2011 - Rattlesnake Ramble race report

It's better to be lucky than to be fast, at least so for me at the Rattlesnake Ramble. Had I finished more than 8 minutes faster on this course, I still wouldn't have guaranteed myself as good of a prize as I did by being lucky.

The Rattlesnake Ramble is an annual 4.25 mi technical trail race put on to raise money for the Action Committee for Eldorado (ACE). They raise money to replace the "oh thank god" rap bolts that I've used on occasion while climbing in Eldo. For $32, I was awarded a rugged trail race (albeit a bit short, but pretty much the only one in boulder due to open space rules) with over 800 feet of gain amongst the beautiful climbing walls less than 5 minutes from my house and a sweet La Sportiva shirt made from bamboo with this logo on the front.

How could ya go wrong?! On top of all that, the prize list is amazing. There were down jackets, 15 pairs of microspikes, backpacks galore, running bottles, Sportiva shoes, climbing gym memberships, the list goes on.

As a token of appreciation for offering to pace me at Leadville, I signed Abe up to run with me. We arrived at the start at 7:30, checked in, and headed up the road for a warm up. Cloudy, breezy and 55 degrees, almost perfect conditions. At 8:00, a pack of ~80 runners took off up the road into the park. I settled in to be about 3/4 of the way back but wanted to be up front as downhillers have the right-of-way and it matters in a few sections. The videographer pulled up next to me for an interview and asked me my strategy. I jokingly told him I was trying to draft off the leaders as we were uphilling into a headwind. I knew I was in trouble though because Lisa Goldsmith (winner of PPA) was right beside me.

I hit the turn up Fowler trail, thankful for the reprieve from the uphill. My heart rate was 180 and would average that for the rest of the race. We followed Fowler out to the park boundary, swung around and headed to the west side of the park to climb the uber steep Eldo trail. I walked most of this climb with my HR still in the 180s. I was able to pass a few people here and had Dan Mottinger in my sights. At the boundary, we swung around another traffic cone and had a 1.5 mile descent to the finish line. I held my place here but lost Dan and had no chance of catching him. I ran shoulder to shoulder with another runner and almost relented but then saw Heidi and Hannah and sprinted to the finish in sub 5:30 min/mi pace for the last half mile. 11 seconds faster than my time at the inaugural year.

I average 9:27 min/mi but ran as hard as I could go the whole time. HR avg was 180 although I saw 189 at the finish. 39min 33sec. garmin data

After the race, Bill Wright gave out prizes to the top 18 finishers. Of course I wasn't one of them. They were granted first dibs at the prize table. Down jackets went first, then some Verve clothing, shoes and microspikes. My name was the first drawn in the raffle. I had lots of amazing choices. I grabbed Abe a pair of Katoola Microspikes (mostly to lock him in as my winter training partner again) and when his name was called 3 or 4 after mine, he grabbed me a sweet $100 Deuter pack, we traded prizes and headed to breakfast.

Fun fun fun.

Mt Toll and Pawnee Peak

Mt Toll (12,979 ft) and Pawnee Peak (12,943 ft) are 2 prominent peaks in the Indian Peaks Wilderness area. Heidi and I had Gramma babysit Hannah and we took off at 6 AM. We parked at Mitchell Lake TH and took our time hiking up the easy trail toward Blue Lake. Mt Toll came into view and we saw our first target.

We continued up to Blue Lake.

Mt Toll from Blue Lake

The left facing face of this peak is often skied. The snowfield is still in tact late in the season.

We weren't exactly sure what route we'd take up through the snowfields and slabs above Blue Lake so we just continued up climbing up and around the first snowfield

Climbing over boulders above Blue Lake

Eventually we got up above Upper Blue Lake and it seemed like a great hike so far, so I gave Heidi the option of turning around now. She said she had plenty of energy left and convinced me to continue up asking "who are you? where's my husband?"
I wasn't sure exactly how to get up above the snowfields without getting in over our heads. The snow was rock solid, too solid to kick steps with my Hokas, now equipped with patented banana skin soles.
We found a channel between a snowfield and a rock wall that required us to crawl up. I headed up ahead to see that it would get us around and confirmed down to Heidi to give it a try. Here's her squeezing her way up.

Heidi - between a glacier and rock wall

Up above we topped out on a big snowfield. Pretty impressive for mid-September. Heidi used both poles and I looked for level undulations in the snow to keep balance. We were both wishing we had crampons or microspikes for this section.

