is rated at 5.9+ and begins with a steep tight hands crack that widens out into a #5 offwidth crack. I was halfway up this #5 crack when I realized the biggest cam we brought was a #4. Oh boy here we go! I ran the pitch out 30 feet to the top of the pitch, clipped the anchor, set up the mico-trax and kept on climbing. At this point Harry was also climbing, good thing he didnt fall while I was runout!
The rest of the climb went smoothly, I topped out and put Harry on belay. We swapped leads since I have already led the jump across a few times and wanted to give Harry the full value experience. I was very impressed how little he hesitated before jumping the 7 foot gap to the summit spire, what a leap! We reached the top of Oak Creek Spire and rappelled down, we looked at the clock: two and a half hours, not bad!
We repeatedly told Steph how much we appreciated his help (the true MVP) dropped the climbing gear, put on our running packs, and began running towards The Mace. From OCS, The Mace is roughly 7 miles. The route we planned took us around Bell Rock to the south, it was quite the shock seeing so many tourists. While Harry is an amazing climber (much better than myself) I was nervous the running would be tough for him. He is an incredible athlete but twenty miles total is a long way, even for a consistent runner. We kept the pace steady, intent on not overdoing it too early and arrived at the base of the The Mace with the clock at four hours and twenty minutes, good luck!
Our friend Ryane (also MVP) met us with snacks and climbing gear, now it was Harry's lead so he racked up and off we went. We simul climbed up to the top of the second pitch, then Harry continued up traversing around the exposed arete into the burly offwidth. I noticed this pitch slowed Harry down a bit and I wondered why, for some reason in my mind I thought The Mace would be much easier than OCS. I climbed it with Steph a few years ago when we did the Triple Crown by vehicle. When I started climbing I immediately found out why Harry had taken his time, this pitch was burly! At the top of we swapped leads and I lead the step across to the true summit. We took our summit selfie then began the rappel.
Since we were simul-rappelling with a GriGri and an ATC, we had a butterfly knot to fix the line and make it safer. Unfortunately at the bottom of the first rappel the know had gotten stuck in the wide rappel anchor bolts! Oh no! we spent about 10 minutes tugging on the rope before debating about jugging back up the rope to fix the issue. We gave it one more massive tug at a different angle and POP, the rope came free! Thank goodness!
When the rope came down we discovered it was core shot where the knot had been caught and the inner white sinews were fully exposed and a few were cut. Yikes! We had one more careful rappel to the ground where we met Ryane, threw on our running gear, and began running to the final spire: Dr. Rubo's Wild Ride! But little did we know we would encounter a dangerous crux that wouldn't even involve rock climbing...
If you live near the west coast you know the winter of 2023 was certainly a wet one. Arizona had received so many storms that Flagstaff recorded its second highest snowpack ever! If you have been to Sedona in the spring you know that the more snow to the north in Flagstaff, the bigger the creeks are going to run, especially Oak Creek. The day of our record attempt Oak Creek was flowing at over 1,000 cubic feet per second. To put it in perspective, that is essentially 1,000 basketballs per second, yeah that's a lot of force. And unfortunately we had to cross Oak Creek to get to Dr. Rubo's.
We ran a few miles and there we were, before we even saw the creek we heard it roaring like a stampede of wild beasts. The first channel of the river was up to our waists, and this wasn't even the main flow. The main channel of the river revealed itself as a massive class 3 rapid gushing at a head high depth. Are we really going to be defeated by the creek? We walked upstream looking for a better crossing and then we spotted a magnificent sight. At large sycamore tree and fallen perpendicular to the river, essentially it was a brilliant white bridge! We forded the waist high creek over to the tree, climbed on, and shimmied across it. Thank you sycamore! Onwards we ran.
We had a few miles through town to get to the Sugarloaf TH, Harry was digging deep here so we turned on the house music and kept on chugging. Soon we found ourselves at the TH and continued to the base of Dr. Rubo where Steph and Ryane (total MVPS!) met us with gear, food and water. It was my turn to lead so I racked up and started climbing. I definitely felt my muscles were fatigued at this point, I have soloed this route before but I soon found myself getting really pumped out moving quite slowly. Nonetheless the climbing was awesome (maybe my favorite of the three) and we found ourselves at the top!
After we took our final summit selfie I looked at the clock and noticed we had potential to go under 11 hours, way better than the sub 12 we had planned on! Lets go! Harry and I rappelled, dropped the gear, and took of sprinting down the trail. It was nearing sunset and the glow of the evening light accentuated the maroon mountain walls around us. Eventually we reached the Sugarloaf TH and finished with a time of 10 hours 49 minutes and 38 seconds. What an incredible day!
Big thanks to Steph and Ryane for the support we couldn't have done it without them. And also big thanks to Harry for digging deep and being willing to try my shenanigan ideas!