ievenranthisfar

It’s somewhere around 3:00 in the morning. I’ve been up somewhere around 24 hours. And I’m… somewhere. I just don’t know where.

My partner Sean and I have just descended hundreds feet down a sheer rock face that’s dumped us into a pitch-black forest. Above us, a canopy of ancient pines blocks out the full moon. Below, the trunks of their fallen compatriots and an army of younger ones eager to take their place make our travel directionless and nearly impossible. And amid all this, we’re looking for a small, orange and white triangular flag with nothing more than a dot on the map, a compass, and the vague clue that it was located at a “reentrant.”

Suddenly, there at the bottom of that cliff, swallowed up by the forest, I felt very, very small. And very, very far away from anything. Forget finding the control, I think to myself. What if we can’t ever find our way out of this canyon?

Are we going to die down here?

__

A Little Compass Context

This was my first ever 24-hour rogaine orienteering race. I’d been introduced to orienteering a year and a half ago when my good running buddy Guillaume Calmettes invited me to a local event. He was using to sharpen his navigational skill in prep for his first run at the infamous Barkley Marathons. And he convinced me it was super fun and easy to pick up. He was correct.

In orienteering there are two basic formats. This first one I did was Classic, meaning you get handed a map of the area you’re in with little numbered dots on it. Then, you have to use your compass to find your way as you run from control to control in a pre-determined order as fast as possible. Beginner’s luck. I got second place. Guillaume got first.

The next event we went to the following month, I won.

Our compass skills were admittedly only okay. (Actually, Guillaume’s were fine. Mine, less so.) But having experience and fitness as a runner, helped us immensely. Still, we made plenty of mistakes. This year, I made some huge errors in races. It’s really humbling when it takes you 3:34 to finish a course, and the winner did it in 0:57. The beginner’s luck had run out.

Most orienteering events are relatively short, usually one or two hours long. But it’s incredibly intense. When you’re trying to find 15 different controls as fast as you can, you have your head buried in your map as you’re sprinting through parks, up and down hillsides and rooting through streams to find your controls.

Then Guillaume told me about rogaining. It’s the same thing, except it lasts for 24 hours. 🤯 I’ve run plenty of ultras that last longer than 24 hours, and I’ve done some orienteering races for a few hours, but I didn’t know you could combine the two. It sounded bonkers.

(For the record, the name rogaine comes from a portmanteau of the sport’s founding members’ names. It has zero to do with a fix for male pattern baldness.)

Guillaume and I talked wistfully about one day competing in the World Championship. Then, two months ago, I got a text. The North American Championship was taking place at the Nav-X Challenge in a month, in the Sierra National Forest. The top two teams would go to World. So we signed up.

Lake Shaver, near the course

A few days later, Sean Ranney reached out to Guillaume to see if he could join the fun. If you don’t know who Sean is, he’s an incredibly accomplished runner who holds the Tahoe Rim Trail unsupported FKT. He’s also the creator of a Barkley-style race called Euchre Bar Massacre every October. He’s legit.

Then, with just two weeks to go before Nav-X, Guillaume ran into some problems with his visa and had to return to France the day of the race. Sean and I were incredibly bummed to lose G, but we decided to go on and do the race. “Do it for Guillaume!” we said. “Or to rub it in his face!” We hadn’t decided which.

___

What To Expect When You’re Expecting

So, this is how I find myself waking up in a tent in the middle of the Sierra, waiting to be handed a map that would send me out into the forest on a very wild goose chase.

Camp/a Jeep commercial

Sunset the night before

Full moon over camp

Waiting for Sean to show...

Nine o’clock rolls around. Time to receive our maps. Sean is nowhere to be seen. Nine-thirty. Ten. I look around as other teams scurry to plot their movements and prep their gear for the next 24 hours. Time is running out. Instead of feeling stressed, I’m a little relieved. Maybe I won’t have to do this after all…

Ten-thirty. Sean’s red truck rolls into the dusty campground. I guess we’re doing this.

In a supremely ironic twist of fate, Sean had gotten lost for hours while driving to the starting area. This does not bode well for our future prospects. We exchange quick pleasantries and immediately get down to the business of plotting our moves. The High Sierra sun already beats down on us as we squat over a stump, with our highlighters and sharpies clenched in our hands. It feels oppressive already.

The second type of orienteering is called Score-O. All rogaine races are Score-O. The premise is that there are flagged controls laid out across the course, each assigned a point value based on difficulty to travel to it or find. Rather than racing for the fastest time, everyone has the same amount of time to nab as many controls/points as they can. If you’re skilled enough to get every single control, you’ve “cleared.” It’s a game of strategy. Do you go after more of the easy controls that are closer to the start but are lower value? Or do you try to go out farther and burn time to get higher-value controls further afield?

Looking at our map, we have 72 controls. The possibilities are pretty much endless as to how we can design our run. Hell, the map itself is huge. It’s over two feet tall. I’m just wondering how I’m going to carry this thing in front of me for 24 hours.

Being novices to this whole thing, Sean and I both frantically googled rogaine strategies in the week leading up to the race. Interestingly, it involves office supplies. So on drive way up the previous day, I had found myself in a Staples somewhere in the Valley buying various brightly color writing utensils.

First, we highlight all the high-value controls on the map in yellow. The locations of water drops we highlight in pink. It quickly becomes apparently that the northeast corner of the map has the highest concentration of 60, 70, 80, and 90-point controls, but they’re spread further apart, and the terrain seems to be more forested, meaning navigation and travel will be more difficult. Also, there’s more water. The southern portion of the course has the next highest concentration of points. It seems to be more exposed rock which will be faster nav and travel. No water to speak of though. The northwest sector is denser in the number of controls but they’re lower value.

The correct plan seems fairly obvious (I think). We decide we’ll make a big loop of the northwestern segment first while we’re fresh, it’s hot, and we still have sunlight. Then, we’ll loop back to the hash house (the start/finish area), resupply and head out on our second loop. This loop will take us to the south overnight, where it should theoretically be easiest to navigate and we won’t need much water. Then, we’ll head back to the hash house for another resupply and go out on our third loop to pick off as many easier, lower-point controls as we can before noon tomorrow.

(One thing to factor into strategy is the penalty for finishing late. In this case, we’d lose 10 points for every minute past 24 hours that we’re out of the course. So you also want to plan the end of your race to have points where you can call audibles towards the end.)

Marking up the map

With our basic game plan laid out, we quickly start penciling in lines of travel from control to control. Again, more strategy. This time we’re trying to make each move the shortest possible while also hitting every control and simultaneously avoiding any overly difficult moves due to a giant mountain between them, dense forest, whatever.

We check our watches. It’s just a few minutes before the noon start. We quickly draw over our lines in sharpie, shrugging to each other occasionally. “I guess this seems good, right?” “Yeah. It all feels easy right now at least.”

Slipshod plan formatted, we hurriedly stuff all our gear, clothes and food into our packs. Because, oh yeah, since you’re going to be out in the wilderness on your own pretty much the whole race, you need to carry everything with you too.

Ready to roll

Still cramming stuff in our vests, we amble up to the starting area. We are, as usual, the outliers. Like any sport, orienteering has its own mores, particularly when it comes to fashion. Pants to protect the legs while crashing through underbrush. Long-sleeved shirts to deal with fluctuating temperatures. Protective hats to block hours of sun exposure. Calf-high gaiters to keep shoes free from any debris. Big packs to carry a day’s worth of supplies. Hiking-style shoes to cover the harsh terrain. We have none of this.

No, Sean and I stand there in our bright, little running shorts. Thin, polyester shirts. Tiny packs. We have so much skin exposed, I’m sure the other races are wondering if we’ll die of exposure or blood loss first.

It’s also worth noting that Sean and I are on the young end of the age spectrum. By a lot. Looking around, the average age seems to be hovering around 55. Orienteering, for whatever reason, tends to attract a much older crowd. I suppose it’s because it’s a thinkers’ sport. As I’ve learned time and time again, a great navigator who can move slowly but efficiently can crush a fast runner who’s shitty at navigation. Skill and experience levels the playing field immensely.

It’s 11:59. Our big adventure begins soon. The race directors herd us into the starting corral and offer a few final tidbits of intel and advice. And then, it’s, “OK… go!”

“Here goes nothing…” I mutter to Sean.

___

Noob Troop Loop

Orienteering starts are funny. Because each team has chosen a different one of the millions of possible permutations of routes, everyone scatters off in totally different directions immediately.

Sean and I bound out of the campground and down the main dirt road to the first bend, where we stop and consult our maps. We line up our compasses and shoot a bearing to the east-southeast, where our first control, 307, will supposedly be. Flipping over the map, I read the description of 307 off the chart. It simply says, “Broad saddle.” We peel off and quickly find ourselves climbing up a steep hill, dodging underbrush as best as we can. Soon enough, we top out. The saddle. But where is the control? We run a few hundred feet to the right, nothing. So we backtrack and try the left. Soon, “There it is!” We see the orange and white dangling from a tree branch. We quickly insert our e-sticks (basically USB sticks attached to our hands) to record our presence and then immediately consult the map again.

Moving from the hash house (pink) to 307 to 405

Control 405. To the east-northeast, maybe half a mile away. Rather than shoot straight there, we see that there’s a road between it and us. The road connects to another road that travels within about a tenth of a mile to it. And near there, there’s a junction with a trail. So, we can travel expeditiously via road, then shoot our bearing off the trail junction so we know exactly where we are and the exact angle we have to travel to reach 405, labeled “Marsh, S end.” Or at least that’s the idea.

We make our way to the road, turn on the second road, and fairly quickly find the junction. From there, we shoot the bearing and sprint off, back into the woods. Soon enough, we find a marsh and start scanning the area. Nothing. We move along the edge, trying to stay on the south side. But as the control continues to remain elusive, we begin just running around aimlessly hoping to bump into it. Ten minutes go by. “Where the hell is this thing?” “We’re definitely at the south end of the marsh… right?”

Finally, I pull my head out of the moment. “Stop. Let’s look at the map.” That’s when I notice that the marsh isn’t just one big strip; it has a bend into it, breaking the marsh into two distinct sections. “What if we’re in this part of the marsh, not over here?” Lightbulb. We’d overshot the bearing just enough that we’d landed ourselves in the smaller, adjacent part of the marsh. We turn 180 degrees and crashed through more underbrush until, there it was. The other part of the marsh. We sprint down its south face, and sure enough, the control comes into view. Ah, I’m starting to see how this is going to go…

We dip our e-sticks and I look down at my watch. 12:40. Two controls in 40 minutes. “Spot on pace!” I announce naively but also fully aware that it’s it’s naive. With 72 controls, to clear the course, we’ll need to find a control every 20 minutes for 24 hours straight. Two things: 1) That is an insane pace, and 2) it means we can make zero mistakes, like, ever.

So, time to get going. We consult the map again. Our next objective is 706, labeled “Reentrant.” We check our compasses and take off.

For the next hour or so, we’re cranking along nicely. Our control-every-20-minutes pace holds up. At 300 (“Broad terrace, N end”), I pull my head out of the map for a moment. It’s been two hours since we’ve started. “Holy shit. I feel like I’ve been out here with you all day,” I tell Sean.

There is no down-time in orienteering. No time to turn your brain off. No time even to eat or drink really. Your head’s always buried in your map, staring off the end of your compass, or scanning your surroundings, hoping to catch a glimmer of orange out of the corner of your eye. And as soon as you do and you’ve tag the control, your heads right back at it again. Oh, and you’re also running or hiking fully cross-country, hopping over logs, running down bare rock faces, hopping over talus fields, or breaking through underbrush, trying not to fall on your face.

Remember that thing you tried to do when you were little where you’d try to pat your head and rub your belly. It’s sort of like that except you’re also juggling a soccer ball, reciting pi to the 100th decimal, cooking an omelet, and doing your taxes.

___

Needle In A Haystack

The afternoon goes off relatively without much of a hitch. We trudge up hillsides, take shortcuts on logging roads that are nowhere to be seen on the map, skip across waterlogged marshes, cross long talus fields, and refill our bottles in cold, mountain-fed streams. Most importantly, we’re picking off controls here and there with only occasional difficulty. I actually can’t believe how well we’re moving. Honestly, I came into the race feeling only OK about my compass skills. But with the repetition of doing it over and over and over, hour after hour after hour, I’m starting feel cautiously confident.

Additionally, Sean and I have a very complementary partnership emerging. Ying and yang. He seems to be better with the compass and traveling over large distances to the general area of a control. Once there, I tend to be better at reading the immediate terrain and spotting the controls at a distance. (“LASIK!” I tell him. “The best money I’ve ever spent!”) And when one of us falters in his unspoken area of expertise, the other picks up the slack and the roles reverse. I’m really liking our chances.

Our entire northern loop

Eventually, we reach the very far northwestern corner of the map. 830, “Bare rock, W foot.” We sight ourselves off a massive wall of bare rock rising almost a thousand feet to our right. We’re almost surrounded by it in fact. I suddenly start to feel a quiet terror. It’s a cross between claustrophobia and helplessness. I realize just how far away we are from everyone and everything. Civilization. Safety. And any sense of origin. It’s like riding in an airplane and suddenly thinking about the fact that you’re 30,000 feet above the Earth in a metal tube. We round a giant grouping of boulders and thankfully spot the control. Mercifully, the feeling washes away in our excitement.

We make a few more moves. We shoot a bearing from 631 (“Stream”) to 821 (“Marsh, partially treed, SW part”). The move feels fairly complicated on the map. In practice, it’s even worse. But after 25 minutes or so, we find ourselves in the general area where we think we’re supposed to be. Except, we have no idea where we actually are. Or where the marsh is. Instead, we’re on a steep, loose hillside, chockful of deadfall and chaparral. This looks nothing like a marsh. This looks like the opposite of a marsh. Sean, sure he knows where we are, shoots off up the hillside. I follow him but only half-heartedly, feeling like he’s going the wrong way. My head starts to spin. The airplane feeling comes on again.

Five minutes later. “Stop! Let’s look at the map and see where we think we are,” I implore. “I think we’re here,” Sean points with the corner of his compass. I’m not sure how he arrived at that conclusion. But, scanning the dense canopy of trees enveloping us, I have no better counter. “I think we need to go back up here,” he points. I’m at a loss so I shrug and say sure.

We fumble around for another 15-20 minutes. Then I hear Sean shout, “Found the marsh!” “You glorious son of a bitch!” I exclaim and sprint towards the sound of his voice. Sure enough, he’s located a marsh perched on a shelf on the hillside. In my excitement, I try to hop over a huge trunk, but my shoe catches a piece of bark and I ragdoll. Flipping forward, I slam into the marsh, bent at a 90-degree angle the wrong way. “Shit! Shitshitshitshitshiiiit.” I follow up with, “I’m OK!” I look down at my knee, and it’s bright red. Blood oozes down, soaking my sock below. I pop up, more embarrassed than hurt. “You alright, man?” Sean asks. I look down at my leg, wet with blood. “Yeah, the flies are just going to have a little feast,” I grin.

After all this, we can’t even find the control. We flail a bit more until we realize there are in fact several marshes on this hillside. None seem to actually be on the map. We make our way from one to another, until we finally find our “treed marsh” and the control. Finally.

After spending the last four hours totally off-trail in the middle of the wilderness, our next line of travel bisects a trail and then turns into a logging road. We make it there, and it feels surprisingly wonderful to be swaddled in civilization again. And good thing too, because night is falling fast.

We have a half dozen more controls to get us back to the hash house, but most all are near roads or trails so we cruise through them without incident. The only snafu comes on the very final control, a quarter mile from the campground. 201 (“Stream junction”). At 20 points, it should be uber easy. But somehow we find ourselves going up and down a dry stream bed, back and forth, looking for a non-existent control. Something is clearly wrong, but we can’t work it out. We both get frustrated. I rise the idea of just cutting bait—it’s only 20 points after all—and heading home. But Sean’s stubbornness is quickly joined by my own, and we refuse to give up. I know this is a poor use of our time, but I know how angry I’ll be with myself tomorrow if we don’t get every control we try for. The moment of frustration forces us to pause and regroup. Sean looks at the map and, in his amazing wisdom that I still don’t understand, decides that we must be in the wrong stream. Looking at the map, I’m not sure that we could be in any other stream. But absent a better idea, I go with it. Five minutes later and back on the road, we spot our correct stream. We instantly feel foolish. Five minutes more of fighting vegetation along the stream bed and we find the control. A short jog later and we’re back at the hash house.

It feels good to be back amongst people and lights and manmade objects. The timing tent is playing some Zeppelin, and the RD offers me soup. I greedily accept. I see a full bottle of Mrs. Butterworth syrup sitting on a table and say, “Oh. Are you guys making pancakes later?” The RD stares at me and just says, “No.” “Uh… OK.”

It’s 9:30. We tell the few people lounging around where we’ve been, and they seem impressed. It feels good; we must be doing something right. We’re a third of our way through the course, which is great. But it also means clearing the course is out of the question. No mind.

I jog back to my Jeep, grab a fresh battery pack for my headlight and shove more gels, turkey sandwiches and formerly-frozen burritos into my pack. Ready to roll. We know night will be trying, but we just don’t know how much.

___

Descent Into Darkness

Time to begin our southern loop. Drier, opener, faster (supposedly). We pop out on the road and look for the second path junction to the left. According to the map, it should come very quickly. But it doesn’t. Or it does. We can’t tell. There are so many Jeep trails and turn-offs, it’s hard for us to know which is the correct one. We choose one that seems right. But the trail isn’t bearing in the direction it is on the map. Still we follow it. Dumb. We’re going uphill now. This seems very wrong. It’s supposed to be flat. Still we follow it. Finally we both agree it’s wrong. Duh. We head back down to the road. For some reason we think the trail must be farther away from camp so we head out. We take other side trails momentarily before deciding they’re wrong. We probably run at least a mile from camp. At some point, a pickup comes rumbling down the dirt road keeping up dust in our headlamps. “Oh hey guys! Is that Andy and Sean?” Through the floating dust and the stupor in my head, I can’t really make out who it is. After a few moments, I dawns on me that it’s one of the RDs. Sean explains to him what we are—or aren’t—doing. “These roads are all fucked up, man. Just get to a control and shoot straight lines from there,” he offers as advice. As the pickup chugs off, I say to Sean, “Well no shit. That’s what we’re trying to do.” But he’s right. The area is so heavily used we can’t trust the map or anything we see. So what do we do?

We fumble around for another 20 minutes or so before we finally identify a set of cliffs off to our right. On the map, we see a symbol for cliffs. We’ve finally located ourselves. PHEW. And we’re right by a control. We shoot a bearing and head off towards 202 (“Marsh, just N of N tip”). And we find it! We curse, we laugh, we howl. But we’ve found it. And we burned 70 minutes doing it. For 20 points. Just a quarter mile from the starting line. Woof.

With a new understanding of where we are, we shoot a bearing and head off into the wilderness once more.

Earlier that afternoon I had said, “How the hell are we supposed to do this in the dark?” Now that it was dark… yeah. “Flying blind” does not begin to accurately describe what we’re doing. We just take a bearing, point ourselves in a direction and pray that we end up there. And our “easier, rockier” loop is nowhere to be seen. It’s all dense forests with zero visibility. (Fun fact! Almost all 24-hour rogaines are held as close to full moons as possible!) The one advantage the night provides is that the controls have pieces of reflective tape on them. So, if you’re scanning your surroundings, your headlight might at least catch a glimmer coming off the tape. This proved appreciably helpful in spotting controls at a great distance, ones that we probably wouldn’t have caught in daylight.

But still, it’s just really fucking hard.

After we grab a few controls, we head towards a big section of cliffs. It looks cool on the map. It looks cooler in person. We claw our way up a sheer rock face onto what turns out to be a massive, smooth granite ridge, rising hundreds of feet above the surrounding valley. We find 902 (“Spur/bare rock, access from N or S”) rather easily. There’s nothing else up there besides the control attached to a lone tree clinging stubbornly to the rock. We register our e-sticks and then sit down for a minute.

“Wow. It’s really beautiful out here.” In the full moon, we can finally see the world around us. It’s a symphony of rock and wood and water lit by the pale glow of a giant rock floating in the sky reflecting sunlight from millions of miles away. For a minute, inside all the madness, the world is perfect.

“Dude. I’m going to eat my fucking burrito,” I exclaim. I throw my pack off and dig in, finding the now-nearly-warm bean and cheese burrito that had been sitting in the bottom for 12 hours now. I bite into it and immediately start moaning. “I can feel the endorphins firing in my brain,” I gush to Sean. He laughs politely. I’m in heaven.

A few minutes later, we say goodbye to the view, take our bearings and head down off the cliffs. Rather than change back to forest, the ground beneath our feet stays sandy and open. “Finally!” I shout. “The rocky loop we were promised.” Feeling in high spirits, we cruise downhill towards 506 (“Reetrant”). At only 50 points, this one should be no problem… Right?