Much steeper than it looks in this photo

We climbed up above these rocks to the left, up to the ridge between Toll and Pawnee. At this point I realized it might be a whole lot easier to climb over Pawnee and descent Pawnee Pass rather than going back down this route. Heidi agreed and waited at the saddle while I scurried up to the summit of Toll. 

The final slope up Mt Toll. We skirted the snowfield on the left.

Amazing views from the top of Mt Toll, looking toward the Lone Eagle Cirque.

Mt Toll - summit shot

Once I was on the top. Heidi left the saddle and started heading up Pawnee Peak. If you look really closely in the photo below, you can see her starting to pick her way up. 

Pawnee Peak from Mt Toll. 4 climbers are on the summit and Heidi is somewhere in the center of the photo.

We climbed up Pawnee and topped out together.

Scrambling up Pawnee Peak

Toll (left) from Pawnee Peak

Summit self portrait

We cruised down the south face of Pawnee to the Pawnee Pass trail and knew we had about 4.5 miles down. Then we had to go get the car which was parked at a different trailhead (0.6 miles away). This was a long haul out but Heidi held strong and we enjoyed the crazy late season wildflowers.  We were home by 3 PM. Perfect weather!

Garmin Data

Shoshoni Peak

Abe and I made a quick trip up to the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area to climb Shoshoni peak. This peak possesses a fantastic perch with a equally fantastic view. We made slow work up the Pawnee Pass trail due to all of the amazing photo ops and late season wildflowers.

Niwot Ridge and Navajo Peak reflecting off of Long Lake

Early morning fog rising from Long Lake

Shoshoni is the far right overhanging summit perch. Lots of other Indians up there (Navajo, Apache, etc)

Once at the pass, we left the easy trail and scrambled south along the continental divide to the summit of Shoshoni Peak.

Abe on the summit

Isabelle Glacier at the bottom of Queens Way couloir on Apache Peak.

The holiday weekend was quickly reminded to us with all of the throngs of hikers we passed as heading back down. We saw 1 person on the whole way up, but lots on the way down. However we were able to get in a few miles of solid running towards the end.

Downhilling

Link to Garmin Data

Gregory Canyon / Ranger / Green roundtrip PR

While my records aren't so detailed, I'll say that despite the >80 degree temperature, I set my fastest time up a local favorite. The legs feel about 90% recovered from leadville, so I debated where/what I wanted to run this weekend and a lack of decisiveness sent me to the closest hill to my home. I warmed up jogging through chatauqua meadow and checked my watch at the Gregory canyon parking lot, which is my starting position. 6 minutes.

While cranking up the initial sections, I felt good and wanted to push the pace a bit. I ran as far as I could sustain a decent running pace and then noticed my heart rate was in the 180s. Pretty high. I carried on hiking and running the flatter sections. I hit the lodge at 22, which seems pretty good to my murky memory. There was a man ahead of me looking back over his shoulder, I was quite a ways back but hiking steadily. As I made up ground on him, he picked up the pace and started to jog. I continued to close the gap and he ran harder and harder. It was funny to me that he was trying so hard to race and I knew he'd blow up any minute. It occurred right at the Greenman turnoff, he stopped, grabbed the post while gasping for breath, and I commended his push.

I kept a constant effort through the summit but my heart rate was high. I may have seen 190s once or twice but otherwise it was hovering from 180-187. I averaged 183 bpm for the 52 minute climb and hit the summit boulder. In a daze with such a high heart rate and the fact that it was mid 80s out, I didn't spend any time at the top and hobbled down Saddle Rock to Amp trails. I love being able to run down these sections because it feels so reckless and out of control. My brain can only process about one step at a time and the technicality of the trail requires so much focus. I'm never sure I'll have a good place for the next step, but it always works out. Made it down in 30 mins for a roundtrip time of 1h23m01s

Anyway this is a good baseline and goal to try to break next time I want to suffer.
Garmin Data

3rd DNF at LT100 run

There are some things I did right, and some others I still need to work on. This is a hard run to complete.

My week started off decently well and I was forced to take the whole week off of work due to 3 teacher workdays at daycare. I spent M-W packing and gearing up and performing sanity checks on planned gear combinations. I also caught some nasty lung infestation, which started as a phlegmy cough, and turned into a slight fever with overall achyness.  On Thursday, some of my relatives arrived in Colorado for a vacation. We packed up our gear and headed up to our rental 10K home for the weekend. I found packet pick up in town and got it out of the way right away. I weighed in at 148.4, and got wristbanded by Margo, a race volunteer, who I learned would be at Mt Elbert aid station. She finished the bike race last week. Luckily, I seemed to kill all of my sickness except the cough with one day of mucinex and bookoos of water.

