FKT: Warren Doyle - The Hyalite Picnic - 2023-07-13

An absolutely banger day doing this route. I shoved off from my house at about 2:45 am en route to The Hotel Baxter, to start the activity. The bike up to the reservoir was pretty uneventful. I only saw two cars the entire time and I did almost all of it in the dark. Side note, the stars were amazing this morning. I locked my bike and some extraneous gear to a tree and transitioned for the swim. The water was super calm this early in the morning. After ditching my wetsuit and some wet clothes in the trees, I grabbed some water where the road crosses The East Fork Hyalite Creek and began the run. The jaunt up to Hyalite was chill, only one person made it out on the trail before me. After a quick pause to check out the summit views and eat the best Oreos of my life, I began the descent. On the way down I took the trail split at the bottom that takes you by Grotto Falls because I was out of water and didn't snatch any at any of the other previous crossings *smh*. On the swim back across, a headwind made a guest appearance, resulting in more than a little swallowing of algae water. After the final transition, it was all downhill from there (literally and figuratively). The bike back took me less than half the time it took on the way up in the morning. I returned to The Hotel Baxter right about 2:45 pm to some very confused looks from the folks eating lunch. I treated myself to a Peace Tea from the Conoco at 7th and Main. The clerk, seeing me with all my gear and exhaustion, asked what I had been up to today, to which I replied "ah, just went for a nice bike ride."