Forty-five minutes later, Sean and I are just flabbergasted. I’ve run out of curse words. I’m empty. I’m fully defeated. We’ve run up and down this damn stream so long looking for a junction to shoot a bearing from that I don’t even know what my name is anymore. We’re flailing. Several times, I fully lose the thread. I look down at my map, and it’s gibberish. I forget which control we’re looking for. I start trying telling Sean he’s wrong, as I’m looking at a totally different part of the map. I don’t know what we’re doing anymore.

We sweep the forest back and forth, a few dozen feet from the stream and a few dozen feet apart from each other, hoping to catch the glint of reflective tape in our headlamps. But the battery on my light is dying and has automatically dimmed itself. Even if the control is out here, I probably won’t see it. If was more coherent I’d be upset. Instead I’m just apathetic.

Somehow, we decide to sweep in the opposite direction, way downstream, which feel very wrong to us, but at this point, it’s the only thing we haven’t done. Running—mostly out of desperation—we drop into a deep forest and begin thrashing around in the undergrowth when suddenly, “Holy shit! I’ve got it!” We find it. I have no idea how that control relates to what we were looking for, but I don’t care. Desperation gives way to a rush of relief.

Here’s what it looked like on Strava. Woof.

Later, as we’re following our next bearing, Sean and I both admit to each other that we thought about suggesting we just bail on the control. But then we both realized we couldn’t.

And here’s the true challenge of rogaine. Ninety percent of the time you can’t just skip a control that’s hard to find. Because if you don’t know where the control is, then you don’t know here you are either. And if you don’t know where you are, you don’t where we’re you’re going next. So, you’re forced to find the control, even if it feels impossible, because it’s your own way out alive.

The rest of the night continues on, eventfully and uneventfully. Ironically, we seem to have the most difficulty finding the lowest-point controls while the high-value controls are relatively easy to locate. We joke about it. It’s funny. I think.

Features like “clearing” and “reentrant” continue to be the bane of my existence. What constitutes one clearing over another clearing? What the actual fuck is a reentrant anyway?

We flail in the dark some more.

We drop down a rock face to a deep dark forest where I think we’re going to die. Somehow, by sheer miracle, I get the sense that the control is much farther north than we think it is, and we sweep the edge of the forest. Four minutes later, I catch the gleam of reflective tape in my headlamp.

Another time, Sean and I are a bajillion miles away from anywhere we think we know. We’ve been running across a series of gullies towards 907 (another fucking “reentrant”). We’ve run ourselves down deep into the folds of a hillside. We’re surrounded by rocks and more rocks. We have no idea where in the world we possibly are. And then all of a sudden Sean shouts, “I see it!” There it is, two hundred feet above us. Another miracle.

The night goes on, until dawn slowly yawns on the horizon. I realize I feel better than I’ve ever felt in ant 100-miler at this point. We’ve covering a lot of ground, and it’s more full-body, but I’m not gutting myself to do it. And the necessity of focus actually makes me feel sharp. Then I realize I’ve only eaten a few hundred calories all night. I check my water bottles. Oh yeah. I’ve only drank about 20 oz of water in the last 12 hours too.

No mind. The sun comes up and navigation becomes easier again. Weirdly, I miss the reflective tape. You can’t have it all.

The next control is 623. I read the description: “Pool at base of 8m water (no access from NW).”  “Oooh! That sounds delightful,” I say. We find it. It is delightful. Just as the sun has risen, we find ourselves in the midst of a smooth, rocky gully with a gently roaring waterfall surrounded by glimmering pools of cool water. “I’m really glad we did this one,” I say out loud, instantly feeling like we’re an old, married couple.

Five minutes later, I’m blowing my ass out behind a bush.

Three controls away from finishing our second loop, we hit another snafu. We burn what feels like an hour wandering aimlessly through the forest. It’s 503 (another fucking “reentrant”). It should be easy. It’s not. I shout at Sean to stop and let’s think this thing out. We orient ourselves off a giant wall to the north of us and try to think our way out of this thing. Ten minutes later, I start shouting “Hallelujah!” as the world around us is finally matching up with the world on our maps. We split up and two minutes later I shout, “Holy shit I found it!” Seriously, what is a reentrant anyway??

An hour later, we’re back at the hash house. It’s around 9:00 in the morning. The first loop took us 9.5 hours. The second one took 11.5. Clearing the map is waaaay out of the question. But as we’re milling around the food tent, we still feel plenty good. Sean and I both make a beeline for the industrial-sized can of cocktail fruit and spoon the syrup and processed pineapple into our cups and guzzle it whole. It’s heavenly.

Also, fruitcake FTW.

___

Victory Lap?

We’re closing in on two hours left. It’s getting hot again. I know Sean wants to quit. He knows I want to quit. I know he knows that I want to quit. He knows that I know that he wants to quit. But instead, we make plans to head out on our final, truncated loop. We’ll pick off a few controls that are nearby with enough time to return before noon. (Good rogaine strategy! I feel proud.)

Sean looks a little rough. I didn’t eat many calories overnight, but he ran out. Nonetheless, all night, he’d pushed the pace on hills, leaving me in the dust. I’ve been perkier on the roads and had to pull him a bit. Basically, we’re both beat. We don’t want to admit it to the other person. It’s funny that we only met about 24 hours ago.

“We leave by 22,” we agree. Translation: 10:00am. We’ll have two hours to complete our mini-loop of four controls. It’ll only be 130 points total, but it’s more to prove to ourselves that we refuse to quit. At 10:00am precisely, we meet by the port-a-potties.

In my mind, this mini-loop is a victory lap. We find the first control with ease. The second with ease. The third with ease. The fourth one pretends to be difficult but soon we wrangle it in. With most of the course under our belts and 45 minutes left, we head back home.

At the hash house, we jam our e-sticks in the control labeled “FINISH” and give each other a series of handshakes, fist-bumps and hugs. We did it.

___

“That’s A Good Thing”

When we put our e-sticks into the download terminal—basically the thing that receives all those timestamps when we punched the different controls—the printer immediately spit out a long receipt-looking thing. “Wow. That’s long. That’s a good thing,” says the volunteer working the computer.

I look at my receipt. It says we have 2,900 points. I look over at the timekeeper’s screen, and the top number of points I see from other teams is 2,630. Whoa. We might have won.

We did all that. Sheesh.

There’s still twenty minutes left—it’s 11:40am—so there’s a good chance another team could still come in and kick our asses.

Fifty minutes later we’re standing at the awards ceremony. I’m cracked out my mind. I’m dirty. Sticky. Tired. Blood-shot-eyes-y. But eventually the RD announces, “Male team, open… with 2,900 points… wow, that’s almost the whole map… Pacific Mountain Runners, Andy Pearson and Sean Ranney!”

Beginner’s luck again. We’re the North American Champions.

The best part about orienteering is how quaint it is. (And I don’t use that word pejoratively.) This award ceremony is only a few dozen people huddled around an awning trying to stay out of the sun. The awards come in dozens of flavors, across every possible permutation of age and gender divisions imaginable. And the awards themselves? A certificate declaring “2019 North American Rogaine Champion” with the name section blank—RD: “You can write your own name in” —and your choice from a variety of chocolates. As far as I can tell chocolate is the belt buckle of orienteering. The adventure has been so epic, and the reward so unassuming, it feels perfect.

What winning feels like.

What winning tastes like.

___

The Venn Diagram

Reflecting back, I’m both proud of and humbled by what we did. The experience taught me more in 24 hours than I think I’ve ever learned. From geology to map-reading to problem-solving to ultrarunning to 500 other things, orienteering requires everything from you. But it’s a constant education too.

I love ultrarunning deeply. It speaks to a deep physical and spiritual part of human existence. But orienteering adds the mental aspect as well. You have to always be on.

We ended up moving more than 60 miles in 24 hours, with probably 90-95% of that being off-trail. (Full Strava details here.) During the race, I joked with Sean that the Venn diagram of people who would actually do this is so incredibly small. You have to possess the ability to run/hike at ultramarathon distances while also calling on a deep reservoir of navigational and outdoor experience. (Or in my case, just faking it.)

___

Not The End

If any of this sounds at least mildly interesting to you, I’d encourage you to look up orienteering clubs in your city. Almost all cities have one. In LA, ours is the LAOC. They have monthly events that are usually just an hour or two in length, and they’re a great way to try your hand at it. (Also, a fun family activity for kids!) Learning these kinds of map and compass skill is deeply rewarding and can add all kinds of new dimensions to your appreciation of the outdoors.

Basically, try it! And if you have questions or want some tips, let me know. I’m happy to help.

I’m only 165 miles in. Still more than 40 to go. Pain shoots up through the bottoms of my feet. Every step feels like the trail is covered in broken glass, but it’s just the early stages of trench foot setting into my waterlogged soles. For the last half hour I’ve been practicing meditative breathing—in throoough the nooose, outttt throooough the nooose—just to take my mind off the shudders of pain rippling through my body.

I might hyperventilate.

I’m so deep in the pain cave, I’m not sure where the entrance was. And it’s very, very dark in here.

Just then, a realization washes over my body—a glimmer of hope. I pick my head up and croak at my pacer, “Hey Marc, I just had a pleasant thought.” “What’s that?” “At least I never have to run Badwater now.”

Who needs some sissy 135-mile race when you can go 206.5 instead, right?

Of Course

My obsession with the Bigfoot 200 started the moment I crossed the finish line at Western States in 2016. States is the granddaddy of 100-milers, after all, and I had just executed a nearly flawless race. It felt like the culmination of something. No 100 will ever come easy, but it felt like I had figured them out. I needed something that scared me again.

And that’s how, one Friday morning in August, I find myself standing at a starting line in the middle of a remote section of the Cascade Mountains in Washington state. My mind is remarkably calm. There’s nothing to be nervous about; who can predict what’s going to come over the next 206.5 miles and 86,000 feet of elevation gain? I just have to let it happen at me. And it’s about to.

What it takes to run 200 miles apparently.

All smiles... at check-in. (Howie Stern)

My amazing (and still fresh-smelling) crew: Peter, Erin, Marc, and one big ole puppy. (Peter Dawson)

Laughing or crying? Hard to tell.  (Howie Stern)

A whole bunch of idiots. (Howie Stern)

3!... 2!... 1!... Go!

A mass of 160-something bodies lurch off the starting line. Within 50 feet, I find myself out front already. Someone’s gotta win. Why not me? I say to myself, a mantra I adopted many years ago.

Leading already? (Howie Stern)

The first miles are generally easy. Soft, dusty trails under a tunnel of pines. Three of us—me, Ryan and Ben—pull out front on our own, chatting intermittently with the standard ultrarunning small talk.

As we break out of the trees and into the volcanic rock, Ryan pulls away. Run your own race, I remind myself. There’s about 200 miles left of it…

We’re on the south side of Mount St Helens, the volcano which famously blew in 1980, instantly ripping apart hundreds of square miles in every direction. Our route will take us through the barren blast zone where little has managed to survive.

Thar she blows.

As we gain elevation, we enter the field of volcanic boulders. Bubbly, black and sharp, the rocks are a jumbled mess, and I hop my way from one to another, following large wooden poles that define the route. It’s fun, and I nearly slip and slice my entire body open only twice. I’m wearing my trusty New Balance Summit Unknowns. They’re too minimal to go the full distance, but they’re perfect for the nimble scampering I need to do here. My poor gaiters are not as lucky, however. The sharp rock makes quick work of the cords that wrap under my shoes, and soon they gaiters are flapping freely around my ankles, letting in all the dirt they want. I chuckle to myself, Of course.

I make it to the first aid station, Blue Lake (mile 12.2), feeling good, aside from a couple of bee stings I’ve already acquired because, Of course. I fill all four of my bottles, dump ice into my ice bandana and shovel some watermelon and grapes down my gullet. The next section is going to be a long one. More than 18 miles in the open sun.

I’ve caught Ryan, but he takes off so I hurry to follow him. Run your own race, I try to remind myself.

The trail winds us in and out of pockets of forest, mixed with sections of skeleton trees. They stand bare and bleached in the sun—a whole forest of death. Seems like a good sign.

When the trail opens up again, I can see that we’re going to descend down to a big river. I pick up some speed, slaloming down the rutted trail and enjoying the ride.

Suddenly, WHAP!

It all happens so fast I don’t even understand. All I know is that I’m flat on the ground saying the word, “Oof.” I pick up my poles, and one of them dangles in the air like a snapped crab leg. Of course I snapped a pole 15 miles into a 200-mile race. Of course.

Embarrassed but unhurt, I take off again. The broken pole whips around with every bounce. It’s annoying. Finally, I devise a system where I tuck it under one arm while I use the good pole in the other hand. For a brief moment, I feel like Killian at last year’s Hardrock. Except he dislocated his entire shoulder, and you just snapped a pole, I hear myself say. Right.

The course moves clockwise up and around the volcano, and soon I break into blast zone. Vast, desolate, gray and dusty, there’s little life here and even less water. But despite the direct assault by the sun, I’m moving well and feeling good.

Of course I broke a pole 15 miles in. (Scott Rokis)

Things are strange out here. I discover an insect I name the Sprinkler Bug because, well, I that’s what I thought it literally was at first. It chirps just like those lawn sprinklers that spin slowly and then come back fast. Tct, tct, tct, tct, tct, tctctctctctct! At another point, we climb switchbacks up a massive ridge of soft gray dust. I’ve never been to the Moon, but now I don’t need to.

I’m rationing water now. I still have miles to go before the aid station, but my 80 oz is running low. The race directions said something about a water source at mile 16 of the section; I’m just praying I’m close.

A half mile later, I hear something glorious: water. Coming around a curve, I spy a grove of plant life bursting from the rocks. I break through it to see a tumbling waterfall. “Oh-ho yeah!” I exclaim involuntarily and out loud. I pull out my Katadyn filter bottle and greedily begin guzzling water. It’s so clear and cold I nearly get brain freeze. It’s a proper oasis in the middle of a desert.

After dunking my hat and bandana in the glacier-fed water, I bound off with new life. Eventually, the trail hits a dusty fire road, and I begin to climb up on my approach to the Windy Ridge aid station (mile 30.3).

Pole still broken. Because of couse. (Howie Stern)

“Can anyone do some surgery on a trekking pole for me?” I ask as I blow in waving my janky broken pole around in the air. No one seems to want to really be responsible for this fool’s errand, but eventually someone finds some duct tape and gets to work. I know there’s no way they’re going to be able to make it functional; it’s fully snapped in one place and smashed in another. But seeing as I have no crew for another 10 miles, I just don’t want it whipping around anymore.

The duct tape job is so bad that it’s funny. The poor volunteer has created a splint from a spare—but not straight—stick which is then wrapped in black duct tape a few dozen time. The effect is that my pole has grown a malignant tumor. But it’ll do the job. I shove a few potato chips in my mouth, thank the volunteers for their help and bound off.

The Chase

There’s a short out-and-back to get to the Wind Ridge, and by the time I complete it, I come to a confusing sign directing 200-milers to turn right. But there’s no right turn, just desert. Hmm. I run a little more until I come upon Ryan. He’s standing in the trail waiting for me. “I guess we go this way?” he points to the trail we’re on. It’s not a full right turn like the sign suggested, more of a very gentle branch. But we decide it must be right and take off together.

Ryan and I share the next set of miles together, picking up our standard ultrarunner chatter again. We cross washes, bushwhack through dense underbrush and just start to bake in the sun a little. Turns out he’s doing the Triple Crown (Bigfoot 200, Tahoe 200 four weeks later and Moab 240 three weeks after that). Now I’m really impressed but also a hair confused why he’s running out front like that. No mind, we push on.

The trail eventually begins to climb up as we point towards the observation point and our next aid station at Johnston Ridge, mile 39.9. I start to get a little wild hair and think, Eh, let’s push it. I ramp up my speed and start to leave Ryan. I find that being able to come into aid stations ahead of other people is a huge mental boost, for me and for my crew (which in turn is another boost for me).

The view of Mount St Helens and the blast zone, from Johnston Ridge. (Peter Dawson)

I get into the aid, grab a hunk of watermelon and find my godsend of a crew, Marc, Peter, and Erin, for the first time in 40 miles. “Wow! You look amazing!” they tell me. “I’m having fun.” “You’re blazing out there!”

“I’ve got an assignment for you guys. You think you can do some surgery on this thing?” I hold up my sad, dangling Z-Pole. Everyone stares at it. Yikes. Finally, Marc offers a solution, “Hey, I’ve got a pair of adjustable Lekis. Why don’t you just take them?” He shoves them into my hands. They’re new, pristine, never been used. I feel bad sullying them. But I think it’s about my only option if I want to finish this thing. God bless you, Marc.

I munch some pretzels and we change out my Summit Unknowns for my cushier Hierro v2s. They’re the biggest shoes I’ve ever run in, but I’m crossing my fingers that they’re going to save my legs because #166milestogo.

By the time I’ve switched shoes, figured out the new poles and fixed my fussy SPOT Tracker we’re all required to carry, Ryan has taken off ahead of me. I wave to my crew and the volunteers and go to chase him down.

It’s now late afternoon. The sun is high and the trail exposed. I’m pushing the pace to catch back up with Ryan, and I think to myself, I don’t remember it being this hot a few minutes ago. Maybe I’m pushing too hard.

I’m starting to question myself when I see Ryan a few switchbacks below me. I lock in and start careening downhill. It’s a little surprising how quickly I catch him. He sort of grunts a nice “Hey” at me, and I realize he’s hurting. And with that, I’m gone.

Over the next few miles, bodies of several 100Kers litter the trail. It’s hot, and the distances between aid stations are too long for inexperienced runners. Poor 100Kers.

I saunter into Coldwater Lake aid (mile 46.5) feeling good. Really good. I’ve been looking at my splits, and I’m almost an hour up on course record pace. Did not see that coming.

Getting prepped for the first night already. (Peter Dawson)

“Hi, Peter!” (Peter Dawson)

“Bye, Peter!” (Peter Dawson)

Headlight in pack, I roll out. This section to Norway Pass promises to be one of the hardest—20 miles, more than 5,000 feet of gain, all as the sun sets. But for now, I’m just enjoying myself. The trail follows the length of Coldwater Lake, and the trees give me reprieve from the heat that’s undoubtedly out there in the sun. Life is good.

After what feels like a few miles, I cross a bridge and start heading up switchbacks. Ah, the climbing begins. All along the trail bushes of various wild berries burst open. Huckleberries, blackberries, raspberries, thimbleberries. I pluck their gifts as I go hiking by. Natural trail magic.

Eventually, I top out and find myself high above the landscape below. The sun hangs low in the sky, and the trail snakes its way under ridges and peaks. Up and over a crest and suddenly the whole of Mount St Helens is laid out in the distance. The volcano has her own ring of clouds clinging to her. And in the golden hour, everything glows amber. I’m totally gobsmacked. I turn another corner and suddenly Mt Adams comes into view in the far distance too. My insides ignite with pure joy. It’s hands-down the most spectacular sunset I’ve ever witnessed. And I have it all to myself.

I’m totally alone for miles and miles. Up here. I’m on top of the world. I slow down and breathe it in.

Continuing on, alpine lakes unfold below me, hidden from the rest of the world behind a fortress of peaks. A third of their surfaces are covered in white. For a moment, I don’t understand what I’m looking at. Then I realize it. They’re massive tree trunks, bleached in the sun. The lakes are covered in them. They must be from the blast, killed off decades ago and left to float on the lakes. I know I’m the only person who will see these tonight, and I feel immensely lucky.

Just then I hear a screech. It’s high and sharp and echoes off the mountains. There’s only one thing it can be. Mountain lion. Oh heeeey.

The sun sets at 8:25, but I’ve always liked to run in twilight so I keep going without my headlamp, seeing how far I can get before absolutely needing it. Turns out I can make it all the way to 9:00. OK, I’ve tempted fate long enough, I say to himself as images of me eating shit in the blackness play in my brain.

Headlamp on, I top out again and seem to be heading downhill. There’s a quick out-and-back to tag the Mt Margaret peak. I’m sure it’s lovely in the daylight. In the dark, it’s mostly just very dark.

I careen downhill, eager to make it to the next aid. Finally, a faint light appears in the valley below. I remember a race report saying that the aid would be visible but still very far away. But after what feels like a few miles, it’s still very far away. Maybe that’s not it? It’s the only light I see out there in the inky night. But is that really it? After what seems like an eternity of “Guess-If-That-Light-Is-The-Aid-Station” I come upon a sign that reads “Norway Pass 1 mile”. Guess it is. And it’s still kinda far away.

Another down in and I come into Norway Pass aid station, mile 65.2. After being alone in the dark for so long, the sudden buzz of activity and light is a little shocking. Someone brings a blanket—it’s getting chilly now—and I request a cheeseburger and Coke.

There’s a boy of about six years old who’s very excited to see me. “I said he was going to be here soon, and then he showed up!” he keeps repeating proudly. “I said he was going to be here soon, and now he’s here! Do you want chili? Coffee?” He flitters around me like an overly excited mosquito.