On Friday morning, I attended the final race briefing with the usual motivational speech by the (former) race director Ken Choubler and other key race staff. I learned of one change to the pacing rules that caused a conflict with my race plan. Pacers were required to fill out paperwork at the aid station that they would begin pacing, and therefore I was told I was not allowed to change pacers at Treeline.

Watching the motivational speech from the upper deck. Ken's mantra annoyed me a little at this point. I think you should quit if you really think you should quit, for whatever reason.

Friday afternoon turned to rest, eat, and rest more. Thunderstorms emerged and it poured, thundered, and flashed lightning as I tried to fall asleep at 9:30. I awoke at 2:50, took a quick shower, got dressed, ate a muffin, packed up the car and headed over to the starting line. The rain had stopped and racers were greeted with clear skies and 45 degree temperatures.

Me in the middle with a couple bro-in-laws

Waiting for the shotgun

Start to Mayqueen 

Gear: I wore a short sleeve shirt with a long sleeve warm shirt over it, a thin beanie, windstopper gloves, and knicker style tights. I carried a flashlight and headlamp, had one water bottle in hand (strawbanana perpetuem) and another with water in a waistpack, with 2 gels and a mojobar. I wore Hoka Stinsons with trail gaiters.

Leadville's mayor fired the shotgun at 4AM and we were off. I had settled somewhere into the middle of the pack and didn't worry much about my place. Last year I walked from the start and knew there are people that take over 3 hrs to Mayqueen, so I knew if I ran some here, I'd be in the middle of the group.  I jogged along allowing myself to walk any slight uphill and once or twice a mile for a hundred feet. The Boulevard was oddly muddy from all the rain on Friday night. I recalled from online pacing accounts that I should hit the climb to Turquoise Lake at 55 minutes. At 45 minutes, I turned onto a road and took my first gel and began to look for the climb. At 55 minutes I got worried because I did not see it near and felt as if my pace was right on target for 11 min miles. After a slight panic, at 55:45 there it was and I worked my way up. At the top, I sat to empty out some small rocks from my shoes and adjust my lacing. I found a good group to join around the lake.

My strategy here felt great. I got to the back of a small group of runners and fast walked until someone caught up with me. Then I jogged to catch back up to my group (which was running the WHOLE time). I repeated this strategy all the way around the lake. This allowed me to keep my HR down, only run half the miles but keep up with people who ran the whole stretch. At Tabor boat ramp, I finished one bottle as I knew I was halfway to Mayqueen.

At 10 miles, I ate a mojobar and continued my walk/run strategy and noticed my calves were starting to feel slightly strained. I hit the road and ran it in to Mayqueen aid station. Exactly as it did last year, my Garmin 305 read 12 miles, not 13.5 miles.

Mayqueen to Fish Hatchery

Gear: My crew refilled my bottles, handed me more gels, sunglasses, different gloves, and took my lights. I left the Mayqueen aid station at 2h29m, exactly on target.

The route leads up a road to a rocky trail that leads for ~1 mile over to Hagerman Road (dirt). After a relatively flat section, we turn on a jeep road ascending Sugarloaf pass (11,100) and then bomb down powerline to a paved road which leads into Fish Hatchery at mile 23.5.

Walking up Hagerman road in early morning daylight

For me this section was low key. I walked/jogged the trail and mostly walked Hagerman all the way to the top. My Garmin read 13.8 at a 15 mile sign. I adjusted my shoes and got ready for some serious downhilling. I scurried down the powerline paying attention not to trash my quads or cause blisters. I could feel one on the inside of my big toe, and I had an odd sensation that the bottoms of my feet were on fire from friction in my socks. I tried my best to minimize that. I had no knee pain and was very happy about this.

Running down Powerline

As I hit the road, I went over in my head all of the things that I would want from my crew at FH. I took off my shirt to stop some nipple chafing I was experiencing. I spotted my crew and family and told them my long list of changes. I wanted: Nip guards, a different shirt, a baseball hat, calf sleeves, different sunglasses, sunscreen and got rid of my waist pack and went with only 1 bottle for the next section. I took off my shoes and socks and noticed a pea sized blister on the inside of my big toe. I popped it with a Swiss army knife and stuck 2 pieces of Leukotape over it. I had 2 Enduralytes and a bunch of food.

