FKT: Yu Kuwabara - Lassen to Brokeoff Ridge Traverse (CA) - 2021-07-02

Photos on Strava

Been wanting to do this route when I came across it as I love Lassen, but haven't had any epic adventures there.  With a day free decided to meet up with Josh somewhere midway (I'm in Ashland, he's in Oakland) and have an adventure.  Left my house at 1:30 am, got to wake him up in his van at 4:30 and we started off a bit after 5 am.  We decided to do this route clockwise to finish the dry, exposed, and technical section first. So we made our way up Brokeoff and started on the ridge.  There's plenty of loose rock and exposure up there.  It was really nice to have another person to talk through the route and have another eye on, but it's probably slower as there are many sections where loose rock is unavoidable and you have to wait for your partner to get out of the way.  The exposed moves are only a few feet at a time, so if you take your time and make sure you have some solid rock it's not too bad.  

From Eagle Peak once we saw the scree pile on Lassen, we opted to run around to the summer trail vs fighting the scree. This would've been one spot where going CCW makes more sense.  Also the Bumpass Hell trail was open, so I ran down the road a bit further to get on the trail as recommended.  These two variations added some miles as I got 3 more miles compared to Jason's track.  

Josh started falling behind on the Lassen Peak hike and gave me the go ahead to chase the FKT.  The rest of the route is on trail except for the cutoff after Bumpass Hell through a steep glade of wildflowers.  My legs were quite tired by this point and I was hoping the trail would be flatter and more runnable, but in the end I had to keep giving it all I had to get under the 7 hr time.  I'm sure if Jason could take the Bumpass Trail he'd have no problem taking back this FKT.  And if folks actually wanted to, and studied the ridge, I'm sure you could get this time closer to 5 hrs.  Anyway, a great adventure, thanx Jason for the idea.