For a moment, I think of my own one-year-old boy at home, and I’m taken out of the race. Watching this kid bounce around, I think to myself, One day my baby will grow up to be a super-annoying little boy, just like this one.

Into The Heart of Darkness

Burger in belly, I shove off again. The trail out of Norway is in bad disrepair. Bushes obstruct the trail and dead trees lay littered everywhere. At one point, the trail seems to dead-end into pure forest. I stop, feeling it’s wrong, but go ahead and push my way through a mess of pines. After 20 feet of thick bushwhacking, I turn around. I try a different entry point and push through. Another 15 feet and nothing. I turn around again. I try a third time, but nothing. This seems bad. Finally, I turn around and look behind me. There’s a hairpin turn in the trail at about a 350-degree angle. A ribbon sits squarely but invisibly in the middle. Ahh. In my frustrated state, I can’t remember which way I’ve come. Or more importantly, where I’m going. Everything starts to look the same. I pick the right side and start going. But it feels weird to be going uphill. I stop and turn around to try the other direction. I make it a little way down this direction before I see something familiar feeling. Now I’m very confused. Stop. Breathe. Think. I pull out my iPhone and switch it on. We were required to load the race into our Gaia GPS app before the race. Thank God. I look at it. Yep, I’m definitely going the wrong way. Score one for Gaia.

Heading back in the right direction, I start to feel better. The trail improves, and I enjoy some night miles once more.

The trail seems to be crawling with all kinds of thing. I see toads hop away from my feet. Salamanders wriggle under leaves. And bugs of all kind squirm everywhere. I’m not having hallucinations, but my mind starts to play a game where it makes faces out of every leaf or rock I step over. At one point, I look down a see a rock that’s clearly Zombie Barack Obama.

I’m enjoying my time so much that I forget the last time I saw a marking. They’ve been spaced rather far apart, but, Maybe I just haven’t been paying attention? I keep going, suddenly on high alert. Nothing. The trail begins to climb. A lot. For some reason, that doesn’t feel right. My hands are on knees as I’m pushing uphill. Where is the damn marking? I’m starting to panic a little again. But, foolishly, I keep going. The markings HAVE been really far apart, I convince myself, not wanting to admit what I’m fearing.

Stop. Breathe. Think. Common sense finally appears. I stop and pull out Gaia again. I’m off-course. By a lot. Somehow I’m on a parallel trail to the correct trail. (Unless GPS is placing me slightly off, and I’m really on the right trail?) I wonder if I can connect to the right trail if I continue, but that doesn’t seem likely. What if I bushwhack? Dense brush, going fully off-trail, not a good idea, my common sense rebuts. The only option is to turn around. So I do.

It takes me a long time to get back. At least 15 or 20 minutes. I’ve probably added a minimum of two miles to my race by the time I get back to what Gaia tells me is the proper trail. There, I find a three-way intersection. I see flagging uphill, where I came from originally. And then I see a flag pointing down the trail I’ve just backtracked on. Meaning, according to that flag, I was on course. But my Gaia is telling me otherwise. I look off to the only trail I haven’t gone. No flagging, but Gaia says it’s right. I cautiously proceed, wondering what the hell is going on. Confusion mixes with anger with just a dash of annoyance.

A ways down the trail, I finally see it: a flag. Finally. A little farther, another flag. Farther still, another flag. OK, I must be on the right trail. It starts to dawn on me that the flag pointing downhill at the intersection was placed incorrectly—maybe by a bad course-marker? But by then, I’ve already gone too far to turn back and fix it. I’ve already added enough extra miles tonight.

The side effect of the episode is that now I’m super paranoid. Suddenly I can’t trust any marking. Any time I go more than a couple of minutes without seeing a ribbon, I start to freak. The forest suddenly feels a little more sinister.

That’s right when a bird hit me.

It flies right smack-dab into my chest. OK, weird.

A few minutes later, I hear something directly off to the right side of the trail. It sounds big. Like, pretty darn big. But thinking it’s just a deer, I don’t worry, and it seems to disappear. Fifteen seconds later, I hear it again, it’s directly off to the right. Still. It’s paralleling me. I hear it crashing through the underbrush, still precisely off to my right. IS THAT BIGFOOT??? Objectively I know it’s not, but also, I mean, the race is named for him. Now I’m proper freaked. I begin shouting and singing nonsense, hoping Bigfoot hates my voice. He must because I don’t hear him after that.

It begins to rain now. Just a little. But enough to make the trail slick.

I enter a small, narrow canyon with the trail built onto a shelf. Or at least that’s the best I can tell from the beam of the headlamp through the rain.

Suddenly, through the darkness I hear, CRACK!

Holy shit, there’s lightning now??

The thunder sounds as if it struck just a few hundred feet to my right. Then I think, Wait a second. There was thunder but no lightning. That’s weird. Then it dawns on it. That wasn’t lightning; that was a tree falling. OH GREAT. I look up suspiciously. THE ENTIRE FOREST IS READY TO FALL DOWN AND KILL ME. If I was paranoid before, I’m out of my mind now.

Finally, mercifully, I make it to Elk Pass aid at mile 76.3, alive. I immediately start blubbering about the trail marking fiasco. “It’s somewhere near Badger Peak,” I tell the aid station captain. “Oh, I know exactly where that is. Same thing happened last year. Someone vandalized the course.” “Oh man.” “Yeah, these stupid local kids on dirt bikes go out there and switch up the markings. Think it’s funny.” It’s a bit of relief to know that it wasn’t my fault. But also, what the hell?

I sit down to regroup and eat some more real food for the first time in hours. As I do, someone asks if I saw any wildlife out there. “Uh, well, I heard a mountain lion, got hit by a bird and am pretty sure I was being hunted by Bigfoot.” It feels good to have a laugh and know that all that’s in the past.

The good news is that I’m still well up on my splits. The course record feels within reach. I’m going for it. I wave everyone farewell and head out.

But the stress of the night has taken its toll. I feel worked. A cold is slowly materializing in my chest and nostrils, adding to my general feeling of shittiness. Not only that, I’ve been relying on gels between aid station stops for most of this first day, and they don’t seem to be giving me everything I need.

The trail rolls, then climbs. I start to feel a little foggy. It’s now very, very early morning, that magical time when things get weird in a race. Fifteen miles to the next aid and my first pacer. I just have to make it.

Things get colder too. This is not fun anymore. A deeply awful feeling suddenly washes over me. This is impossible. It’s too much.

A terrible idea takes root: I’ve just run 70 miles. I HAVE TO DO THAT TWO MORE TIMES. All that I just did. Again. Twice.

The flame that’s been burning inside me suddenly extinguishes. Poof.

It’s not that I don’t want to finish; I just don’t know how. It’s just not possible.

It’s a black pit. I’m standing at the bottom of the Dawn Wall, staring up, no rope, no clue what to do. That task in front of me does not compute.

This is impossible. It’s just not possible.

It’s the first time I’ve felt like dropping in years and years. But it comes on so suddenly that I feel like I’ve been punching in the gut.

I begin formulating my exit plan. When is it OK to drop? Where can I drop? What will that feel like? How is my crew going to feel? The last question hits me. I realize how shitty it will be if I asked them to take off almost a week of their lives to come out in the middle of nowhere, just to have me drop. I start to feel really bad.

You feel bad for them? What about you?? a voice asserts. Just think of the time and training and preparation and—screw it—MONEY that YOU put into all of this? It’s true. It’d be pretty shitty to just give up this easily.

Plus… the voice winds up for its final knockout punch. There’s a pause.

Yes?... I ask.

You know you’ll just have to come back and run this again if you drop.

Shit. I know it’s right. And I am not about to come back and run this dumb race again. No way.

And with that, I resign myself to finishing. I’m back in.

I top out of the climb and beginning rolling downhill. In the fog—both metaphoric and literal—my legs work at an embarrassingly suboptimal pace. Picking my way down the rutted-out trail, I finally reach the bottom and spill onto a dirt road. I’ve made it to the mile 91.3 aid station, Road 9327

Marc, Erin, and Peter are there. “I need to sleep,” I announce. They hurry me into the back of the rented Suburban. Mercifully, I rip off my dusty shoe and slide into the trunk. “Get me in 15 minutes,” I mutter as they shut the Chevy-branded sarcophagus on me.

I close my eyes, and all I can feel is cold and the ribbed, plastic bed of the truck on my back. I shift left and right. Nothing makes me feel as sleepy as I know I should feel.

I remember advice from my friend Bryce who said he wasted an hour trying to fall asleep last year. I’m determined to not let that happen. After ten minutes of bullshit, I sit up. My caffeinated gels must be working a little too well. I knock on the window and beg to be let out. Oh well.

By the time I’m out, my breakfast is ready. Eggs, bacon, coffee. It’s glorious. I scarf it greedily. It’s amazing. Then it dawns on me: I need to switch to real food. These formulated gels and chews can only do so much for me. If I’m out here for two and a half days, I need good stuff on my stomach. I ask them to whip me up a quesadilla to go.

Day Two Dawns

Reluctantly, I strap my shoes back on. Time to go. At least I have Marc with me now. We say goodbye and amble down the mountain farther. The morning light filters through fog, and things feel a little better. We chat and catch up. It’s nice to share miles with someone again.

Meanwhile, back in the crew car... #vanlife (Erin Gardner Dawnson)

Marc has downloaded the course onto to his InReach. After a bit, he announces, “OK, I think we have this climb and then we head down to the aid.” We climb for a while longer. At one point, in the total middle of nowhere, we come across some senior campers out for a morning stroll. “You guys out for a running? Doing the one-mile loop?” We just stare at them, unsure how to answer. “No, we’re not,” is the only appropriate answer that comes out.

Marc checks his GPS again. “I think it’s just this climb again.” This climb seems to have been going on forever. And then it keeps going even more. And more. It’s getting steeper too. I have zero recollection of reading about a monster climb here in any course description. “Dude. What the fuck.” This thing does not end. I look up and only see more climbing. We keep telling ourselves that it must top out at the next bend. But every time we hit a turn, we look straight up another half-mile of trail. The cursing becomes more frequent and emphatic. Marc keeps promising that we must almost be there, but every time, I wind up heartbroken. Things start to feel impossible again. At some point, I cross the 100-mile mark without fanfare; I don’t even notice until much later. One hundred miles in 25ish hours. Fast for a 200. But a sub-24 had a nice ring to it.

After what seems like five times too long, we reach the top of Spencer Butte. (Or Spence Butt, as I’ve obviously named it.) Rather unceremoniously, we drop off the top and down towards the aid. It’s a long descent, but not nearly as long as the climb. Ragged, we pop out onto a paved road and the aid. Mile 102.5.

I sit, regroup myself a bit, eat some more food and then off we go. Marc and I patter down the paved road. In the sunlight, I don’t feel terrible, but I don’t feel good either. After two miles, we see the turn-off, a small foot trail that seems to drop precipitously off the side of the mountain.

“Is this even a trail?” Marc wonders aloud. We switchback down a very steep descent, covered with leaves. It’s a screamer. “I think the last time anyone used this trail was last year’s race,” Marc says. “Agreed.” But it feels good to be running again.

Eventually, we bottom out and snake our way towards the Lewis River. And civilization. We cross a road. We start to see cars, hear people, catch tents. After spending the last day in the backcountry, the sudden assault of other human beings is a shock to my system. People who have no idea what I’ve been through or what I still have left to do. Just people merrymaking and lazily cooking eggs over campfire and walking down to the river to get a glimpse. Their presence energizes me a little. After all, people equal an aid station nearby, right?

Marc and I hit a well-trodden path that parallels the river, running upstream. The water looks crisp. I fumble to get some orange-flavored Honey Stinger chews into me.

We must be getting close, I think to myself. Then I say it out loud. “We must be getting close, right?” Marc checks his InReach. “We have a little ways to go.” “OK.” We wind inland some, away from the water. Surely we’re headed into the aid. I ask Marc again, but he only deflects and tells me we have a few more miles to go. My optimism starts to sour. Somehow I’ve conflated the mileage of different aid stations in my head. I’m confused. The trail continues to roll. We head along some cliffs, hear a waterfall, pass more day-hikers. I grunt to acknowledge them. In my head I imagine myself to be a small slobbering hedgehog of a creature. It’s probably funnier in my head than it actually is.

Finally, after what feels more eternal than the previous eternity, we see a sign telling us that the Lewis River aid station (mile 112.1) is a few hundred feet away. There’s a series of signs, a Caribbean theme I think. I recognize a Jimmy Buffett quote, I think.

I throw myself into the folding chair. I made it. Well, I made it to halfway-to-making-it. At least I’m still in the lead, I assume, by a considerable bit. Nevertheless, I want to get out there quickly. Or, rather, I want to want to get out there quickly. It feels good to sit. It’s morning, and I’m eating chili. I change shirts. We wash my feet. I have a long debate with Peter and Erin about whether to change out my shoes to the next half-size up for swelling but ultimately decided against it. Then, I brush my teeth. Oh God. It feels so good. I’d been looking forward to that for about 100 miles now.

I’m patched together as best I can. I feel like spare parts, but at least I’m still well in the lead. With a wave, I amble out of the aid station, back down the hill and past the possible-Jimmy-Buffett quote signs, with Peter now in tow. Just as we near the turnoff to get back on route, a thick bear of a dude comes flying up the trail towards me. He flashes a smile and says hi. I’m dumbfounded.

We turn onto the trail, and then I turn to Peter. “That can’t be another runner… right?” “I don’t think so, man…” “I mean… I don’t think that was one, right?” I get a little more uneasy.

We drop down by Quartz Creek and begin following a trail that’s only slightly better than a game trail. At times, the trail turns and shoots straight up the hillside, leaving us clawing our way up, hands on knees. Then it inexplicably turns down and drops again. Then up and down and up and down, without purpose. It's beginning to feel a little maddening. Then again, I realize, it’s sort of a metaphor for this whole thing, isn’t it?

Rain begins to fall in spits. It cuts the air pleasantly, and I allow myself to enjoy it. But after a few minutes, I realize I’m starting to get soaked. No bueno. I stop to slip on my rain shell.

A few minutes later, we hear a sound over our shoulder. Within a minute, that same bear of a guy we saw coming up to Lewis River aid, goes shooting past us. “Nice job, guys!” he hollers as he sails off. Gut punch. He really was a runner after all—Wes Ritner, I learn later. Well, there goes that. I’m sad but mostly just jealous of how well he’s moving. Within two minutes he’s out of sight.

The rain subsides, and we keep up-and-downing our way along the creek. Finally, we get to a crossing point, likely the last water for another 15 miles. Peter and I stop on a jumble of rocks to filter water into our bottles. I look around at the forest, the creek, the two of us sitting there, and it feels just really pleasant. If I wasn’t 118 miles deep into a race, we could just be two friends out a little adventure hike. I savor the moment. The weight of leading the race has slid off my shoulders finally. Now I just want to finish.

We drink our fill, top off bottles and then press on. Several minutes later, as we’re picking our way through thick, razor-like thorn bushes, we hear a crashing sound behind us. It’s Ryan from before. And he’s flying too. He says a quick hello, asks if I’m OK—Geez, do I look that bad? —and then shoots off uphill.

The next few hours feel like more wandering. We claw our way uphill on the “trail” only to drop back down again moments later. It feels pointless, and I become angry with whoever designed this stupid, stupid trail.

Soft rain falls off and on, and I foolishly feel grateful for the change of pace. But it starts to chill as we make our way up to some road that’s supposed to materialize yet never does.

Pretty par for the race course. (Peter Dawson)

I’m starting to feel truly, deeply exhausted. I want proper sleep. “I’m going to lay down to sleep once the sun goes down,” I announce to Peter. I check my watch. It’s 6:28. Sundown is at 8:00. I can’t wait till 8:00.

We finally reach the dirt road high up on a ridge. It’s a mess. A combo of rains and ATVs have torn it up, in that annoying way that ATV tear things up. But I’m happy to be making progress at least. The late summer sun shines through the wet trees, bathing us in golden light. I’m starting to stumble a bit.

I keep checking my watch. 7:41. 7:46. 7:52. 7:55. 7:57. Finally, it’s 8:00. I can officially sleep, based on my totally arbitrary designation. I begin hunting for a spot to lay down, but the rain has soaked most of the ground. After another few minutes, I spot a small dry patch behind an island of trees in the middle of the trail. Sleep time! I take my pack off, make a little pillow with it and lay down. The dirt is lumpy but soft. I can’t wait to sleep.

ZzzZzzzzzZZ! Smack!

ZzzzzZZZzZZzZ! Smack!

ZZZzzZzZZZ! Smack smack smack!

Shit. Mosquitoes. Really??

I’m absolutely swarmed in mosquitoes. They assault every square inch of exposed, short-shorts flesh. I swat them in vain, convinced I’ll still sleep. My legs and arms are pricked and pierced mercilessly. Shit.

I dig into my pack and produce a long-sleeve shirt which I lay across my legs like some sad pair of pants. It obviously does not do the trick at all. I toss angrily. I give one more valiant effort to ignore the pest, but nothing is going to stop this assault. “It’s not going to work,” I tell Peter, sitting up. “Let’s keep going,” I say, defeated.

We arrive at the Council Bluff aid station (mile 131) in the dark. It’s starting to get cold, and I’m starting to feel properly wrecked. The cheery aid stations folks can tell. They plop me under a blanket near the fire and someone offers me chili. “Sure, thanks.” They bring over a paper bowl lined with a flour tortilla and then covered in a very corn-forward chili. The tortilla-under-chili thing confuses my brain, but I eat it greedily as best I can.

“Alright, I want to go soon,” I tell Peter. If I can’t sleep I might as well keep moving. Chain of Lakes is less than 10 miles away, with all my stuff and another chance at sleep.

“Hey, you need to eat some more,” a volunteer comes barreling over to me.

“I’m good, really. I just want to keep moving.”

“No man, you need to eat more food.”

“I have been eating.”

“Listen, dude, I’ve run a lot of races. I’ve DNF’d before. You need to eat more.”

Weird flex.

“I don’t. want. food. I want to go.”

“I’ll get you some M&M’s.”

“Dude. I’m good.”

He continues to brag to me about running a 36-hour 100-miler or something. I guess if he’s trying to prove his prowess at being bad at ultras, I'm convinced. Either way, he won’t let me leave, and I’m starting to get really annoyed. The other volunteers can sense the weird scene unfolding. One of the volunteers offers, “How about some Oreos?”

I can sense that this woman is just trying to help me get out of here. “Sure,” I acquiesce.

I leave annoyed, with a paper towel sleeve of three Oreos, muttering to Peter.

The next hours drift hazily at best. We roll along, just trying to bide our time until Chain of Lakes. My head cold from before has fully bloomed into something serious. I shoot snot rockets from my nose every few minutes, and it’s getting harder to breathe. Cool.

As we climb up to a paved road, there’s a promise of civilization. Road signs tell us of Takhlakh Lake and its campground nearby. I assume that it’s part of the Chain of Lakes so we must be close. Really close.

Along the sides of the road, we see white frost delicately forming. It’s frigid and exposed on the road. We slip on gloves and await the aid station’s arrival. But instead of turning down the obvious road to what had to be the aid, the flags point us past and then turn off the road entirely and into the woods. It must just be a quick jog through the woods to get to the aid on singletrack, I think. But the aid never comes. Peter looks at his watch and tells me it must just be another half mile. But that passes. And passes again. And we’re still not there. I can feel despair setting in again. I foolishly say I’ll wait to eat food till I get to the aid station because we must be so close. When too much time passes, I fully stop in the middle of the trail to eat. My bar is rock hard in the cold.

Just then, we see lights. Within minutes, Jordan Chang and his pacer on upon us. We exchange a few pleasantries, and then they scamper off. He looks awesome. I feel like shit.

Ten minutes later, the trail spits us out onto a small road. We’re there, finally. I’m energized by making it this far. One-hundred and forty miles. The aid station is dead. After all, it’s 2:00 in the morning and below freezing. Erin and Marc are excited to see us, and I happily take some soup and quesadillas from the hearty volunteers who have shaken themselves awake on my account. But my focus is sleep. Marc informs me that his puppy has somehow popped the sleeping pad. “I don’t think it’s going to matter, man,” I say, fully exhausted.

I clamber into the back of our Suburban, remove my shoes and socks, slide into the sleeping bag and tell them to get me in 20 minutes. I’m very excited for sleep.

But almost immediately, I learn that I was wrong about the sleeping pad. The trunk of the truck is cold and hard with long, plastic grooves. It’s surprisingly uncomfortable, and the knobs of my bones feel like they’re poking out everywhere. It’s also freezing. I toss and turn, trying to find some position that doesn’t suck. Mostly I’m amazed that I don’t fall asleep. I never have a problem sleeping in real life. I start actively thinking about sleeping. I have to sleep. Yeah, no shit. OK, sleep now. Nothing. OK… sleep now. Nothing. OK, sleep… NOW. This is not looking good.