Fish Hatchery to Twin Lakes
Gear: I didn't plan for my crew to come to Treeline and didn't send a dropbag to Halfpipe so I'll lump all of these into 1 section. I only carried one bottle and a few gels. I left at 4h50m

I jogged down the road on and off feeling a little tired from the first 25 miles in 5 hrs. Then at the turn something hit me. My stomach took a turn for the worse. The jarring associated with running was very uncomfortable and I needed to get this taken care of. I talked to a nearby seasoned runner who liked our pace up to this point. He thought we were right on target. He offered me a ginger pill to settle my stomach. I thanked him and took the pill. I couldn't tell if it worked and wanted some tums, which I'm more used to. I drudged on into treeline and asked if anyone had tums. Someone handed me a whole roll and said "take it". I was happy and grateful. I got a water refill from someone else and headed on my way to Halfpipe (supposedly 2.1 miles). Here my Garmin went from reading less than course markings to over course markings.

The tums didn't help and I was in bad shape. This gal, Shannon, going for the grand slam, talked to me for a while and graciously offered me everything she could to help, even her water, which I didn't take. She gave me Alka Seltzer tabs. I dropped these into my water and they tasted good, but only barely helped. I felt like I needed to burp but couldn't. I also couldn't run at all and this part of the course was so runnable. The new route has a very gentle ascent as opposed to previous course where you turn from Halfmoon to straight up the Colorado trail. The course was gentle, but I couldn't take advantage of it. I passed through Halfpipe and they didn't have anything to help my stomach and told me only to drink clear water and not to eat anything like watermelon. I made a little mistake of not eating here because I couldn't and I took the medics advice (I even asked if they were sure I shouldn't eat anything solid). I needed to force food down my stomach to see what would happen. But I didn't. I continued on walking up the trail through the beautiful aspens. I drank all my water with >3 miles to Mt Elbert water station and was now out of all supplies.

Another passerby, Steve, offered me some Pepto Bismol tablets which I ate and thanked him over and over. I continued on, looking forward to water at Mt Elbert water station.
When I arrived Margo was there and I told her my issues and she had me to sit down in the shade for 5 minutes. Another volunteer refilled my water bottle and I chugged it. He filled it again and put a peach tea Gu brew tab in it. This was very tasty and I chugged half and had him fill it up again. Margo got me a bunch of cantaloupe slices which in combination with the peach tea Gu Brew, killed my stomach issue! I left there feeling a little better but not perfect. I could start jogging a bit and at the 2 miles to Twin Lakes I was able to actually run again. I passed a lot of people and cruised on in to Twin Lakes to see my crew.

Finally running again, I hammered down into twin lakes

I got a bag full of watermelon from the aid station and sat down with the family (for probably too long, 15 minutes) to discuss what I was going through. The watermelon was good, I ate a cracker or 2, banana and switched to a camelbak style pack and poles. I hit the potty across the street and headed for The Hope Pass at 9h20m into the race. About 45 minutes behind the planned time. My Garmin battery died here and I switched to a Suunto Altimeter watch.

Twin Lakes to Winfield
The water crossings were slow and knee deep.

After about 30 mins I reached a metal sign at the base of the climb. I noted that it took me 30 mins from TL to the start of the climb for the return trip. I started up the pass fairly weak and passed the leaders right here as they were headed back to Leadville. I noted the elevation and wished away the climb. I had to sit down 5 times on the way up, if only for 20 secs to catch my breath and give my legs a break. After about 1500 ft, the slope mellowed out. This was disappointing because I was trying to get the elevation gain over with. I ate a gel and that went down well. I then continued up and ate another bar which was helpful, but at this point I was at a deficit on food. I needed to eat a ton to catch back up. I finally reached the Hopeless aid station and enjoyed it. A vegetarian crew member assured me her soup was vegetarian and she gave me a little potato soup. Super yummy. I should have asked for a whole bunch more but just left as I didn't want to hang out too long. The switchbacks to the top were never ending and it started to look like rain was starting. I was wiped out.

I did my best to run some sections on the downhill and put on my goretex jacket. I saw many runners who I knew of and said hi and encouraged them on. I continued downhill happy that I could still run and my legs felt great.

