Kalmiopsis Wilderness: Leach Memorial Loop FKT w/ Max
Awesome. Always grateful to share a long day in the mtns with Max King…wasn’t our first time and won’t be our last.
Did the FKT in the reverse direction as Ghelfi (original FKT) and Jace (current FKT), and shaved 30min off Jace’s time. More water sources in the second half this way, but felt like most of the hardest terrain was in the second half for us…don’t really think one direction is advantageous over the other.
Woke up at the trailhead with frost on everything and our car thermometers reading 26 deg, with heavy wind too. I had set up my tent in the vestibule of the privy for wind protection lol. Took an hour of running before I took off my rain shell, long pants, and beanie, and another 5 hours before my gloves and arm sleeves came off.
Most of the first ~21 miles (to the base of Vulcan Peak) felt very similar…traversing across the drainages in the 3500 to 4500 feet range, not quite along the tops of ridges but usually a few hundred feet below. Really open and exposed from a fire/burn ~20 years ago, but with the cold temps, that wasn’t a bad thing. Really rocky terrain…for all 50 miles. Every mile hard earned; nothing smooth and buffed out. Got some views of the ocean along this stretch…although I didn’t believe Max at first when he said that until he was like “see how the land ends and that blue and white stuff? That’s the ocean”. Mostly running these first ~4hrs, as the terrain was gradual enough that walking rarely happened. Had to concentrate heavily on each foot placement given how rocky it was.
The 1.5 mi steep hike up and 1mi steep off-trail stumble down Vulcan Peak to Vulcan Lake was a nice change of pace. Hit the trailhead at mile 24.5 in 5hrs25min, so figured we were on 11hr pace. I had a little bit of a lull on the long descent to Box Canyon…7hrs and 33 miles into the day but still too far out from the end to get the magnetic pull of the finish line. But I felt recharged after that, looking forward to what seemingly was to be a relatively flat jaunt along the Chetco River…but the 500ft and 800ft climbs were more that we were expecting. They only showed up as blips on the route profile, but were significant and steep climbs that late in the day, with the sun and heat beating down on us now that we were in the bottom of the canyon and at a much lower elevation than the first 30 miles. Finally crossed the Chetco and Carter Creek in quick succession, and the 8 miles of what we thought would be easy, flat river trail took us over 2hrs. The Chetco was beautiful though, with some lovely shades of blue.
We left Carter Creek at 9.5hrs, with 9 miles to go and a monster climb netting 3600ft staring us in the face. 11hrs was out of the question, and 12hrs and the FKT seemed perhaps in doubt. I set a brisk pace from the jump, power-hiking hard and running anything that leveled off. Max had been the stronger/faster of the two of us most of the day (duh), but I got some gaps on him on the climb, which felt good. There were two brief (~5min) descents that broke up the climb, and he easily erased the ~1min gaps I built during those. It felt analogous to a strong domestique going for a mountaintop stage win, and having the GC favorite on the ropes. Alas, on the final ~800ft pitch to the pass (after the second mini-descent), Max finally pulled away, as one would expect. But it was fun to push him/us, and we closed the loop and were 3 miles from the finish in 10hrs50min, and all but assured of the FKT. I was pretty punted after the hard 80min uphill push that late in the day, and wasn’t moving particularly quick the rest of the way. However, with about a mile to go, I found a final kick and we squeaked under 11.5hrs with 1min to spare. Photos again in chronological order. There’s some good ones if you scroll thru imo, and I even provide captions
Really proud of my body and mind for how well it handled two burly 50 mile unsupported days in remote mountains three days apart. The terrain and speed of my runs this week are not very specific to Miwok, but both were great confidence boosts and dress rehearsals psychologically and logistically (mainly fueling, which felt like my biggest downfall in my longer ultras last year). I didn’t feel any adverse effects today from Monday’s run.
If you’ve read this far, you get the NSFW deets! I’m so fucked from poison oak. It’s been baaaaad since Monday and I got a lot more today. Legs and scrotum have been on fire. I could use some thoughts and prayers…sorry/thank you.
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