Just then there’s a bang on the back window. “Hey man.” It’s Marc. “It’s been 20 minutes.”

“Wha?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“Uhh, I don’t think I slept?” It comes out as a question. “Gimme another 20 minutes, OK?”

“OK.”

I return to my latest impossible task. I try to force myself to sleep for another ten or fifteen minutes, but to no avail. Finally, I give up and drag myself over the back seat of the car and spill out the door, shoeless. The gravel in the parking lot is cold and sharp on my battered, naked feet.

My crew seems a little concerned to see me. But I’ve already moved on. I’m just not going to sleep at all I guess. With a little too much effort, I slide on a pair of light tights and a jacket. I guess we’re still doing this…

When Hell Freezes Over

Marc and I give a wave and thank the volunteers before shoving off into the dark. We quickly hit some winding, descending singletrack. It feels nice to be moving well again. Soon thereafter, we hit the first of our three river crossings. It’s 3:00 am.

Bundled up for the night. Or so I thought. 

The water isn’t high, but it feels glacial. I yelp as I slip my legs in. The cold wraps up to my mid-thigh. A minute later, we emerge on the far other side, water-logged.

The next two crossing come fairly quickly and are equally unpleasant. But at least we’re done with them, I think.

The trail soon becomes a little less distinct, and it feels like we’re meanderingly aimlessly through dense forest. Thick, lush underbrush, heavy with the evening’s rain spills over the trail, and we’re doing whatever one level below bushwhacking is. We continue like this for some time, and I start to realize that I’m getting wet. The water-bedazzled foliage shows no signs of letting up, so we stop to slip on rain jackets.

I’m getting cold. Like, really cold. My teeth start chattering. Then they start chattering really loudly. My body starts shaking. Why is my body shaking? The underbrush doesn’t let up. Neither does the shaking. I start to feel like shit. Like, really not good. This is not good.

Marc pushes on in front of me. As I fall behind, I realize something is very wrong. I weakly squeak out to him, “Hey man, I’m exactly sure what hypothermia is… but I’m pretty sure I have it.”

In the moment, I couldn’t access the file in my brain labeled “hypothermia.” I couldn’t recall what it was. But it seemed like this must be it.

Marc spins around and sees me. Hypothermia confirmed. “Put on everything you have,” he instructs me. I don’t have much more in my pack, but I zip up my rain jacket completely, to that awkwardly high point that rain shells zip to. Only the round of my face peeks out. “Can you eat anything?” I pop a Gu. It’s cold and thick and caramelly and a terrible flavor.

I can barely speak through my chattering teeth. My body spasms violently. We just have to move. Help is not coming. The Klickitat aid station is mile 158.1, almost 20 miles away from Chain of Lakes. I just have to hold on till morning.

We start moving again. My body is revolting against itself. I feel frozen down to my bones. I realize my breath is escaping unused into the air, so I pull my jacket up over my mouth and breath down into it, blowing warmish arm down the front of me. I’m not sure if this is actually doing anything, I think to myself. But at this point, just the fact I’m able to come up with any sort of attempt at a solution feels like a win.

Time passes. The clattering and shaking continue. I eat an extra gel. How does this all end?

Finally, we start to see the first glimmer of morning light in the sky. We hear a bird. Then, another. Morning is coming. We couldn’t have hit the river crossings and wet underbrush at a colder time—the dead of late night—but the day was slowly clawing its way back.

Eventually, my shivering slows and finally stops. I’m still cold, but I feel like I have my body back, at least a bit. I’m still alive. What a weird, horrible dream.

In the morning light, we climb up to an empty paved road. I get that disorienting feeling of seeing something manmade again. Across the road, the trail drops into a forest. We drop down too. I find myself moving decently again. The forest feels huge. Giant redwoods tower overhead. It’s dank and dark. The air hangs heavy with the glorious smell of wet, rotting wood. Green and brown. Everything else that has happened melts away. I feel like I’m in the presence of magic. My mind tries to wrap itself around where we are, but it can’t. The only thing I think of is that we’re truly in the middle of nowhere. I suddenly become very grateful. I’m far out, way far out here.

We wind through the forest for a while before spitting out on a series of dirt logging roads. Their presence feels jarring and blasphemous.

We cross another paved road and begin to climb a hill. A very steep hill. We quickly realize that we’re starting our climb up to Elk Peak. The last test before we reach aid. The thought energizes me a little. I pop in my trusty iPod Nano loaded with music from 2012 and start power hiking.

The high dissipates after a mile, and it’s just really fucking hard again. Then I feel it, a twinge in my left heel. My Achilles. Literally. It’s my nemesis. An injury that’s haunted me for years. I instantly worry. Any weird step and it could be the end of my race. The only upside is that I can’t believe I’ve already gone 155 miles with zero problems. Look at you thinking positive!

I slow down, hoping to be kinder to my stupid leg. The climb drags on. Every time I’m sure that we’re topping out, the mountain keeps going. It’s not just false summits. It’s tiny false peaks that raise before us. First, it’s annoying. Then it’s infuriating. Then, eventually, it’s just hilarious. Our frustration gives ways to pure, hysterical acceptance of our situation. A running joke, about running.

Just as it seems that we can’t possibly hit another false peak, we see another, rocky peak rises in front of us. But this one is different. It’s an out-and-back. Our out-and-back. We scramble up the sheer, angled rock and finally arrive at our goal.

The view is breathtaking, in the truest sense of the word. We’re surrounded by it. In 360 degrees, the Cascades stretch out around us. Dense, green forests. Rocky, gray peak. Wispy, white clouds clinging to them all. I remember the course description, word-for-word. “Look out from Elk Peak at Helens, now so far in the distance. And Adams, once so far away, now so close.” My mind searches to understand what I’m looking at. Adams is right there. And Helens is so far away. I think back to days? weeks? months? ago when I was next to Helens and Adams was so far away. I’ve traveled 155 miles on my own power. How am I supposed to understand that?

Just a taste of the Cascade, savored by other runners. (Scott Rokis)

I suddenly don’t care about racing anymore. I feel like I’m floating. As we descend of the slightly-sketchy rock face of the peak, another runner and pacer amble up. They’ll pass us on the way down to Klickitat. Oh well.

We bomb down to the aid, getting passed on the way in, of course. I can’t wait to get my still-soaked shoes off for a short respite. They’ve been drenched since the river crossings. Finally, we pop out on a small dirt road in a break from the trees. It’s startling how bright and warm it is. I'm not sure what time of day it is, but it feels like mid-afternoon. But maybe it’s not.

A very nice woman with a thick Eastern-Bloc accent attends to me. We explain the hypothermia and soaked feet, and they lay me up a reclining camp chair. A medic introduces himself and starts to work on my feet. They’re mushy and soft, with deep trenches running through them. He rubs them down with alcohol and sets up next to a gas-powered heat lamp. In the openness of the harsh sun, the heater feels vulgar and awkward.

I sit for longer than I want. But I don’t care. I’ve just been out there for 20 miles. And I have another daunting 20 to go before I see my crew and gear again. Jordan comes in (He must have slept somewhere. Lucky.) He leaves before me. The Eastern-Bloc woman offers to rub down my legs. I don’t particularly want it, but she seems very into it. She spends a lot of time on my calves. It’s getting weird.

After what feels like half an hour, we finally gather our things to leave. My feet are dry now, but despite our best efforts, my shoes are still woefully waterlogged. The moment I slip them back on, I feel the squish. Great. All that’s left to do is keep moving.

We thank everyone for their hospitality and slide off into the forest. The dark, foggy forest has given way to a bright, open one. Hyped on the aid station stop, I feel good, and we start to crank again. We roll through the hills, underneath the ancient pines. Things are looking up.

That’s when the mosquitoes hit. Not just a swarm. A cloud. They descend on us, thick and swirling. Never in my life have I seen anything like this. I swat them away, and I feel like I’m batting at seagulls. They nip at us. We shriek and try to outrun them. It’s no use. They’re everywhere.

After all these miles, it finally dawns on me: This race never gives you a break. As soon as you start feeling good at any point, you’ll suddenly get blindsided by some totally unforeseen thing that smacks you across the face and leaves you crying foul.

“I’ve got some wipes!” shouts Marc. Moments later, he produced two individually wrapped Off! wipes. God bless him. I’ve never seen mosquito wipes before, but I decide right then and there that they’re going in every race pack I ever carry from now on. We tear them open and frantically wipe our entire bodies down with them. Almost instantly the mosquitoes disappear. It’s a miracle.

Mosquito-free, we’re now left to make our way through the forest. The trail begins to wind up and down steep hillsides in seeming random fashion. I feel lucky to have Marc with me. I’d hate to be out here without him. I tell him that. “This is really remote, man. Like, really remote. If you got in trouble out here—like serious trouble—you’d be fucked.” I say this knowing we have still have 15 miles to the Twin Sister aid. I try imagining being out here without a pacer, but I can’t.

It’s hot now. I remember something about how the description said there was no water in this section. Marc pulls out his InReach and spies a small lake just off-trail. We make a small detour to refill our bottles, but mostly to just dump water over our heads. It’s a rare moment of pleasure.

It’s late afternoon, I think. Things start to get really fuzzy. I’ve now been up for two and a half days. No sleep. Hypothermia. A bad cold. Other stuff, probably. I can’t think straight. I just need to be at the aid station. It’s hours away. My waterlogged feet feel like I’m stepping on shards of glass with every step.

Marc is talking, but I sense myself snapping at him. Nothing’s funny anymore. Or fun. All I feel is the need to be somewhere else. I snap at Marc again. For a moment, I have clarity. I pull out of myself and see what’s happening.

“Hey dude, I’m really sorry I’m being a jerk. I’m literally in survival mode right now.”

I realize I’m no longer in control. My body has taken over. We’re in full “flight” mode. The only thing that Andy Pearson—the organism, the collection of cells and DNA—cares about right now is pure survival. I’ve lost agency over myself. The animal is taking over.

We start breathing through in through our nose… out through our nose… in through our nose… out through the nose. It’s loud and raspy. I realize we sound insane. But it’s the only thing that’s taking our mind off the pain in our feet, any bit. In through the nose… out through the nose… in through the nose… out through the nose… It’s working, a little. We’re running at full speed now. But I’m also feeling dizzy. I’m not sure how much longer we can keep this up. But at this point, we don’t care. We just need to not be here right now. In through the nose… out through the nose… in through the nose… out through the nose…

After about 30 minutes, I realize we’re actually going to pass out, and I pull on the brakes. We slow to a walk for a bit. My brain comes back online a little bit. I’m back in control.

“Hey Marc, I just had a pleasant thought.” “What’s that?” “At least I never have to run Badwater now.”

The afternoon wears on. We work our way through the forest. The aid station feels impossibly far away. At one point, Marc takes out his InReach and says we’re not too far away.

The landscape opens up, gets a little rocky. I’m beginning to teeter.

Another swarm of mosquitoes descends on us. Our Off! wipes must have worn off, and Marc doesn’t have any more. We pull out the old used ones he stuffed in his pocket and try to rub ourselves down again, but it doesn’t seem to work. We just have to run faster. Marc takes off. I can’t keep up. A massive hill rises in front of us. I can’t do it. Marc’s gone. Fully gone. He’s bounded up the hill. I’m at the bottom of it.

I suddenly feel alone. Utterly alone. I can’t believe he just left me. Despair floods in. I’m angry at him. I know it’s not fair. He’s out in the middle of nowhere getting his ass munched on mosquitoes like me, while he clocks 50-something miles to support my ill-advised misadventure. But it doesn’t matter. I feel so utterly fucking alone.

I trudge uphill. A hill that seems to never end. I sit down on a rock in protest. I can’t move. I wait a few minutes and then pick myself up again and trudge off. I make it to the top of the hill but don’t see Marc. A few more minutes, and I find him, waiting for me. He apologizes for jetting; he was just trying to get out of the mosquitoes. It’s total fair, and I push down my anger. He’s out here for me.

We move on. The sun sets. We’re back in the forest. Marc’s been with me since the middle of the night to the next day now to the next night again. And we’re just trying to go 37 miles. Damn.

We near the aid station. Or at least we think so. We’ve taken a turn-off, which should be a sign. I’m starting to get really wobbly. The lack of sleep, the distance, everything is compounded. I go through periods where I’m just not there. It’s something akin to blacking out. I’m coming full unraveled. My have never been in so much pain. I don’t actually know how I’m going to take each new step. I black out again momentarily.

The trail become narrow in places with tight ledges and drop-offs below. I think about how I’m glad to have a pacer and how it’s good I’m not super messed up right now. I wobble again. Maybe I am messed up. I can’t tell. I black out again. Probably. I’m not sure. I’m not sure I can finish this thing.

Finally, we turn a corner and see the aid below. Holy shit. We’re here.

I stumble into the Twin Sisters Aid Station (mile 177.5) feeling like I’m floating. Everything is surreal. But I’m seated in a camping chair. A hamburger materializes in my hands. I can’t believe how good I suddenly feel. I’m not running anymore. I’m safe. My brain and body relax. I start cracking jokes with aid station people.

That’s when someone pops his head into the tent. “Welcome, welcome! Tell me what’s going on.” He grabs my arm. “You got a hamburger, great. What’s going on? My name’s Mark. I’m going to help you out.” He grins widely. His breath smells of whiskey. I realize that he’s totally hammered. “We’re going to take good care of you. Let’s get those shoes off and see those feet.”

He wrenches wrestles my shoes off. My soles are a horror shoe. White, puckered, fleshy, with deep crevices running through. “I’m so excited to have you here!” Mark the Medic twitters. “I wait all year to come up here and help you crazies patch up your feet.” He’s an odd bird, but very sweet, and I don’t care. Anyone willing to take care of my 180-mile feet is an angel. Mark and his assistant go to work.

They do all sorts of things to my feet. What? I don’t know, but it seems like magic. I just huddle under my blankets and munch on my hamburger. It feels weirdly nice to be fawned over like this. I’m warm and safe. Pleasure radiates from my brain.

Masticated feet are hilarious! (Peter Dawson)

Not so funny anymore. Look at how white my feet are. (Erin Garnder Dawson)

We talk about my hypothermia, and Mark tells me that my body was probably just so worn out it couldn’t produce its own heat anymore. That was almost 20 hours ago at this point, but obviously I was still compromised. On top of that, my head cold is full blown now. Snot and other things are pouring out of me, and my voice fades in and out barely able to escape my throat. If John Mayer’s girlfriend’s body was a wonderland, mine is the opposite of that.

“I need to sleep,” I tell them. Somehow, this time, I’m pretty sure it won’t be a problem. Mark says they have a tent all set up for me with a cot. He and Peter help me up and lead me off into the dark. They deposit me into a small tent with a cot and sleeping bag waiting. “Here,” Mark says. “Wrap yourself around this.” He hands me a Nalgene full of hot water. “It’ll help bring your core temperature up.” I put it in the bag with me. It’s very warm. I’m instantly worried that I’m going to pee myself, but don’t think much past that.

“This is so cool,” I tell Mark and my crew who are staring down at me on the cot. They look inquisitively. “I’ve never been this messed up in a race before. Like, I’ve always seen people laying on cots and stuff. But now I’m actually getting to be one of them. It’s never happened before. This is so cool.” They laugh, knowing I’m insane. I probably am.

I tell them to get me up in 90 minutes. They leave. For a moment I worry that I’m not going to be able to fall asleep yet again.

Suddenly I slip into inky, warm blackness.

Resurrection

I sit up straight in bed. Time to run! I think excitedly. I look down at my watch. It’s been exactly 89 minutes since they left me in the tent. Just then, I hear a ziiiiip at the door. Peter pokes his head in. “Hey man, you alive?” “Yeah man,” I grin. “I’m alive.”

It’s turned dark outside. I hobble out of the tent, happy to have not peed myself. Back in the aid station tent, I feel like a totally new person. Mark the Medic checks my feet again, giving them a once-over. “Look at those things! Beautiful!” he exclaims. “Almost good as new!” I had to give it to him, they did almost look like they hadn’t spent the last 20 hours soaking in water.

Twenty-nine miles left. Easy-peasy. I gather my new gear, scarf another half a hamburger. During my downtime, I’ve managed to slip to tenth place. I’m just happy to be alive, so I take my sweet-ass time.

Finally, I’m ready. Peter’s ready. We wave a merry goodbye to everyone, and we’re off.

It’s a 2.7-mile trek back to the main Klickitat Trail, all uphill. I run it. I don’t just feel good. I feel great. Holy shit, I think. We cross paths with a few runners coming downhill to the aid, and I cheerily say hello. I even start to drop Peter a little. Maybe it’s because of my 180-mile warmup. Either way, we top out much more quickly than I expect.

Back up top, we fly down the trail, catching up about everything that’s transpired in the last 20 hours or so. The night is cool—not cold—and we soon feel pleasantly warm inside our clothes. After a few miles, we hit the short out and back to Pompey Peak. We climb the switchbacks up to the bald rock peak. Everywhere around us, we can sense the mountains and the tree, and we joke that it might be a lovely view. But in truth, it is. The sky is an explosion of stars above us. We linger a moment, savoring the rewards of our deep labor.

Another runner takes in the night sky on top of Pompey. (Scott Rokis)

“It’s all downhill from here,” I tell Peter as we drop off the top. And it’s true. The trail eventually turns downward, and we begin descending quickly. Just as I feel like maybe I’m home free, we come to a massive downed tree laying across the trail. I groan with annoyance, but in the grand scheme, it’s not so bad.

I detach my/Marc’s Leki poles, pull myself up and top, reattach the poles and then use them to hop down on the other side. We continue on. A minute later, we come to another tree. Argh. I do it again.

This time, when I clear the tree, I see another one just a dozen feet again. And then there’s another. And another. It’s an absolute mess out here. Fallen trees everywhere. Fallen trees that fell over more fallen trees. Each time, I have to detach my poles to free my hands to climb over. Each time, I grunt. Each time, it sucks more and more.

I don’t remember anything about this in the course description, I tell Peter. But here we are.

“I didn’t really expect to be doing fucking parkour at mile 185.”

Any happiness that I was riding before has been totally sucked out of me. I’m annoyed and miserable again. Then, I realize that I’m annoyed and miserable. I pull out of myself to see what’s happening. I remember my revelation from earlier. The moment you feel good out here, the race punches you in the face. No, I think. I’m not going to give in. I fight against the anger—not super convincingly—but I fight nonetheless. I don’t let it take hold.

It lasts for maybe a mile and a half. (It’s hard to have any objective understanding of distance at this point.) It’s awful. But I don’t give in to the anger. What’s the Yoda quote? “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Well, I was already suffering so no point in throwing the other three in, right?

Eventually, the trees thin out and the trail flattens. We emerge from the forest into… green. Just all green.

We’re in a green tunnel. Green grass underneath, overgrown green grass to our left and right, green trees beyond that. We’re on what appears to be an old road, now reclaimed by nature. There’s a slight downhill grade so we just roll with it. It’s nice to be getting easy miles in again. It’s also, just really… green. It’s all we can talk about. Our headlamps enhance the strange tunnel-ness of it all. I use it as fuel, ticking my speed upwards. Time to get this shit done.

The green tunnel seems to last forever. I’m running my face off. After a while, the monotony of the speed and vegetation creates mental drag. I occasionally stop to walk for a minute or two before picking the pace up again.

After an hour(?), we see something in the distance. Something manmade. It must be the aid station. As we near it, it gets smaller and smaller. Once we’re finally on it, I realize it’s a table stocked with bottles upon bottles of tequila. Gag. “Oh, this is the surprise that Candice promised out here.” I think back to the pre-race briefing where the RD hinted that she might have a surprise out here for us. For some reason, I figured it’d be someone in a bigfoot suit to scare us. I’m momentarily grateful because I don’t think I could handle that shit right now. Either way, there are a lot of nonsensical things about this sport, but ultrarunners’ fascination with taking a shot of tequila late in the race I will never understand. Needless to say, we do not partake.

On the upside, I assume this is a sign that the aid station is close. Ten more green minutes later, we round a bend, and the Owen’s Creek Aid Station (193.5 miles) comes into view. It’s all flood lights, heat lamps, and sizzling bacon. There’s also another—shall I say, “difficult”—runner already there. His family stands around him, trying to appease his whims. He snaps at them, complaining about stuff. I’m just happy that it looks like I’ll be moving up a place.

I want to get out there fast. I grab a plate of eggs and bacon—because, fuck it—and coffee—because, also fuck it. I finish half of everything and then declare it’s time to go.

The End

Thirteen miles to the finish. I check my watch again. It’s around 4:30 in the morning. All day my goals have been slipping. From CR to winning to sub-60 to just staying alive. But now with 7:00am on the horizon—meaning a 70-hour finish—I have a something to shoot for again. It’s going to be close though. I check my race plan, just 385 feet of elevation gain. Hell yeah.

Peter and I barrel down the gravel-and-rock road. It’s two miles to the paved road and the final leg of my journey. We make it to the road and turn left. Pavement. Civilization. Weird again.