I finally hit the trail head and was given a dental mask to block breathing dust. But I didn't want to restrict my breathing at all so I didn't use it.

I continued up the road but wasn't running much due to exhaustion, depression, and pretty much gave up here. I looked at my watch and knew that my time into Winfield was 1.5 hrs behind plan. I was at 13h20m and finally hit the aid station at 13h40m. I had been thinking about the hot tub back at our rental home, and just lost motivation. I gave up on the road.

Looking like a trainwreck coming into Winfield.

I saw my dad, wife and pacer-to-be, George, and tried to convince them that I was done. I was just exhausted at this point from a lack of food, I guess. I didn't want to hike back over Hope in the rain to not make it past the TL cutoff. I ran through the tent, weighed in at 144.7 and got some food and sat down in a chair and officially gave up my wristband. I would have left Winfield at 13h45m which wasn't a good turnaround time and hardly anyone made it to the finish in 30 hrs if they left Winfield at this time.

I got in the truck and was taken home. I had a very difficult time keeping my body temperature comfortable after the race. I would constantly change from shivering to sweating. I'm not sure what that could mean.

I obviously have mixed feelings about the outcome of this race. This is a hard race. I feel bad for letting my pacers down, for not doing what I set out to do, and for simply quitting. But I feel like I probably would not have made the next cutoff, and am so glad my body held up so well. I wasn't trained for 50 miles and I fell apart after 25. I keep thinking how easy it should have been to run the whole section between Fish Hatchery and Twin Lakes, but my lack of calories is the main problem I had here.

I haven't decided fully what I want to do next. 0 for 3.

I can't wait to hug Merrilee

After another year of obsessing about crossing the finishing line at the Leadville 100, I sit here <4 days before the start hoping that my body can hold out for what's about to be thrown at it. My training is weak compared to many other racers, but it's the best I can do to keep overuse injuries to a minimum. In the last 37 weeks since I had my knees cut open, I've amassed 600 miles, 110,000 ft of elevation gain, in 152 outings. My longest run was the Leadville Marathon (26.2, 6000 ft gain) on July 2. My biggest weeks were the end of May, first of June. 2 weeks in a row over 40 miles. Biggest week of elevation gain had 11,290.

I have had some injury setbacks but have felt reasonably well all August. List of setbacks include: several bouts of toddler induced bugs, a pulled hamstring, aggravated right medial patellar retinaculum,  and food poisoning. And right now, I'm rocking some kind of Bronchial funk and phantom pains all over my body.

I've completed my taper, tested all of my race day attire strategies, packed bags, and written my crew plans. I'll be following the 29:45 racing plan. I've studied this chart a million times:

We'll see what happens in 4 days! Let's hope I get a hug from Merrilee and a spiffy new belt buckle.

Mount Meeker

In a spirit similar to running 100 mi/wk to train for a 100 mile run, I decided I needed to reinvigorate my climbing legs and hoped to have a week with 15,000 ft of elevation gain (same as the Leadville 100 course).  Due to family obligations, it’s difficult for me to do runs on trails during the week unless I get creative, and nearby road routes have little to offer in terms of elevation gain. I got permission to leave work an hour early on Wednesday to have a go at Mt Sanitas and still make it home at 6:30. At the last minute, I instead headed to Green/Saddle rock as this offers potentially more elevation gain if I run fast enough. I hiked steadily up Saddle Rock to the Greenman crosscutting trail and took that to Ranger and Gregory canyon for 1500 ft vertical in a short <3.5 mi loop. It was a great run down in hot humid weather. I followed it up by running the exact loop in reverse at 6AM the next morning. Friday night, I got together with Jimmy for a late night, moonlight climb of bear peak (2600 ft). We reached the top in 1hr6min by starting at Shannahan Ridge trailhead. The view from the summit down to Boulder was great at night. We watched a lightning storm 40 miles east of us, dodged a kamikaze bat for about 10 minutes and then jogged back down.