As we pound the road, we can feel the earth starting to slowly awaken. Sunlight yawns and gently shakes the slumber from its eyes. Clouds of mist billow and rise from meadows next to us. Sleepy cows stare back at us, suspiciously. I feel alive myself.

The road is remote and desolate. There’s no shoulder whatsoever, so we find ourselves hugging the sides, hoping no one comes barreling around a curve. It’s Monday morning, after all, I think to myself. What will someone on their way to work think if they see my bag of bones shambling along the road? And then I think, Holy shit. Monday morning. People are going to work.

But I have a deadline to hit. I can smell the barn. I’m cranking. In fact, I start to pick up speed. I feel like I’m flying. I feel like I’m running faster than anyone’s ever run before. I’m in a full-out sprint.

Just then, I realize there are mile markers along the roadside. Great. I can see just how fast I’m going. I hit a mile marker and note the time. A few minutes later, I see the next one. I check my watch again. Well that can’t be right. Ten and a half minutes? I note the time again. The next mile marker comes. Eleven minutes?? I feel like I’m running faster than I’ve ever run in my life. Really, I’m running 11-minute miles. Cool.

All things considered, it’s still pretty fast. I guess.

And it was because a few minutes later, we come upon another figure gimping along ahead of us. He’s listing ever-so-slightly to his right side, as all ultrarunners like to do at the end of a race. And he’s alone. Ouch.

“Hey.” He greets us. “Hey. Are we on the right side of the river?” Oh boy.

“Yeah. This is right.”

“Oh, ‘cuz I thought we were supposed to be over on that side.” He points across to the opposite bank, far away, which has just disappeared from view in a jumble of forest.

“Well, that’s where we’re going. But we’re going to get up to another road and then turn to take a bridge over it.” I can’t believe I can recall all the details of the course three days in. Wish I had remembered something about all those downed trees…

Our friend is still confused, but at least he’s moving. So we bid him adieu and press on. Eighth place.

I like the number eight. That sounds good to me.

We pick our speed up again and start flying (relatively speaking). Eventually, the road passes a cluster of house, barns, and garages. More civilization. A good sign.

We turn onto a more major road. Another good sign. I can see the map in my head. I’m so close. So close. Holy shit I’m close.

At some point, Peter tells me he has to stop to take care of “some business” but tells me to keep going, and he’ll catch up.

Suddenly I’m alone again.

But it’s a good alone. Just me and the countryside. I pass more houses. Front yard set up in permanent yard sales. A sign for a farmer’s market. Tractors. A truck rumbles past.

Finally, I see a bridge. I know this bridge. I saw this bridge three days ago. I’m close.

I cross the bridge and the river below. I’m close.

A few hundred more feet, and I’m at an intersection. Of a highway. With gas stations and cars and stuff. More civilization. It’s all surreal.

I cross the highway and follow the flags onto a smaller backroad than curves to parallel the highway.

This is it. The home stretch. All alone, I think back over the last few days. How many has it been? What is today? I think back over everything that’s transpired. The moments of despair. The moments of elation. My crew. The mountains. The out-there-ness. The volcano. The forests. The hypothermia. The doubt. The quesadillas. (Oh, the quesadillas.) The shoes. The changes within myself. The miles. How many has it been?

I savor every step now. I will not be back here again soon.

There’s a gentle curve in the road, and the high school comes into view. A minute later, I find myself passing through its fence, into the parking lot. I see cars and trucks and piles of gear scattered everywhere and being sorted. It hit me how much goes into this. Not just my journey but everyone’s.

I follow a small sidewalk, through a short chain-link fence, and suddenly I’m on the track. It’s soft underfoot. Almost disarmingly so. It’s black. It has long white lines that I follow. I hear people cheer from the shanty town of awnings across the field, at the finish line. The finish line.

I take in everything. The pine trees. The brown, parched grass on the infield. The sky. The electrical wires. A pair of crows perched above. My mind floats inside my skull.

Smelling the bar, hard. (Scott Rokis)

Moments away. (Marc Laveson)

I turn the final corner and look down the barrel of the finish, now populated with the screaming skeleton crew of a crowd.

There’s nothing left inside me except joy. Pure, vibrating joy. I’m swimming through it. My face already hurts from grinning.

And then, I’m done. I cross the finish line. It’s been 69 hours, 29 minutes, and 5 seconds. 206.5 miles—call it 208 with the sabotage. I’m done. It’s done.

Done. (Scott Rokis)

Like, really done. (Scott Rokis)

What running 208 miles feels like looks like. (Scott Rokis)

After The Party, It’s The After-Party

I lean over my poles as people swoop in to congratulate me. Candice is there. We exchange a few blurry impressions of the course. I tell her it’s the most beautiful course I’ve ever been on. Someone else asks if I want to eat anything. I never want to eat anything right after a race. I decline. “Maybe a grilled cheese?” she offers. “That sounds suspiciously like a quesadilla,” I shoot back. Everyone laughs. I laugh because I’ll never eat another quesadilla again in my entire life.

They sit me down in a camping chair and cover me with a blanket. I suddenly become acutely aware of how badly I stink.

What the feeling of three days of running looks like.

Fat feet. (Toenails previously removed.)

Our listing, confused road friend appears a short time later. After lingering at the finish line the requisite amount, I’m ready to get into a hotel room and shower. We pile into the massive Suburban. With the enclosed space, I once again become acutely aware of how badly I smell. I apologize to my crew. I’ve put them through enough already.

The sun is fully up now. It’s warm and aggressive. I’m standing in the parking lot of a hotel I booked months ago. I get in the room throw my bags down and slump into the shower. After 20 minutes(?)—time is meaningless—I get out, throw on clothes, and check my phone. There’s a message from Ethan Newberry on it. “Dude, congrats on the finish!!! Do you want to be on Ginger Runner Live tonight?” Sure, that sounds like an intense way to end this whole thing.

I exit my room out into the harshness of the late morning sun. I need food now. In cut-off shorts and flip-flops, I stagger down to the highway and follow it for a half mile until I come to Packwood, Washington’s finest—and also only—grocery store. Inside I proceed to buy the most insane things I can find. A platter of bright red colored Chinese pork of some sort. A bag of spicy pickles. Cheese sticks. A bag of cheese-flavored potato chips. A pint of cookie dough ice cream. A six pack of some local IPA. My only solace is that I’m probably not the strangest thing to blow through this roadside grocery store.

This is the kind of quality advertising the have in Packwood. A picture of elk fighting with a Mountain Dew logo over it and a picture of another elk with a Pepsi logo over it with the tagline “Delivering the fun.”

As I get to the register to check out, the cashier asks me how I’m doing. As I go to answer, I simply croak. A “…” Nothing comes out. A weak noise escapes my mouth, like a squeaking, frightened animal. I try again. Again, nothing comes out. I smile. She smiles back at me. It’s awkward.

The cold I’d been experiencing all race has finally fully manifested itself. Somehow between the stress of the miles and the illness, my vocal cords have packed up and gone home. I’m totally incapable of any sort of speech. I simply croak a “thanks” and retreat back to the hotel, where I proceed to feast and take a second bath again because, hey, I earned it.

The hotel after every 100-miler or more is always a blur. This is no exception. I knock back a beer and turn the Discovery Channel on. At some point, the Deadliest Catch lulls me to sleep.

I wake two hours later. The pain in my legs is all-consuming. I test my voice again. Nothing. I have to be on Ginger Runner Live in three hours. I brew some tea in the hotel coffee maker and add some lemon and honey that I’ve procured somewhere.

After two cups of tea, I venture out of my room. I hate sleeping.

It’s mid-afternoon now. I hobble down to the Blue Spruce Saloon. Anything called a saloon automatically has my vote. The enter and find a vast expanse of a place. But everyone is huddled around the curved bar at the front. Who patronizes the Blue Spruce Saloon in Packwood, Washington, at 3:00 in the afternoon on a Monday? Old people. RV types. Locals too. They’re all in there getting hammered off $3 Coors Lights. It’s fascinating.

I try to order a Stardust IPA—the most expensive and obviously douchiest—thing on the menu. The woman working the bar can’t understand a word I say. Mostly because I’m not really saying words. Just sounds. It’s instantly embarrassing again. I feel like the weirdo in a bar of retirees getting schlitzed at 3:00 in the afternoon. To be fair, I guess I am the weirdo who just ran 208 miles.

I enjoy my beer and the general feeling of not-running before hobbling back to the hotel.

At around 6:00 we start Ginger Runner Live. I’ve now slept a collective 3.5 hours in 3.5 days. Groovy.

I always love talking to Ethan and Kim, and it’s fun to be able to talk about the race with such fresh, raw emotions. At one point, Ethan turning to Kim and says, “I don’t think we’ve ever had someone on the show who just finished a race while the race was still going on.” It’s true. People are still out there running. God bless them. I’m not.

A few times, my voice goes out entirely and is replaced by what can only be described as a death rasp. At least it adds to the drama of the whole thing, I think.

But I make it through. After a really fun interview, I sign off. Now there is nothing left to do but let the sounds of the Discovery Channel lull me to sleep once more.

Now, I am finally, officially done.

I ate so many bowls of free Fruit Loops at breakfast the next morning.

And I enjoyed a Bigfoot beer beneath Mt Rainer.

Looking Back

Running 200+ miles is, without a doubt, the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It broke me down. It made me dig deeper than I’ve ever had to. It asked everything of me.

I got exactly what I wanted out of it. It scared me. Not just “scared” me. It scared me on a deep, animal level.

When I finished I said I would never do that again. In fact, I said no human being should ever do that. It was dreadful.

But it was also unimaginable. Unimaginably beautiful. Unimaginably remote. Unimaginably brutal. Unimaginably whole.

I came closer to understanding own mortality and my own immortality in a single event. I came closer to touching the universe and everything in it.

The more time I have to reflect back on my experience, the more deeply affecting I realize it was.

Three weekends. Three races. Three sets of skills.

A lot of times in ultrarunning, we can be so focused on piling up our weekly mileage that we forget about to look around and have a little fun. At its heart, our sport is about adventure. And adventure necessitates that we attempt new things, dive into the unknown and acquire new skills.

Over three weeks in February/March, I raced three wildly different races that each taught me something new: Black Canyon 100K, the Schabarum Park Orienteering Race and Bone Tempest.

In fact, I designed my entire race calendar this year that way. Each race was specifically chosen to develop or test a particular skill.

Black Canyon 100K – Fast-ass running.

Bone Tempest – Off-trail, adventure and orienteering skills.

Cruel Jewel 100 – Sufferfest. And probably my longest time on feet ever which should prepare me for…

Bigfoot 200 – Running 200 miles. Duh.

Barkley Fall Classic – Baby Barkley, a chance for something of a preview.

Big’s Backyard Ultra – Testing just how far I (or someone else) can run.

The benefit of putting together such a diverse set of races for the year is that it’s made me get hyper-specific and focused in my training from month to month. Going from prepping the fastest and flattest ultra of my life to the most off-trail ultra of my life to the longest and vertiest ultra of my life has forced me to think very consciously about my training blocks and how I spend each run every time I head out the door.

But beyond that, I’m having a frigging blast. It feels as though I’m become a more fully rounded runner and outdoor adventurer with a lot of different weapons in my quiver. After a few years of floating through race seasons semi-aimlessly, this year has given me a jolt of excitement that I haven’t felt in a while. And that was in the first two months.

So what are some of the lessons I’ve learned by stretching myself so far this year? Here goes.

Black Canyon 100K – February 17th

Train fast, run fast. I wanted something fast early in the year to force me to get some speed-legs under me. Lots of tempos and speedwork. (I also cut out meat, booze and coffee, which undoubtedly helped.) All this added up to a stellar race.

A couple miles in, as I was watching the sun rise over Black Canyon, I thought to myself, It’s so nice to be running a short race for a change. And then I thought, Wait. That’s kind of fucked up. But it was true.

Cranking. (Photo by Howie Stern)

Earlier, at the starting line, I positioned myself towards the front. Strangely, for first time in my racing life, I felt kind of old. Lots of fast-looking, hairless young dudes in singlets. I thought, I’ll just hang a little off the lead pack and see how things go.

Turns out, things went fantastically. I was moving great and blasting through aid stations. Some of the younger guns I’d be worried about started to fall away, and by Bumble Bee Ranch at mile 19, I was running in 4th place. I hadn’t planned on running for a Golden Ticket, but one of people in front of me was a woman so suddenly I was thinking, Well, if someone just has a bad day…

Unfortunately, part of the secret to my success would turn out to hurt me too. Literally. The morning was so pleasantly cool that I wasn’t drinking much water—I didn’t refill my bottle until Bumble Bee—but still I was cranking just about as hard as I ever have.

Cranking, part 2. (Photo by Howie Stern)

It caught up with me around mile 40 when my legs suddenly started to get really crampy. My legs twitched and snarled, and it started to feel like they could Charlie-horse with any single step. And I had a lot of steps to go.

I didn’t understand. The day had gotten a little hot, so after mile 19, I started drinking really well. I was up on my salt tabs. But still, the legs tweaked with every step. I started getting spasms in weird muscles I didn’t even know existed, like the outside of my knee. There’s not even anything there.

Around mile 42, a big group of mountain bikers passed me on the trail. There were two stranglers at the end, and as I stepped the trail onto a steep embankment to let them pass, ZAP! My entire calf seized up. I crumpled onto the trail screaming bloody murder. I’ve blocked out most painful memories in races, but I’m pretty sure this was the worse pain I’ve ever been on the trail. Even worse, my leg was so tensed up that I couldn’t get it to release. I tried to massage the rock formerly known as my calf, but nothing worked so I just lay in the middle of the trail screaming. After a minute (or five hours), it finally subsided and I picked myself up.

From then on, I was more cautious. I was crampy for every single step of the final 20 miles of the race. Increased salt intake didn’t do much. And of course not. Because the REAL problem was that I was dehydrated from my first 20 miles where I was running my face off without drinking. Of course, this didn’t occur to me until after the race (and after I lay crumpled on some cool concrete for an hour) when I went to go pee. I looked down. Oh. My pee looks like cherry limeade. Right. I have rabdo.

Stoked to be finished. (Photo by Howie Stern)

Just sitting alone with me and my thoughts and my radbo. (Photo by Howie Stern)

Rabdo and all, I was mighty proud of my race. I threw down a 9:22:16 for a 7th place finish.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/1412815787

Skills acquired: Speed.

Lessons learned: Drink the water NO MATTER WHAT. Especially when you’re putting in maximal effort.

Schabarum Park Orienteering Race, Expert Course – February 24th

Watching my friend Guillaume prepare for the Barkley Marathons has been fun. And along the way, he’s dragged me along to some of his crazy schemes. Part of his training has been honing his compass and maps skills through orienteering races with the LA Orienteering Club.

As a fun recovery race from Black Canyon, I joined him for a point-to-point orienteering race in Schabarum Park. It was just more second orienteering race ever, and after some prodding by Guillaume, I opted for the expert course.

Let me just say it now, orienteering is fun as hell. If you’re not doing it, you should. The races are essentially fast-paced scavenger hunts that combine running, map skills and strategy. The best part: As an ultrarunner, you already pretty much better than everyone there because YOU CAN RUN. Also, your map-reading and routing skills are likely better than you realize.

The Schabarum course had 14 controls scattered all over the park, taking us up steep trails, bushwhacking down long hillsides and past some a fun yellow jacket’s nest. I ended up covering 4.7 miles in 58:49 with only one sting, good enough for a first-place finish.

The results.

Not bad for my second orienteering race ever. I’ll be back for more.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/1426141141

Skills acquired: Map reading, route planning, learning the international orienteering symbol for “bobsled track.”

Lessons learned: Orienteering is about taking a moment to decide the most efficient route, then committing to it full-speed. Follow through on your judgment until you reach your objective or you have material evidence that you’ve miscalculated. Trust your instincts and just go.

Bone Tempest – March 3rd

Oh man. Bone Tempest. Another race that Guillaume talked me into. Bone Tempest is part of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, four off-the-radar, Barkley-style races. (The other three are Euchre Bar Massacre, Baldy Marathons and Desolation Peaks.)

Bone Tempest is the brainchild of Ginny Laforme and Eric Robinson, two very talent ultrarunners and orienteers with years of experience. Every year they devise a new course to show off the features of Mt Tamalpais in Marin County, that few people ever see. Along the way, you collect bones at 33 different checkpoints hidden all over the mountain (or as many as you can within the 12-hour time limit). It’s part ultra, part adventure race, part orienteering. All crazy, all spectacularly beautiful.

Mt Tam in the mist. (Photo by Mats Jansson)

Melting madrones. (Photo by Mats Jansson)

Seuss’s forest. (Photo by Mats Jansson)

Guillaume and I teamed up to attack the course together. And we would use just maps, no GPS assistance. (He was a mere three weeks out from the Barkley after all.)

The course took us up numerous “creeks” (deep, rock-strewn passage cutting straight up the side of the mountain), bushwhacking through thick underbrush, scrambling up slippery rock piles, careening straight down poison oak-infested hillside jungles, cutting past gawkers at Stinson Beach and running through abandoned naval bases. We had everything from sun to fog to rain to sleet to even snow at the peak of Mt. Tam. Along the way, we found plenty of dead things, including a buck skull with full spine attached. This race has literally everything. 

Fairly typical terrain. (Photo by Jim Ruppert)

A “creek.” (Photo by Jim Ruppert)

It’s a lot of route-finding, guessing at locations of bones and orienteering. But because the routes are so complex, the directions are written rather than being purely symbols.

For example: “Bypass the slabs to the right, up a very steep bank and return to the creek. Climb the slightly larger right-hand fork 160 yards to ‘Bill’ (a deer skull at the base of a 20m rock pillar on the right side of the creek).” And in doing so, we did indeed find Bill waiting for us.

“Bill.” (Photo by Tina Ure)

The grunt up to O’Rourke’s Bench. (Photo by James Bueno)

A final check of instructions. (Photo by James Bueno)

Eyes on the prize. (James Bueno)

One last piece of civilization before heading out for the final segment with about 2:30 left. (Photo by Ginny Laforme)

The course is truly wild and sketchy in places. I still can’t believe I never snapped an ankle. Supposedly it’s akin to a loop of the Barkley, but people generally say it’s harder. Our race gave us 29.8 miles with 14,871 feet of gain in 11:19:40. (Times five, that would be harder than the Barkley.) In the four years prior, only two people had ever gotten a Full Finish. This year, five of us did, with Guillaume and I tying for fourth.

One unexpected experience was racing against the clock. From the very beginning, we didn’t feel like had a month to rest, catch a breath or eat. And we knew that any mistake we made (and we did make one big, stupid one early) would cost us dearly. It upped the anxiety all day and gave me at least a little insight into what running the Barkley must feel like.

Finished/survived! (Photo by James Bueno)

But it was all worth it, because we finished, bloodied, bruised, wet, in ripped clothes and covered in poison oak oils but with big smiles on our faces.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/1435033827

Skills acquired: Off-trail travel, teamwork, gear management.

Lessons learned: True adventure lies just off the trail. Also, you can totally get poison oak on your balls.

And that was just all in three weeks! I feel like I’ve grown immensely as a runner in an incredibly short time, simply by consciously setting out to acquire new skills.

So if you feel like your running’s getting stale or you want to graduate to a new type of adventure or you’re just curious, I highly recommend looking for the opportunities around you to try something new. It’s the art of learning new arts. And no matter what new expertise you gain, it’ll pay out dividends when you go back to just a boring old ultra.

Seven years ago I discovered Utah.

I don’t mean like Mormon-level-discovered Utah. I just mean, like, I personally discovered it. I somewhat drunkenly convinced my old college roommate Matt to sign up for the now-defunct Slickrock 50 outside Moab. A few months later, as we wound our way over undulating waves of slickrock on the rim of canyons in the middle of expansive, desolate desert, I realized something: I was hooked.

Southern Utah is an alien planet. It’s Mars on Earth. It’s the most endlessly fascinating terrain in North America, and some of its most brutal too. Since my first experience, I return every chance I get. I into big, burly mountains. But I’m totally spellbound by Utah desert.

Matt Gunn, the founder of the Ultra Adventure Grand Circle Trail Series, understood that. It’s been his mission to get more people out to explore this far-flung corner of the country. In 2013 I took him up on the challenge, being so enthused, I signed up for both Zion 100 and Bryce 100 just six weeks apart. Zion was the best race of my life. Bryce was the worst.

At Zion, I ran a fast race all day, finishing in 17:55, a mere three minutes off first place. But, I was so focused on Zion that Bryce ended up an afterthought. I just assumed it’d be a beautiful course, pretty much as “easy” as Zion. And since it was the inaugural year for Bryce, no one knew any different.

What we got instead was one of the most sneakily brutal courses I’ve ever experience. You pay for the occasional mind-blowing viewpoints with a leg-grinding, brain-mushing, oxygen-depriving hell of route. I’ll spare you the details, but the end result was my first and only DNF. I made it 74 miles before I couldn’t breathe, stopped eating and got frozen cold. At that point, the idea of running another marathon was simply impossible to wrap my mind around.

But this year, when I realized I needed a Western States qualifier AND I had to get it before the arrival of our kid, the ole Bryce 100 suddenly seemed more inviting than it ever had. I signed up and decided it was time for revenge.

Cut to race morning. 

Photo by Patrick Sweeney 

About 250 of us are standing around, waiting for this thing to begin. I have a weird feeling. It’s not nerves. It’s more like, I don’t want to be there in the first place. Half an hour before, as we drove to the starting line, Dom, Katie and I had gotten lost. We had no idea where we were going. Inside of me, a little pang of hope said, Maybe I won’t have to actually run this thing.

But, lucky me, we found the start. I’d have to run this thin after all.

“Two minutes till we start!” the RD yells from his perch. I move towards the starting line, and see something I’ve never seen before: Everyone is standing five feet behind the line. Weird. No one wants to toe the line. I thought this was a race? I say to myself and step up to the line. There’s the “10… 9… 8…” and in a blink, we were off. Me, five feet in front of about 249 people.

Photo by Patrick Sweeney

I take off strong but not particularly fast. After a couple miles on dusty, flat dirt roads, the course turns off onto undulating, windy singletrack that screams in and out of draws. I pop a few peeks from the other side of the draws and find that I’m already about four minutes up on numbers 2 and 3.

Thunder Mountain Trail is one of the most magical stretches of trail I’ve ever run, and I have good memories of it from last time—perhaps my only good memories from last time. After careening through the bright red, ponderosa-speckled draws like some kind of dusty rollercoaster you suddenly hit them. Hoodoos. Big, alien pillars of red, pink and white sand. It’s as if Earth spontaneously sprouted its own Easter Island heads.

I go screaming through the hoodoos, stop to take my customary first-10-mile shit off the side of the trail and then carry on, dropping down onto the Grandview Trail.

The vast majority of the race takes places on Grandview, although the trail varies dramatically from wide, rocky ATV trails to barely-there, bushwhacky singletrack. This would be my life for the next day 20 hours or so.

I roll up to the Thunder Mountain Aid Station (mile 10.5) as the volunteers are still unloading a few things and ask for some fruit. Instead, I have to go into the tent and open the food myself. But I guess so are the pains of being the first to the aid stations.

With some very fresh orange slices in my belly, I lope off towards Proctor Canyon, already a few minutes ahead of my splits. The next section is a good kick in the face, dusty drops and climbs as you weave your way along the base of the plateau, snaking over a series of canyons. As I bomb down the stupid-steep singletrack, all I can think is, Shit. I have to run back up all this shit in about 75 miles.

This is the precise moment when I realize that out-and-back is 100% objectively the absolutely worst format for a 100-mile race. I’ve done HURT with it’s five 20-mie jungle loops. I’ve done Big’s Backyard Ultra with 4-mile loops every hour. But 50 miles out and the same 50 miles turned 180 degrees? Woof woof.

I come into the Proctor Canyon Aid Station (mile 19) a bit knackered but overall, feeling good. Dom and Katie are there waiting for me. A welcome sight after running by myself for nearly 20 miles. I’ve gained another five minutes on my splits.

“I’m kind of surprised I’m winning,” I tell them as they stuff fresh gels into my pack. “I don’t feel like I’m running that fast. I’m just running really comfortably. But the weird thing is… that’s as fast as I can run.”

I’m running at the very edge of what I could but I was nowhere near red-lining. The altitude was acting like a governor, keeping my effort comfortable and in check. Whatever works, right? I still can’t believe I’m leading.

And boom, just like that, I’m not leading anymore.

Another runner comes shooting through the aid station and out the other side. The feeling I experience isn’t disappointment. Oddly, it’s relief. Phew. I don’t have to be in the lead anymore. I can just run my own race.

Out of Proctor, I wind my way through scrubby meadows and soft pine forests, eventually climbing up to the very top of the plateau. At times the trail is faint, at other times, it clings to the side walls of dusty draws by the skin of its teeth. Finally, there’s one last nut-kicker as you push up to the top of the plateau and the Blubber Creek Aid Station (mile 28).

Another aid station, another time waiting on food. “Do you have any fruit?” “Oh, we can cut some up for you.” “Uhhhhhh… yeah… that’d be great.” So I stand there, again, waiting for them to pull out more oranges and cut them up. A couple minutes later, I shoot off into the forest again.

The top of the rim offers jaw-dropping views for miles and miles. It’s the first time you get a taste of the rugged cliffs you’re running along. Strangely, I have almost zero recollection of this from four year ago. I was basically blacked out the majority of the race. So, this discovery is a rather pleasant one. Oh, it’s really beautiful up here.

Just a few paces out of the aid station, I caught sight of the other runner who had passed me back at Proctor. Not wanting to jump back into first just yet, I trail him for a bit, staying a comfortable pace behind and watching. I can tell he’s starting to falter.

It’s early afternoon, and the day had grown intensely hot. It looks like he’s running with one only bottle. Not smart. Last night right as I was going to bed, in a super-last-minute-OCD change, I threw in a third bottle to carry between Proctor Canyon and Blubber Creek just in case. I can feel my bottles bouncing on my chest. I’ve nearly sucked all three dry. So I know this guy in front of me is in serious trouble.

Right around mile 30, I pass him back on a climb. I’m back in the lead. Damn. Have to remember, I’m running my own race.

At Kanab Creek Aid Station (mile 36) I’m in and out fast. Now, the descent down to Straight Canyon Aid Station at mile 41 and a chance to see my crew again. The sun is blasting full-bore by now, and I actually think to myself, Thank God for AC. I know how to run in the heat. I feel bad for everyone else.

After a few miles later, and I burst out into a clearing to see a massive aid station below me. At Bryce 100, Straight Canyon is the jam. And it’s hopping. After all the quiet miles by myself, it feels good to finally get some big cheers from the crowd. But more importantly, it feels good to cool down.

Dom and Katie go to work immediately. I get ice-cold Moroccan mint tea in my bottles (my new secret weapon), an ice bandana around my neck and a full soak-down compliments of Dom. It’s UH-MAZING. I feel like a NASCAR at a pit stop. And a couple of minutes later, I bound off, feeling pumped up, cooled down, and like I can kick all the asses. By now I’m about 30 under my 22-hour pace. As my dad says, ha cha cha!

Photo by Joel Livesey

I set off for the big climb up to Pink Cliffs Aid Station (mile 46.5) and the highest point of the course, around 9,400 feet. It’s the single most-sustained climb as well. But man, I feel fan-friggin-tastic. After I half-mile, turn off the dusty country road and bound up through a little patch of woods I’ve dubbed Secret Forest. From there, it’s a turn onto another dusty dirt road and climb. Then turn onto doubletrack and climb. And finally bushwhack your way up the last few hundred feet on a sleepy, shaley hillside and climb. I surprise even myself by running nearly every step. In my race plan, I had budgeted 1:50 for these 5.5 miles. Instead I do it in about 50 minutes. At the top of the climb, a volunteer greets me with a “Holy smokes, man! You’re flying!”

More pineapple in my belly compliments of the 10-year at the aid station, and I drop down the—you guessed it—dusty, rocky road towards the turnaround point. Of course, all I think is, Dammit. I have to turn around and run back up this shit.

Down, down, down I go.

Now, this is where the course map gets deceiving. On paper, it looks like you just drop into the turnaround point at Crawford Pass (mile 51.5). No. Not true. You have what amounts to a super gnarly, nearly cross-country slog on overgrown singletrack, over fallen trees and across rocky, chewed up washes. Ah yes, I remember this. I think to myself. How awful.

By now, my ankles are starting to feel pretty beat. Like, baseball-bat-beat.

Imagine you’re an ant, and you’re trying to run across a field of chunky, hunky vomit. All six of your ankles would be wrecked. That’s how I’m starting to keep.

After what seemed like an eternity in the hot sun, I arrive at Crawford Pass.

“I’m definitely a bit knackered,” I announce to Dom and Katie and the loud Australian woman working the aid station. “But I’m waaay happier than the last time I was here.” I flash back to four years ago when I plunked myself down in a red camping chair and tried to (unsuccessfully) wrap my brain around doing everything I just did, but now in reverse. Snapping back to the present moment, I feel tired but excited to still be winning. In fact, I figure, I must have had a pretty good lead at that point.

With another quick patch-up, Dom and I set off for the long return trip to Straight Canyon. I have a pacer now, which is normally nice, but a small bit of dread flashing in my brain as I realize I’ll have to huff and puff and summarize 51.5 miles of the day, all while running back over all that chunky vomit.

Photo by Dom Grossman

On the way out, we pass the second-place guy about 10 minutes from the aid station,. We figured I have about a 23-minute lead. There a bit of a gap and then bam, bam, bam, bam. Four or five other guys all another 5-10 minutes off second place. It’s a little tighter than I thought. It might turn out to be a race after all.

Photo by Dom Grossman

Up and over Pink Cliffs, the sun beats down on us mercilessly. By now, I’ve developed a new technique with my ice bandana: Once it’s mostly melted off but was still nice and wet, I slip it under my hat, letting it dangle over my head to make my own makeshift Marathon Des Sables desert hat. It looks silly, but I’m in Fuck-It Mode at this point.

Photo by Dom Grossman

Coming down the bushwhack/shaley section from Pink Cliff, I really start to feel my ankles. And the feeling is pain. Another mile or two down the long dirt road, and my ankles not-so-politely declare, “No more, thankyouverymuch.”

Every single step on my right foot shoots white-hot pain through my ankle. I slow to a jog. Then to a walk. And finally, I can’t even take another step. I pull out of my body for a instant and see that I’m leading the race, on a nice, juicy downhill, and I can’t even take one step forward.

Dom’s selfie game can be a little over-the-top, but man, it’s good to have him around during a tough race. He orders me to lay on the ground, and we try to drain the blood out of my leg through a series of stretches. After a few minutes on my back in the middle of the road, it does the trick, or at least enough to get me back down to Straight Canyon. I still can’t believe I’m in the lead.

By now, we’re passing a stream of runners headed out to the turnaround point. Their kind words of congratulations lights a nice fire under my ass.

That said, there’s one woman who takes a look at me and blurts out, “Are you OK?” “Uhh, yeah. I’m fine. Why?” “You’re going the wrong way.” “Oh, no. I’m headed to the finish.” She looks back at me skeptically.

To be far, my makeshift desert bandana probably looks dumb, and I most definitely look like shit.

Photo by Katie Grossman

Back at Straight Canyon, the party has swelled. It’s almost overwhelming. So many people hovering around. I come in and collapse on the ground so Dom can stretch me out again. A very nice volunteer offers to help out by throwing a few ice cubes at my which immediately bounce off my chest and into the grass. I think to myself, This is one of those scenes that makes all the other crews tell their runners, “Yeah, the first-place guy was here 12 minutes ahead of you, but he looked like actual dog shit.” Screw it. I don’t care. I have to patch myself back together. Where’s the fucking duct tape?

I take longer than I would’ve liked, but so be it. My right ankle feels like it’s holding on by a thread. And the left one? Maybe four threads. Dom and I set off. We have a stout climb ahead of us, back to the top of the rim. And in the late-afternoon sun, I start to feel pretty haggard. We pass yet another woman going in the opposite direction who grunts at me, “Where are you going?” as if I’m going in the wrong direction. “To the finish line,” I grunt back.

Photo by Dom Grossman

Up on the rim, things start to deteriorate even more. All day I’ve been right at the edge of my pace, which isn’t more than a comfortable jog. But now, back above 9,000 feet for the fourth time today, my engine was running on fumes. Sixty-plus miles at this altitude have finally caught up to me. I’m just depleted. There’s no other word. Depleted. Oh no, I realize. This is exactly what happened last time. Suddenly the specter of my old DNF is breathing down my neck. Not again. I try to keep my head straight. Last time I was barely surviving. This time, I’m—miraculously—in first place.

But it feels like only a matter of time.

Photo by Dom Grossman

Somewhere around mile 70 or so, as we power hike up a rock-strewn doubletrack, a runner and pacer saunter up behind us. We exchange the customary head nod and “great job, man” and that was it. Swift and painless. I’m out of it.

But then, to add literal injury to insult, things get worse. I start to kick rocks. At the time it doesn’t dawn on my, but in retrospect, my busted-ass right ankle must be causing my foot to rotate externally, just ever so slightly. And by doing so, smack, smack, smack. I catching just about every single rock between mile 70 and the finish with my right big toe.

Every.

Single.

Rock.

The one reprieve from the pain is the amazing sunset we snag, right above Blubber Creek. This is where I dropped, in the middle of the night, four years ago, so it feels like I’m putting some demons to bed.

As we hurtle down off the rim towards Proctor Canyon, my knee joins the symphony of pain because, why not? I don’t remember a whole lot of this section, mostly because I start to go into a fairly dark place (literally and metaphorically). Dom does his best to keep my spirits up, but isn’t able to do too much. “Man,” he quips out loud. “At least, I’m just glad I get to be here to see you feel so shitty. Now I know it can actually happen to you.” Funny. Katie says just about the same thing a few hours later.

Dropping into the Proctor Canyon aid station, I get passed by two (three?) other runners. At this point, I don’t care. I’m deep within the pain cave. I sit down in a car, scarf down a freshly made bowl of ramen noodles, swig a whole can of Coke and then aske Dom and Katie’s permission before I pop two ibuprofens. I know it’s not great idea, but at this point, it feels like the difference between finishing in four hours and finishing in eight.

After a quick squabble between Dom and Katie over Dom spilling soda on Katie’s puffy, Katie and I set off to stalk the finish line. Instantly—thanks to the miracle of ibuprofen—I feel better. Amazingly, I’m also still right at or right under my original 22-hour target pace. So, things aren’t so bad. Or at least at this point they’re not.

Remember all those descents in the morning? Those ones I knew would turn into ascents at night? Yeah. I start to hit them. And there are way more of them than I ever remember. (There always are.) The night becomes a power-hike punctuated by kicked rocks and maybe one or two more runners passing us.

Finally, we arrive at Thunder Mountain, our last aid station, mile 92.5. More soup, more Coke, let’s roll.

This final section of the course is also the first. So, it’s all those super-fun rollers through hoodos and draws from earlier in the day. And in fact, I had been excited about it all day—partly because it’s objectively fun/cool, partly because I wanted Katie to see it and partly because (FOR SOME REASON) I didn’t think it had too many climbs.

I was an idiot.

It is steep. It is so steep. I’m reduced to a painfully slow and painfully painful power hike. At one point, I can feel the exact moment the ibuprofen wore off. A snap of pain floods back into my legs, ankles and feet.

And that’s when I thought the thought. You know, The Thought. Capital T, capital T. The Thought. The Thought where you think it. The Thought that goes, At least it can’t possibly get any worse.

Because you know what always happens next…

We’re power hiking a super steep incline, and suddenly I hear a SQUISH from below me. My right foot slides back in my shoe. What the hell was that? I wonder. And then I know. I know because I feel it. And what I feel is a giant blister that—unbeknownst to me—had been forming under my entire right heel and at this very moment decided to pop. Now, suddenly, every step is excruciating pain. My pacer and all the forest creatures know it because I scream expletives with every step.

This is officially a comedy of errors.

We soldier on. We get passed by yet another runner, solo. He’s fucking flying. How? By now I just want to be done. Unfortunately the course isn’t.

One bright spot is the gaggle of hoodoos. Suddenly, like giants congregating in the night, our headlamps light them up. In the pitch-black night, they’re ghostly. “HOLY SHIT!” Katie starts screaming. “THIS IS SOOOO COOL!” It was the first time she had ever seen hoodoos. Like, ever. And it was blowing her mind. We snapp a few photos and enjoy a brief reprieve from my grim task of kicking every rock I could find. I cherish the moment of levity.

Photo by Katie Grossman

Soon, we start winding in and out of the draws. Turning, climbing, cresting, turning, dropping. Over and over again. By now, we’re counting down the miles. Three miles… two miles… one mile… “The finish line must be right at the Thunder Mountain trailhead!” I said as if I knew. I’d never made it this far.

The draws keep coming. With every one we say, “This HAS to be the last one.” And nope, another fucking draw. After the race, Matt Gunn tells me, “Oh yep, those eleven draws, huh?” It would’ve really been nice to know the number eleven going in. Instead, every new turn is a heartbreak. The total mileage ticks 100 miles. Oh c’mon…

Finally, finally, FINALLY, the trail straightens out and we dip down to the trailhead. There’s nothing there. No finish line. No lights. No spectators. Just a pink ribbon to follow. Oh c’mon…

We turn left onto the dusty country road that I breezed along nearly 23 hours ago. “The finish line has to be right around this corner,” we both keep saying. But we take a corner and a corner and another corner, and all we see is a great big expansive of nothing. Pine forest. Dirt. Darkness.

You know when you’re just so over a race and ready to be done? Yeah.

The road seems to stretch on forever, with no indication that we were nearing any sort of civilization. I turn to Katie and only half-jokingly say, “I think I’m gonna drop right here.”

Finally, we see it. Or something. We see lights anyway. We get a little closer, and we see it. It’s the finish line.

You know that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the knights are rushing a castle and it cuts and then it cuts back to them and it doesn’t look like they’ve made it any closer and then it keeps doing that? That’s essentially what happens here. Even when we can see the finish line, it feels out of reach. Once again, I turns to Katie and say, “I think I’m gonna drop here.” I was joking slightly more this time.

And then, we arrive.

Photo by Dom Grossman

I cross the finish line. What a day. What a course. What a relief to be done. “How do you feel?” someone asks. “I’m just glad I don’t have to run this damn race ever again,” I say. And I mean it. Bryce 100 is a brutal race. I thought it four years ago when I DNF’d it. And I think it again today. 23:01, sixth place, and the utter stuffing beat out of me.

After offering me a beer (which I gladly accept), Matt Gunn urges me to go pick out my finisher belt buckle. Each one is handmade and unique. And as I peruse the table in a shell-shocked, sleep-deprived, mind-mushed state I grab the only pink-colored buckle I see. “The happiness of this belt buckle represents the exact opposite of how I feel,” I tell the poor volunteer standing there who has no idea how to respond.

In the light of day, it might be one of my favorite buckles for that very reason.

Utah lives up to its legend. It’s everything I wanted. It’s a land of wonderful brutality. And beautiful wonderality.

I feel like I’ve been baptized into it with the Bryce 100. And even if I never run it again, it will always hold a very special place in my heart.

EPILOGUE

This race took everything out of me. I knew it was a hard race at the time, but in the convening weeks since then, I gained even more respect for it.

For the first week after race day, I just felt like I’d gotten the shit beat out of me. Hour-long epsom salt baths (perhaps accompanied by a viewing of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schimdt) were the norm. All I wanted to do was lounge around. I got my ass properly kicked.

For those counting, 116 hours of recovery time is almost five days.

Beyond the emotional wear-and-tear I was physically brutalized too. Thanks to all those rocks I decided to kick for the last 30 miles, several toenails were full blackened and primed to eject themselves from my foot. So, in a moment of curiosity, I went to a podiatrist to see what official medical intervention could do. (In my all races, this has never occurred to me.) About 25 shots of novocaine to my toe later, all the blood was drained. And I’m happy to report I’m still the proud owner of ten toenails.

Beyond the toenails, my ankles and tesnor/upper IT were wrecked for weeks. Shit, I’m still recovering.

But every time I look down at my bruised toenails or feel a twinge of pain in my hip, I think back to Utah. I think back to the dust and the plateaus and the rocks and the washes and heat and the rocks again, and it reminds me of how brutally beautiful that damn state is. And how I can’t wait to get back.

You know, as soon as all this shit heals up.

Note: I’m publishing my entire Aconcagua journal serially. If you want to read from the beginning, start here.

2/10/17 – Day Thirteen

Like  I was saying… hot damn! 

Yesterday was full-on. Absolutely brutal. Way too long. But also, transcendental.

Because of the weather on the horizon, we had to alter our plans slightly. So rather than sleeping at Camp Colera [Camp Three, 19,357 ft] and attacking the summit from there, we stayed down in Nido de Cóndores [Camp Two, 17,717 ft]. That meant we’d be adding about 500 meters [1,640 ft] up and down plus another 3+ish hours to our day. Not ideal, but we figured it was our best shot. It also meant we’d have to alter our nutrition plan since we cached all our summit day food up at Colera prior to our plans change. (Most tragically, it ALSO meant we didn’t have our massive 960-calories bag of dehydrated macaroni and cheese we had been eagerly saving for our pre-summit dinner.) 

The night before we left, I couldn’t sleep at all. Not because I was nervous, just because of the same weird inability to sleep at this altitude I’ve mentioned before. I put my iPod on and listening to all the Bon Iver and M83 I had, hoping the noise would lull me to sleep. It didn’t. Finally, somewhere around 3:00 in the morning, I finally passed out. Ironically, I slept through my alarm at 4:30. But thanks to my inability to sleep, I woke up at 4:38 and roused Michael.