I could not get in anything on Saturday due to a wedding I had to attend and thus used the day for a break and began planning a big Sunday. After contemplating nearby 14ers and other loops in RMNP, I spotted a route up Mt Meeker that avoids the Nat’l park entrance fee, had 5K gain, and promised solitude. I got up 4:45 AM Sunday morning and drove to Horse Creek “Trailhead” off of CO 113N near Allenspark. A well-signed dirt road led me through some cabins for about a mile to a small sign with the word “trail” on it. I took this to be the trailhead. One truck was parked and there was room for potentially 5 cars with a few other spots 100 yds down the road. I geared up and started my ascent at 6:30AM following a well-defined but under-traveled trail, especially for a Nat’l Park. I crossed paths with a huge elk causing mutual spooking, him running one way, me jumping back at the first creek crossing. Over the next hour, I steadily climbed to the saddle between Mt Meeker (Meeker Ridge, SE of the peak) and 10,374 ft Lookout Mtn. From the saddle, I knew I wanted to turn right, to follow a ridge all the way up Meeker. Since the saddle was so broad, and the forest was fairly dense I looked around for the best spot. I felt like I passed the saddle highpoint and then found some logs sidelining a trail heading NW with an appropriate cairn. I took this trail and played connect the cairns for a while. At times the trail looked respectable, at others it was just a matter of looking around for the next cairn.

At 10,800 I approached a small snowfield (still well below treeline) and I would have headed straight up it, but noticed footprints meandering right. The prints were fresh and had not been rained on, so I assumed someone must be ahead of me doing the same route.

A 100 ft higher, I saw a solo hiker briefly between tree patches. I continued onward following their lead and spotted them again standing and facing my general direction. As I was looking up the hill, they dropped trou, and I guess at that point, was able to determine she was female. I passed her at this point and continued up to treeline at about 11,300.  A large cairn led me east (right) around a rib of small cliffs to gain the ridge proper and from here I could scout what laid ahead.

I felt sleepy from 2 nights in a row of little sleep and was constantly doing math to determine exactly how much elevation gain I needed to hit my daily/weekly goal. I determined I could turn around at 12k, but then decided I should at least go to 12,600 (elevation of Hope Pass). I had moved over to the west side of the cliffband forming the summit of the ridge and around 11,800, I could see the summit block roughly 2-3 miles ahead and 3000 ft above me. It looked too close to be true but I could easily identify the 2 summits. I downed a PB&J and plodded onward, eventually switching back to the East side of the cliff band at 12,800 and it was a good decision. The route on the east side is much easier. I snapped some photos and eventually hit the 13,800 east summit and contemplated heading back. The scurry over to the formal summit block looked intense.

I could see many climbers atop nearby Longs peak as well as down in the Chasm below. I checked the weather and noticed a whispy white cloud above but nothing dark or storm-threatening.

As expected, the climb over to the west summit was indeed challenging with a knife edge section and many tricky problems to solve. I almost turned around 3 times, but kept taking it one move at a time. I popped out on the summit snapped a few photos, tried to sign the register (missing) and turned around to get back over to easier ground as soon as possible.

I swapped sides of the ridge several times trying to find the easiest move, eventually hit the east summit and headed down the rock pile.

A couple hundred feet below, I reacquainted with the other hiker on this route today and recognized her immediately. We’re old friends. We shared stories and continued on our ways (I told her I saw her with her pants down).

The sky began to darken and instantly an intense electric hailstorm developed while I was still high on the ridge. I knew I had to move fast but the trail-less ridge required me to put thought into every footstep and required constant route planning. I saw a huge flash hit the summit of S Arapahoe and 1 second later heard a boom. It was serious now. I did everything I could to get down but the ridge was still a few miles long and required hopping and climbing over rocks. Hail was thumping my hood, and I felt it constantly pinging my head and the backs of my bare legs. My shoes lost a lot of traction. I was trying hard to get back below treeline where I presumed I would be protected from lightning. The storm retreated and then came in full force again several times with lots of lightning striking nearby peaks. Eventually I hit treeline and followed a cairned route back down to the saddle and hoped the other climber was okay, because I knew she would have been right at the top when all of this started.

I made it back to the saddle and in many spots the area was clear so it was hard to determine the trail but I knew I had to head East. I was able to finally start running and it was still storming. After dropping off the saddle, my route was less than trail-like and so I switched my watch over to map mode to follow the GPS track up. I knew I would cross my path up soon. It ended up being about 1/3 of a mile away and took a long time bushwhacking through the forest, but ended up okay. I then ran hard down the sloppy muddy trail back to the trailhead at 12:30 for a round trip time of 6h25m (3h57 up and 2h28 down). I was saturated to the bone, but feet were feeling good, I got in some good uphill, at elevation and ran hard on the way down.

Hope my friend was okay as the weather was fairly intense for so early in the day.

10.5 miles with 5200 ft gain.