It was go time.

Fully bundled in four layers of gear, with headlamps strapped to our skulls, we took off under the light of a full moon. Departure time: 5:35am.

The first quartet of our day was the climb back up to Camp Colera. It was dark and frigid and slow. In the early hours, Michael seemed to struggle. He kept falling behind and needing to adjust his layers every five minutes or so. I wasn’t feeling too hot either due to my total lack of sleep the previous two nights. As we slowly picked along, I thought to myself, “So much for the summit.”

Surprisingly, we made it to Colera in about 1 hours, 45 minutes, the same time as two days prior with less gear and more sleep.

The sun had just punctured the horizon as we reached Colera, and we used it as an excuse to take a rest, grab food from our cache and... take monster dumps.

Speaking of beautiful things, watching night giving way to dawn giving way to sunrise at 20,000 feet was absolutely stunning. To be on the tallest thing around and seeing the other snow-covered mountains around us yawn awake was truly breath-taking.

From Colera, we had a fairly long and uneventful slog up to the Independencia Hut. By now, my toes were getting very cold. Fingers and toes had been my major preoccupation the entire expedition. Mine naturally tend to get cold easily, and I’d like very much to keep them. So I spent the majority of the day wiggling my toes in my boots to make sure I could still feel them or trying to kick blood back into them. In some ways, this was the scariest part of the whole adventure because HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU HAVE FROSTBITE WHEN THE WHOLE POINT OF FROSTBITE IS THAT YO CAN’T FEEL YOUR TOES ANYMORE?? 

We reached the Independencia Hut around 9:40am. Its claim to fame is that it’s the high refuge in the world, sitting at a staggering 6,400 m [20,997 ft] above sea level. But it’s also in pretty rough shape. The roof is blown off, and you could maybe squeeze two people in there. Maybe.

But, we were grateful for a rest and hid ourselves from the howling wind behind (what was left of) the hut. Realizing we hadn’t really eaten much, we used the opportunity to eat and drink a little, although we quickly discovered that a) with our effort level, the current elevation and the cold, the thought of eating bars or gels was wholly unappealing and b) despite being inside insulators, our Nalgenes had begun to freeze over, making drinking difficult. Not bueno.

We had already made it 1,000 meters [3,281 ft] on the day. We naively told ourselves, “Only 500 more!” So we slugged our packs over our shoulders and foolishly pressed on into the wind.

Right above Independencia Hut is Windy Ridge. Windy Ridge is called Windy Ridge because it’s a ridge that’s really windy. And if I didn’t mention before, the ridge is really, really windy. So as I was getting blasted in the face by 85 kph [53 mph] winds with snot freezing in streaks across my face, I screamed, “OK! I GET IT! IT’S WINDY!” 

The base of Windy Ridge put us at the start of the second half our journey: the Gran Acarreo (“The Long Haul”). It’s basically a long, windswept scree field pitched at 30° to 45° that you traverse to reach the base of the final push. It’s not particularly tough on paper, simply super windy and long. Most of the time we were forced to walk semi-backwards to protect our faces from the howling wind. And every time I looked up to see how far we’d come, I would just think, “Shit. Is that it??”

Finally, the Gran Acarreo gave way to the infamous and dreaded Canaleta. The Canleta is really the only feature anyone talks about on Aconcagua. It’s essentially another scree field featuring rocks ranging from pebbles to boulders that stretches the last 400 meters [1,312 ft] to the summit. Normally, on a normal mountain, it would be fairly tough. But seeing as it starts at 6,500 meters [21,325 ft] above sea level... It. Is. Soul-crushing. 

I’m not really sure how to even describe what it feels like. You can see the summit the entire climb, and you think, “Oh, it’s right there.” And then another hour passes and you think the same thing. And then another hour. And another hour.

Your pace is basically non-existent. Or rather, it’s half-step, half-step, half-step, half-step, rest on poles and breathe heavily for two minutes. And if you have to navigate a big step up or loose scree incline, add another three minutes of breathing time. It sucked. Really hard.

We finally made it to a resting place maybe 300 meters [984 ft] from the top near some caves. Michael was really struggling again (I mean, so was I), and I was still supremely concerned about my toes, which I could now only barely wriggle and only together a single unit. They were nearing the danger zone.

As we left the caves, we passed what seemed to an alpine stretcher about 20 feet to our left. I’m not 100% certain, but I’m pretty sure inside was the body of the North American guy who died up there. We heard that his body was still up by the Cuevas, and I saw what looked like two bootied feet sticking out the end. Whomever it was, it was a sobering reminder of what we were undertaking.

By now, with the altitude, I started to feel like I was moving outside my body. Noises started to sound differently. Some became barely audible. Others sounded like they were next to my head. I used the squeaking of my poles twisting in the snow as a totem. It helped to keep me conscious and present. But it didn’t always work. I realized after long stretches of time that I hadn’t bothered to wriggle or even think about wriggling or even care enough to think about wriggling my toes. I was totally spaced. And Michael was pulling farther and farther ahead of me.

We were both severely hypoxic by now. Our progress slowed considerably and despite being only 150 meters [492 ft] from the peak, we were growing more apathetic with every step.

It’s a weird kind of endurance, this mountaineering thing. Deep determination, ambushed by howling apathy.

Another hour or so later we were so close to the top, we could see the rock. But between it and us was a narrow, very steep ledge covered in icy snow. Michael said he was going to put his crampons on. “But we’re right there,” I protested. Literally we were 150 steps away. The summit was right there. But he was right. So, breathing heavily, I shrugged my pack off my back, sat down on the edge of the trail, grabbed the crampons and tried to attach them to my boots. We had done the same thing 200 meter [656 ft] and two hours earlier, and that was difficult. But now, at around 6,900 meters [22,638 ft], it was the hardest thing I’d ever done. I just couldn’t bend fair enough to get this one strap through this one little hole on my right crampon. I grunted and strained and breathed. With each attempt, I was burning precious oxygen. I was getting angrier by the second. 

Finally, I got it. I sat up and suddenly came to. Holy shit.

I had blacked out for about ten minutes. I lost track of time and space. It was confusing and—needlessly to say—a little scary, especially since I was sitting on the ledge of the trail. A fall off to the left would’ve been a nasty spill down the very precipitous scree field. But at least I had my damn crampons on. So I collected myself, and we moved out. So close.

Just like some kind of cheesy where the hero stumbles across the room to hit the red button that saves the whole planet, we staggered towards the summit. Despite being able to see the summit literally in front of us, we couldn’t move any faster. Our legs and lungs felt encrusted in concrete.

And then suddenly, we were there. We had made it. The highest point in the Americas. 22,841 feet. Time: 2:08pm.

I tried to get Michael to hit sticks like we always did at the end of a climb, but he just stared at the ground and groaned, “Noooo.” I think it was a combination of hypoxia and the fact he had tossed his poles about two feet away.

We took a few pictures, hugged and just tried to soak it all in. The moment was almost too big to full comprehend it. 

In one book, I’d read that because the Himalayan season starts a few months after Aconcagua’s, when you stand on the summit, you could very well be the highest person at Planet Earth at that exact moment. And it felt like that. (Also, just to make sure, I stumbled over to the biggest rock up there and stood on it. That way I’d be higher than Michael.)

We had done it.

But of course, if you go up, you have to come down. And we had spent just about every ounce of energy, mental capacity and emotion making it to the summit. That, combined with our lack of eating or drinking, meant we were seriously, seriously toasted. It was time to get down. We had been on the summit about 25 minutes.

As we started picking our way down slowly, it became readily apparent that Michael was really messed up. He was stumbling. And stopping. And cursing. I wasn’t far off myself.

We—very slowly—made it back to the Cuevas where we forced ourselves to eat and drink whatever we could. I shoved my bag of tortilla chips into my face to get some salt. But only half of the chip actually made it into my mouth. The rest either tumbled down the front of my jacket or ended up glued to my now-frozen-solid mustache and beard. A guide and two German hikers sitting nearby gawked at us with a combination of pity and disgust. We were drooling on ourselves.

After our stop, we descended the rest of the 1,300 meters [4,265 ft] feeling somewhere between gold garbage and hot garbage. Michael stumbled a few more times, slicing into his down pants with his crampons, and I threatened to force-feed him some dexamethasone.

By the time we starting coming of Colera, it was my turn to feel awful. We had started running down the steep slope, just wanted to be done and back in the tent. And in the late afternoon sun, with all my gear on, I started to get severely overheated and nearly fell a few times on our final descent.

But finally we had made it.

We were done. Total time: 12 hours, 15ish minutes.

We threw our shit down and just groaned outside our tent. Then we got inside the tent and groaned for even longer in there.

But we had done it.

We lay face-down on our sleeping bags for a few hours. It was total-body exhaustion. I wasn’t sore or hurting, just utterly depleted. Depleted physically, mentally, emotionally, everything-else-ally. As I the whole thing over in my head, trying to decide if it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’m still not sure.

But we did it.

For the next few hours, we tried to move as little as possible from the warmth and comfort of our sleeping bags. Occasionally, I would wriggle my toes just because I could and nothing on Earth could make me happier.

Remarkably, neither of us had very bad headaches. We mostly just didn’t want to ever move again. So instead, we cooked our precious dehydrated mac and cheese while fully laying down, out the door of our tent. I was still feeling outside of my body—a very strange sensation—but once we wolfed down our amazing mac and cheese, we both instantly started to feel better. 

I slept better last night than I have any other night this entire expedition (and at 18,000 feet no less). I did, however, have at least three different dreams that we had somehow flown home without spending any time in Mendoza to eat steak and drink Malbec. (That was secretly the ulterior motive behind this entire trip.) In the final dream, as some sort of weird consolation, my brain invented a story about an anti-smoking group stationed at a mall giving me front-row seats to see Usher in concert as well as a dozen logs of cheese. It made no sense, but I assume it’s a metaphor for something. 

Ironically, after all that worrying about my toes, it was my fingers that got it bad. When I awoke the next morning, I noticed a burning sensation on the tips of my fingers. After mentioning to Michael, I realized it was very mild frostbite. Awesome. 

After lazily getting up, we packed our gear and made our way from Nido to Base Camp. Because we had to carry down everything we had plus all our caches, we had a lot of shit. Literally. We had to haul down all the poops we had taken on the mountain in a plastic bag. There was also a lot of leftover food we didn’t eat. Our packs weren’t just heavy but comically exploding too. 

But as we cranked down the mountain with our massive packs almost tipping us over, passing conga lines of other nervous hikers going up, all I could do was smile and think, “You suckers have no idea what you’re in for.”

Note: I’m publishing my entire Aconcagua journal serially. If you want to read from the beginning, start here.

2/9/17 – Day Twelve

Well hot damn we did it. That took about everything we had. Probably hardest thing either of us have ever done.

I feel a little outside of my body right now. Need to rest for now. I’ll fill in the details tomorrow.

But hot damn!

Note: I’m publishing my entire Aconcagua journal serially. If you want to read from the beginning, start here.

2/8/17 – Day Eleven

It’s been a wait. But it’s been good. Giving our bodies and brains the extra day to recover—and grasp the task ahead—has been helpful and will only make tomorrow easier. We’ve spent most of the day in the tent, reading or compiling lists of movies we can’t believe the other person hasn’t seen, only venturing out to shit, piss, shit and piss or check in with Joyce and Avo (sans shitting or pissing).

Last night, sleep was very difficult again. I’m not sure what it is physiologically about sleeping at 18,000 feet above sea level, but whatever the cause, it’s very difficult to give your mind a rest. I found mine filled with turnaround timetables, random conjugations of Spanish verbs like “traer” and the face of some old guy I couldn’t quite place (and still can’t). It felt like my brain was pinging between different data points and memories in some sort of awful, insomnia-inducing game of pinball. It went on for hours upon hours. Finally, around 5:00 in the morning, I found my iPod and started to listen to music to fall asleep and/or pass the time. 

Also, as someone who patently hates sleep, going under from 9pm to 8am every day is pretty unnatural. So I imagine my body is just rejecting this new, very bizarre lifestyle I’ve thrown at it.

One other fun part of last night’s slumbers was another accident with my pee bottle yet again. I’ve gotten increasingly skilled at using it in the dark so at this point, I’m almost excited to use my talents. Problem was, when I stuck my finger into the opening to make sure I was aiming properly, it hit something hard. Even in my stupor, I realized that the residual urine in my bottle had frozen over at the top—somehow—during the night. I tapped it a few times—my own frozen urine that is—to try to break through but to no avail. So finally I had to thrust my fingers through it full force, shattering my piss wall and allowing me to go about my business.

Needless to say, I’m happy that our adventures at high altitudes are nearing their climax. Soon I’ll be able to shit in real toilets, sleep in real bed and not have to drink 4 to 5 liters of water every day.

One bright spot tonight: I got to break into the Biscuits and Gravy dehydrated meal I’d been saving. Breakfast for dinner. Shit just got real crazy.

Tomorrow, we go for the summit. And as brutally cold as a 4am wakeup and 5am departure sounds, it at least means I won’t have to try to sleep the entire night.

Note: I’m publishing my entire Aconcagua journal serially. If you want to read from the beginning, start here.

2/7/17 – Day Ten

Fortunes change in an instant.

After a somewhat rough night of sleep up here at 5,400 meters [17,716 ft] above sea level—my head was racing and I thought to myself, “Is this what cocaine is like??”—we set off midday to cache the last of our food and fuel up at Camp Colera [Camp 3, 19,357 ft]. The schedule was to be as follows: cache today, more camp to Colera and sleep there tomorrow and then the following day, attack the summit.

The hike up was exceedingly pleasant. We moved at a slow cadence up the wall of rock towards our high camp. Along the way, the trail crisscrosses great fields of yellow, sulfurous rock. The smell is rather subtle, and I find it oddly pleasing.

The hike it was about 500 vertical meters [1,640 ft] and just a little over 2 km [0.6 miles] and offered up breath-taking views of the surrounding Andes. It was really the first day I started to get the sense on being on top of the world. As you look out over the vast landscape, you realize that you’re the tallest thing around. A pretty incredible feeling. 

We passed through the mostly abandoned Camp Berlin and continue on a little farther, using huge metal cables to finally reach to Camp Colera, perched high atop a little lip. Time: 1 hour, 45 minutes up, better than the guidebook’s predicted time of 2-4 hours.

After stashing our cache under some rocks, we took off down the mountain feeling great about our chances of a summit bid in two days. We felt strong, we felt confident, and we could even see all the way up to the peak from camp.

The summit in view

However, just as we were re-entering Nido, we were stopped by a couple of Slovaks(?) who asked where we had come from and what our schedule was. We told them, to which they responded in broken English, “Oh. Our plan was same too. Summit Thursday. But forecast say 50 centimeters of snow Thursday.” W. T. F.

So we ran down to the lower end of camp to find Avo and Joyce still huddled in their tent. We asked if they had the full forecast, which they produced. Not good. Heavy snow Thursday and Friday. So much that their guide Chavi refused to take them up until Sunday.

Winds listed in kilometers per hour for morning, afternoon and evening

Suddenly our plans were—yet again—torn asunder. Our options were either wait till Sunday (five days!) for the storm to blow through or call a very quick audible and go for the summit tomorrow, starting from here at Camp 2. The thing is, waiting till Sunday is of course a huge gamble. We don’t have enough food to last that long, and we’d just barely catch our flight home. Also, there’s no guarantee the conditions would oblige then either.

A summit attempt from Nido isn’t totally unheard of. Some teams do it to avoid having to sleep so high at Camp 3 before summit day. Basically, leaving from here tomorrow would give us one less day of acclimatization and tack on 500 meters [1,640 ft] and 3 hours to our already long summit day. It’d also necessitate that we leave around 4 am.

Neither option was ideal. Or even good. Or decent. But after slowly turning everything over in our heads, we knew our only shot at the summit would be going a day early—tomorrow.

So now here we are, packing. We’re obviously fairly more anxious now. The idea of an early start is thoroughly unappealing. And the move puts us at greater risk for altitude sickness—gaining more than 5,000 feet in one day. But it’s our only shot.

So, we’re going to do it. We’re going to do it smartly, methodically and judiciously. No mountain is worth getting hurt over. So tomorrow, the big adventure begins and ends. 

Current pulse ox: 74% / 64 bmp.

Time to climb this thing once and for all.

And just like that, things change again. After texting back and forth with Michael’s wife via our GPS beacon, we got her to check MountainForecast.com for us. It seems like Thursday may be clear after all. The guardaparques who came around and checked on us also said snow on Thursday afternoon. So, if we can make it up and down off the summit in time, we’d be good. Also, a rest day might do us good.

We’ve been talking to an Oregonian dude in the tent next to us who summited today, starting here in Nido. Sounds like it’s his second time here on the mountain. We got some good tips and perspective from him.

So, after getting the Mountain Forecast and chatting with our new friend Brock, it sounds like we’re going to rest here tomorrow and then assault the mountain on Thursday, turning around if things get bad. The winds should be better Thursday than Wednesday, and that’s our biggest concern. It’s already cold up there no matter what. But if we can hit kinder winds (relatively speaking), it’ll be safer. Brock said he hit some really bad winds today on the large traverse just below the summit that made him really concerned about getting frostbite on his face. Nonetheless, he made it up from here in 6 hours, 36 minutes, which is crazy fast. (He took a more direct route and also knows the mountain pretty well.) But that gives us hope for about 9-10 hours up and 2-3 down.

So once again, we’re playing with a new hand.

Note: I’m publishing my entire Aconcagua journal serially. If you want to read from the beginning, start here.

2/6/17 – Day Nine

My God, I opened the tent last night to look at the stars, and I’ve never seen such a spectacle. Plain as day, you could see the dust of the Milky Way trailing across the sky. And the waxing moon was so bright and detailed.

We took a leisurely morning—knowing we only had to move up to Nido de Cóndores [Camp 2, 17,715 ft]. So, we slowly broke down camp, made some oatmeal and coffee and enjoyed the views. (I also poured out the FORTY OUNCES OF URINE that I peed into my bottle overnight.)

As we left and headed up, we saw a trio picking their way down the mountain very, very slowly. One appearing to be limping. As we got close, we saw that one (or possibly two) of them were pretty severely fucked up, likely victims of AMS [Acute Mountain Sickness] (and hopefully nothing worse). I asked if they needed anything in both English and Spanish, but I think they were either Ukrainian or Polish, and they just shuffled past.

The rest of the climb was fairly uneventful, but we—once again—really felt worked. We both felt that we were moving very slowly by the time we reached the top. But astonishingly, we still made the whole climb in just a minute or two over two hours.

The type of “work” the mountain forces out of you at this altitude is so different from what I’m used to. It’s not that you can’t go or don’t have reserves; it’s just that you can’t. You just can’t. It’s very confusing. It’s a full-body “no.” Lungs. Legs. Arms. Brain. It doesn’t feel like you should be tired, yet you are. I’m not sure it’s my favorite form of exhaustion; I prefer a 35-mile trail run where you’re firing hard. This is a much slower death.

Either way, we’re camped at Nido now. The weather is exceedingly pleasant with only light wind for the time being. It’s time for a little R ‘n R as we get ever closer to our summit bid.

And then suddenly 18 Poles show up, overrun your camp and set up their dozen tents within feet of yours, yammering away and ruining the peace. These dudes don’t even know how to set up their tents. This is a total shit show. And they must’ve hiked all the way up from Base Camp this morning. Seems like a great way to get AMS. Well, there goes the neighborhood…

Note: I’m publishing my entire Aconcagua journal serially. If you want to read from the beginning, start here.

2/5/17 – Day Eight

What a difference a few hours make. We awoke to calm morning and a bright blue sky.

As I laid there my sleeping bag staring up at the roof of our tent, I weighed our options based on last night’s grim news: 1) just keep going for it and see if the weather changes in our favor, 2) try to get up high to a few of the upper camps just to say we did, or 3) cut our losses and head back to Mendoza and perhaps launch another weeklong adventure from there. But once we got up and out of the tent, I knew there was only one option: Go for it.

So we lazily packed up—waiting for the sun to hit our camp—made breakfast and then made our move.

Despite heavier packs and feeling a bit worked on the climb, we hit Camp Canadá in just 2 hours, 15 minutes. Faster than last time. Daria and her Ukrainians happened to be there so we politely rubbed it in her face. Then, we pitched our tent right at the apex of the camp, grabbed our cache for Nido and took off again.

This time, we were up in just 1 hour, 45 minutes. Faster again, despite full packs and still feeling worked. (But something must have been going right.) On the way up, we caught Ricardo coming down from his summit attempt. He made it from Base Camp to the Independencia Hut (around a 4,000-foot gain) before having to turn around.

Now we’re all bundled up back down at 16,076 feet with some good dinner in our bellies. (Descent time from Nido: 30 minutes. Five minutes faster than last time.)

We’ll continue on to Nido tomorrow and just see how things play out. The summit attempt is by no means a sure thing, but at least it feels good to be moving, getting higher and seeing amazing views.

Note: I’m publishing my entire Aconcagua journal serially. If you want to read from the beginning, start here.

2/4/17 – Day Seven

A bad day that just got worse.

All last night we were pelted by snow and wind gusts. It was merciless all night. Our hope was that it might clear just enough to let us begin our ascent to Camp 2. (A hope against hope.) 

When we awoke, things were fairly still, but we were buried inside our tent in a snowdrift. AlI wanted to do was to get moving up the mountain, but Michael refused to stir. Finally, I just got up to get some water, only to discover that the barrels of water inside the Inka kitchen were essentially empty. And what was there was frozen solid. Great. 

Finally, Michael got up and we ate a meager breakfast, always watching the sky to see if it would clear. I felt like we had enough of a window to make it up to the next camp—which we did—but he refused to let us leave. I got more and more perturbed. I just wanted to get the fuck out of Base Camp. So, I started packing everything up. Michael did the same, cautiously. But the sleeping bags and tent remained. He wouldn’t let us leave, and I was getting full-on pissed. 

He said he wanted to talk to Avo and Joyce so we sought them out in their Juan Herrera dome. Later we were joined by the Italians.

For the next couple of house, I basically sulked. Not super cool of me, especially in front of everyone, but to be honest, I was just bored and annoyed.

Around noon it became clear that we wouldn’t be leaving. I resigned myself to our fate. Soon thereafter, the winds really picked up and created what amounted to a blizzard for the next ten hours. (In fact, it’s still going as I lay here in our tent writing this.) They call it the “White Winds,” which has a very Game-of-Thrones ring to it. 

All afternoon we were refugees in our frozen dome. Every few minutes the wind would blow the door open and blast us with frigid air and snow.

At some point, a guy named Ricardo Peña joined us at Joyce’s request. He seemed to be a fairly accomplished mountaineer who’s summited Aconcagua four times before and is here training for an attempt on Everest in April/May. He was a super nice guy, and we plastered him with questions about Everest, gear and recon about the mountain for hours. He also dispensed a few small but useful pieces of advice for us to stay warm up there. I hope it works.

The evening finally came, and everyone once again began discussing our summit plans. Our limited weather forecast said it would be sunny the rest of the week. As Chavi, the Juan Herrera chef/guide brought in more hot water for tea, she mentioned that she’d return in ten minutes with a full weather report. 

And boy, did she.

Basically, we were right, yes, it would be sunny all week. But also very cold and extremely windy. All week the wind at the summit would be around 60 kph [43 mph]. And the temps look dismal. On Thursday, the day before we planned to summit, the high would be -18° C [-0.5° F] and the low… -32° C [-26° F]. Factor in the wind, and that’s instant frostbite.

In fact, we learned of a Cuban doctor who followed that Indonesian/Malaysian team last week and wasn’t properly prepared. He turned back at the Independencia Hut but already had severe frostbite on his hands and nose. Because of the terrible conditions, they sill haven’t been able to evac him out yet. It’s probably been five days now.

Also, we learned of a North American man who died somewhere below the summit. They still haven’t gotten his body down. It’s sitting in the Cuevas where the Indonesian/Malaysians had to seek shelter, and it’s been there for a few weeks.

It’s really amazing to be surround by so much death. All day everyone talked in excited breathlessness about all the famous mountaineers—most of whom are all dead from one accident or another. It’s truly people compelled by a certain kind of madness. And here I am, just sitting here bored because there’s nothing to do except drink hot peach Tang. 

Note: I’m publishing my entire Aconcagua journal serially. If you want to read from the beginning, start here.

2/3/17 – Day Six 

Wow. Sorry about yesterday. I was in the grips of a semi-gnarly altitude headache until early evening following our long hike. I curled up in the tent with my Nano Puff over my head to block out the harsh sun shining through the bright yellow walls of our tent, and I just lay there reading most the rest of Into Thin Air. I wanted to avoid taking any ibuprofen, just to see how the whole thing would play out. After some rest and some tasty rehydrated beef stroganoff, I felt much better. But I still swallowed two ibuprofens before bed just to help me sleep. 

As for yesterday’s excursion itself, we had quite a great day of it. Our plan was a bit of an audible. Instead of a cache and carry just up to Camp Canadá [Camp 2, 16,076 ft], we decided to cache and carry to there and then continue up to Nido de Cóndores [Camp 3, 17,715 ft] as a further acclimatization hike before returning all the way down to Plaza de Mulas and Base Camp.

We set off before 8:30 am with our packed loaded down with food and fuel for the high camps. The climb to Canadá is mostly switchbacks, cutting up and across a massive scree field. Our books said to choose the flattest tracks up, but there were hundreds to choose from. With Michael leading, we took a line to the north (left) that ended up taking us around a large face and away from the other tracks. Over there, we soon found ourselves staring straight up a very steep scree field that we had no other choice but to climb. It was a fairly tiring effort, but after a few false top-outs, we plateaued out. We were still unsure of our course—I foolishly left my guidebook in the tent—but we followed the lead of several other faster climbers (guides?) and soon pulled ourselves up above the rocky outcropping to the spectacular views of Camp Canadá. Time up: just over 2:15. (The day prior, we made a new, rather brash Ukrainian friend named Daria while standing in line for the medical check. She challenged us to beat her time of 2:30 up to Canadá. Well, we did. So, suck it, Daria.) 

After leaving our food and fuel protected beneath a pile of rocks, we set off for Nido at 5,400 m [17,715 ft]. Since my highest previous climb was Mt. Whitney, every new step was an altitude PR for me. 

Our packs freshly lightened, we caught up to a group of nine or ten moving at an achingly slow snail’s pace. It was both weird and impressive and a lovely validation of not going in a guided group. They looked like a very cold chain-gang.

We moved up the wide expanse of the mountain in a fairly straight shot, passing through a few fields of penitents and yellow, mushy, odorous sulphur. After gaining the saddle around the halfway point, a guide (or ranger?) in a red suit split off and went right through a field of high penitents. We chose the line of least resistance to the left but soon found ourselves staring up the gullet of a small valley with snowfields in our way to reach—what seemed like—Nido at the top of another saddle. All other hikers were traveling along a line to the far right, hugging the mountain, where our man in red was too.

Shrugging off our second mistake of the day, we decided to press on, straight up, crossing several penitente and snowfields. It ended up not being all that difficult, apart from the fact we were now nearing 17,000 ft above sea level.

The bright sun shining off the snow and the altitude conspired against us, and by the time we finally lugged our bodies over the top we were pretty knackered. We threw our packs (and our bodies) on the ground and soon to the business of melting snow for water, which we needed badly. Time up from Canadá: 2:00 flat.

We stayed up at Nido for a little over a half hour and chatted with a Swedish dude named Simon who had just done the summit yesterday solo. Seeing the clouds collecting above us, we said our farewells and began the quick descent, this time via the proper routes. About halfway back down, we passed the frozen chain gang, still slowly picking their way up the mountain. They had only gained 300 meters [984 ft] in 3 hours. Holy shit. 

We kept flying down and made it to Camp Canadá in a mere 35 minutes. From there, we rock-surfed at high speeds off the top. It was probably the most fun I’ve had on the mountain, simply because we were moving fast for a change. By the time we reached the bottom, the storm had fully blown in, we were sweaty and my shitty rental boots were starting to give me blisters on my big toes. I had a bit of pounding in my head at Nido and during the descent. But now that we were down, it had turned into a full-blown headache back in the tent.

Last night the winds really picked up and blew the tent around a lot. (Also, there apparently was a minor earthquake that Michael felt but I just chocked up to him dreaming.) 

We spent this afternoon seeking refuge from the deteriorating weather in one of the Juan Herrera [guide company] tents thanks to Avo and Joyce. There was an Italian/German couple there too who are going to start up in two days. Their plan is one camp a day, which seems aggressive to me. But everyone was exceedingly kind, and the conversation meandered into and out of Spanish, Italian, English and Lebanese all afternoon.

Our own plan is a little up in the air now. The weather tomorrow promises to be as bad as today, or even worse. But then it should improve after that. In fact, a guardaparque came into the Juan Herrera tent to give us a rundown of the forecast. He said Monday would be ideal for a summit. Tuesday, Wednesday, OK. And then Thursday and Friday the wind should really die down. So that bodes well for us. Our current summit day—assuming everything goes well—would be Friday [February 10th]. Michael is just nervous about moving up to Canadá tomorrow in bad weather. But realistically, we just need a 2 ½ to 3 hour window of okay weather to make it up, set up camp and hunker down. Then we’ll be set up for success. But I suppose we’ll see what tomorrow brings…

One addendum: Yesterday and the day before, we kept seeing helicopters circling over and heading higher. Apparently an Indonesian/Malaysian team summited two days ago but was so slow that as they were coming down, they had to spend a night sheltered in something called Las Cuevas [The Caves]. Supposedly the leader made it down to Camp Colera [Camp 3] while everyone else hunkered down up high. It sounds like everyone was okay—no frostbite—but just another reminder to take this seriously. 

Meanwhile, every day up here I feel stronger. Sitting at 14,000 feet, I’m no longer winded doing anything, and my oxidation level was 91% this morning. I feel good, and I feel like it’s time to really get on the mountain. 

Can I you tell I’m sitting in Base Camp and bored? So many journal entries. 

I’ve never slept more in my entire life than I have this past week. The sun sets around 8:30, and we lose light around 9:15 – 9:25. (It’s summer here after all.) But even with the late curfew, there’s nothing to do so we simply eat, clean up, bathe our armpits and junk with camping wipes and then go to bed. Unless we need to start particularly, we lazily get up anywhere between 7:00 and 8:300 am. Last night I think I passed out around 9:15 pm and awoke around 8:20 am. 

It’s funny, this co-mingling of extreme athleticism and accomplishment along with utter boredom—or at least utter listlessness. Today Michael said that even when we’re awake, it’s like we’re asleep. I tend to agree.

But I suppose that’s all part of the romanticism of all this—holed up in a thin tent, wrapped in 700-fill down parka and barely morning a finger, except to tap on our Kindles. I can only imagine how much more swashbuckling this will feel once we’re high above Base Camp, holding our own against 50 mph winds. (They’re projected to be around 65 mph on the summit tomorrow.)

Another part of the mundanity is our daily intake: three packets of oatmeal with decaf coffee or decaf black tea, a lunch that stretches several hours across the afternoon consisting of an entire bag of Have’a Chip tortilla chips, a handful of trail mix and a few pieces of dried fruit. Dinner is the one bright spot, as it could be an any number of dehydrated meals I pull out of my bag. (I’ve been thinking about tonight’s Chana Masala since I woke up this morning.) If I’m lucky, we’re feeling saucy enough for a thermos of post-dinner Moroccan mint tea too. 

The only part of all this that has revealed itself to be the worst is the water consumption. In the account of Aconcagua that we read beforehand, the author constantly complained about having to constantly drink water—at least 4 liters a day to ward off the effects of AMS or worst. For us, it’s not so much the water going in as it is the water coming out. Four liters of water comes out of the body at probably 8 to 16 oz at a time. So that means we’re peeing 8 to 16 times a day. The worst part is just that it means we have to leave our (relatively) warm tent, trudge 15 feet to the rickety metal outhouse and scurry back to our tent afterwards.

Ah, just like clockwork, there goes Michael to the baño.

Also, I’ve touch on the night peeing. Last night there was a minor crisis when I realized I couldn’t find my pee bottle anywhere. We tore apart the tent, my pack and even my duffel multiple times to no avail. I was trying to imagine what I would do—pee in my normal Nalgene at night and then just wash it out really well for my water the next day??—when I tried one last hope. I burst into to the Inka kitchen and announced, “Mi Nalgene e perdió.” [“My Nalgene lost itself.”] “Huh?” “Mi botella.” “Ah.” One of the girls pointed to a wall with several Nalgenes hanging from it. None of them were mine. Then, I turned my head just a little bit more and saw it, hanging there in all its glory. “Muchísimas gracias,” I muttered as I scurried off with my prized possession. Ironically, I did use it at all last night.

So here I lay, in the tent, waiting to pee, then eat dinner, then go to sleep. I hope that, even if it’s nasty weather tomorrow, I can convince Michael to move to Canadá. As jovial and easy as Base Camp is, I’d like to feel like our little adventure is progressing. (Also, I think I have another dehydrated Chana Masala cached up there.)

Just got bored again and checked my pulse ox: 92% / 80 bpm. Awesome.

Note: I’m publishing my entire Aconcagua journal serially. If you want to read from the beginning, start here.

We cached our food and fuel at Camp Canadá [i.e. Camp One] and then continued on to Nido de Cóndores [i.e. Camp Two] for a further acclimatization hike. It was 5,400 m or about 17,715 ft, a new altitude PR for me by a lot. Everything went well, but I’m not the proud owner of my first real altitude headache. I’ll write more tomorrow. But for now I’ll just rest and be thankful I’m not on Everest like those suckers in Into Thin Air.

Note: I’m publishing my entire Aconcagua journal serially. If you want to read from the beginning, start here.

2/1/17 – Day Four

Rest day. Life in Base Camp is good. There’s a lively buzz as climbers go about their personal tasks of arriving, leaving, packing, unpacking and drinking pitchers of Tang. Meanwhile, the affable Inka staff rushes around with plates of torturously delicious-smelling food or tending to the water, all while Argentine rock blasts from their kitchen. Occasionally—as right now—a group of five or six climbers arrive from a successful go at the summit. Sometimes helicopters buzz overhead, bringing supplies or hauling shit off the mountain, literally.

All this as Aconcagua towers above. It’s both humbling and thrilling to sit below it and gaze up. It’s right there. It feels more knowable. And real.

I slept an amazing 11.5 hours last night—9 pm to 8:30 am, minus the twenty minutes I struggled to empty my engorged bladder into the pee bottle and ended up only being half-successful. (This is a skill I’m hoping to fully acquire by expedition’s end.)

Chamoun and I spent the morning sorting our gear and caches for our trips toward the summit. (I hope that all my calculations and approximation are correct.) The weather has held quite nicely. We awoke to a gorgeously clear morning today. Apparently the starts at night are jaw-dropping at this altitude too, but I haven’t been brave enough to poke my head outside the tent in the middle of the night.

I hoping deeply for good weather as we ascend. It seems to stay clear most of the day until the summit attracts dense clouds around 2:00 pm and then worsens.

This rest day has been perfect following yesterday’s aggressive hike in. I feel surprisingly great for sitting at 14,108 feet, coming from basically sea level just four days ago. My pulse ox level was 89 this morning, a very encourage sign as upper 80s at Base Camp is considered positive. I’ve also begun reading Into Thin Air, which only seems appropriate

This afternoon we also met Miguel, the proprietor of the World’s Highest Art Gallery as proven by his Guinness World Records plaque framed in his tent. His an eccentric old dude who said he’s been doing this for sixteen seasons, lugging his art up and down the mountain. Some of his stuff was okay, some was very bad. None of it was worth the $400-$2,800 he was asking for it. But he was very kind and gave us each an alfajor [an Argentine treat kind of like a Moon Pie].

Note: I’m publishing my entire Aconcagua journal serially. If you want to read from the beginning, start here.

1/31/17 – Day Three

Woof. That was a proper day. We shoved off early (target: 7:00am, actually 7:31am) to avoid getting trapped in a similar storm to yesterday’s. Avo and Joyce [Avo’s fellow Lebanese hiker who is trying to be the first Lebanese woman to complete the Seven Summits] made it about 2/3 of the way to base camp yesterday before being caught in that horrible storm. Fearing serious flash flood danger, they had to turn around and come all the way back down to Confluencia. Luckily, the storms never materialized for us today.

Instead, the long hike up the Quebrada de Horcones started off fairly pleasant. It remained mostly flat all morning, meaning it was saving all the elevation gain for the end—which it did. We caught up to Avo and Joyce up the wash, near where they had to turn around yesterday. We soon overtook them and then made the turnoff for the long, hot climb up to Plaza de Mulas [aka Base Camp]. Fairly soon into it, we took a bad line and ended up stranded on a precarious talus field. I had visions of slipping and snapping a leg right then and there. But after some sketchy down-climbing we found the trail again.

From there, it was a lot of ascent with the occasional, unnecessary descent, which of course add to the ascent. “PUDs” is what Michael taught me: “pointless ups and down.” It was definitely PUDtastic. 

My water started to run low (because there was no water at Confluencia this morning, none), and I began to get really overheated. As we started to make—what we thought was—the final push, we climbed a slop littered with mule bones. One half-flesh-covered skull looked uncannily like Jar Jar Binks. As we climbed Michael left me, taking the Steri-pen with him. The Steri-pen I needed to purify water to 1) survive till base camp and 2) not get horrible disease from all the rotting mule flesh in the water. But we made it to Base Camp nonetheless. Around 6.5 hours (less than estimated) and 18 km (more than estimated).

Base Camp is a pretty awesome place. Perched up on the edge of a huge bowl, it’s a lively little city, with plenty of mess tents, beer being served and ’80s tunes blasting from speakers. Everyone here seems much heartier and “mountain-manlier” than the people walking Confluencia. (I guess that’s what being more than 14,000 feet in the air will do to you.) It’s blowing my mind that all these people are here just to say that they stood on top of a really big rock.

It’ll be nice to hunker down for a few days. Supposedly today’s hike is the hardest with the exception of summit day so it’s good to hear that the next week will be a touch easier.

Note: I’m publishing my entire Aconcagua journal serially. If you want to read from the beginning, start here.

1/30/17 – Day 2

We’re hunkered down in our tent right now in the midst of some pretty high winds and a little rain. Scratch that. Very high winds.

Today we did an acclimatization hike up to Plaza Francia at 4,200 m [13,780 ft] and made it back to camp right as a storm was rolling in. I stopped by the guardapaque [ranger] station for a second to ask about the medical check, and in that time the winds had picked up our tent, ripped out the stakes and thrown it. We would’ve lost it if it weren’t for one lone stake.

The hike up to Plaza Francia was stunning. Parts of it felt like we were walking on the surface of Mars thanks to the carved up, red rockscape. Walking amongst all these ongoing geological processes was both awesome and humbling. Much different from the Grand Canyon where it feels like the erosion has already done its work. Here it feels more raw, more half-done.

Near the turnaround point we were treated to a full-frontal view of Aconcagua’s South Face. Those who climb it do it in one big push from the base of Plaza Francia that usually last three days. But it’s not often attempted because it’s so dangerous. And we saw why. As were were still about a mile away we saw a huge shelf of snow break off and start an avalanche down the face. Luckily, we spoke with the guardaparques yesterday and knew no one was climbing today. Still, a good reminder about this mountain’s power. 

Note: I’m publishing my entire Aconcagua journal serially. If you want to read from the beginning, start here.

1/29/17 – Day 1

We haven’t left the hotel yet this morning, but we’ve already had quite an experience. Last night as we were trying to fall asleep… we just couldn’t. The elevation [8,700 ft] made our breaths out short and harsh. I ended up laying there just thinking about breathing. And when you’re trying to actively make yourself breathe, you can’t exactly drift off to sleep peacefully. I tossed and turned in the darkness for an hour, maybe two. Luckily, I still feel fairly rested.

We checked our oxidation levels and pulses this morning: 95% and 55 bpm. So at least my heart rate has chilled down a bit from 76 bpm last night. Now, we eat our last real food for a while. Then, we’re off.

We’ve made it into our approach camp, Confluencia, and have settled in nicely. What our guide book promised to be a 4-5 hour hike of 6 miles turned out to be just a few minutes over 2 hours.

The hike itself was remarkably beautiful, full of greenery, swooping birds and rushing water. The entire Horcones Valley is a marvel of geology and tribute to the might of erosion. I have no idea why people denigrate this as a boring, ugly hike. 

On our ride to our drop off point, we half-met a Ukrainian girl who we’ve dubbed Oksana. She was a bit quite (bad English) and said she was doing this whole trek in 10 days and alone. Seems aggressive. And ill-advised.

As for myself, I’m feeling quite good. Downing four liters of water a day [to stave off potential altitude sickness] isn’t as demanding a task as I thought it would be. That I said, I can already tell that I’m going to loathe trail mix for the rest of my life after this trip.

For now, we’re stealing shade from Inka [the expedition company we rented out mules from but nothing else] to stay out of the harsh sun. We chatted with the camp doctor here for a bit and asked about the Japanese guy we heard died a few weeks ago. Turns out he was the only death on the mountain so far this year. And importantly, he happened to be 74 years old. He summited, descended a little, went to go to the bathroom and then just died right there. Sad. But in some way, oddly reassured.

Tomorrow should be a fairly long day. We have an acclimatization hike up to Plaza Francia at 4,300 m [14,108 ft] to get our bodies used to the idea of being that high before we return down here for the night.

Time to go re-hydrate some dinner. But damn, someone in the Inka tent is frying up bacon. Damn. Damn. Damn.