Spence

Seems like my brother is always up to some insane physical "become one with the wild" adventure. Here is an excerpt from his latest.

The Gannett IAD (in a day) Story:

Gannett Peak: Highest Point in Wyoming: 13804 ft, 40 miles, 20,000 feet elevation change.
Usually done as a 3-5 day backpacking trip.

We took off from Elkhart meadows trailhead around 4:30 am after it rained all night. We were afraid it wasn't going to happen with the bad weather, but sure enough it cleared up. We made really good progress for the first 15 miles, passing quite a few campsites through ups and downs, but not really gaining too much vertical. We stopped every hour or so to both refill and empty our dual bladders, and tried to eat lots of calories, though the jarring of the trail caused our stomachs to heave. I had a headache by about mile 10, but luckily my friend Mr. Excedrin pulled through for me with 800 mg of pain relief. The weather was off and on, raining a little but nothing worth turning back for. I ate 2 packages of peperoni, 2 Hostess fruit pies, 4 packages of crackers, 2 salmon packets, 4 bagels, 4 power bars, 3 snickers, 4 string cheeses, and a bag of nuts plus 12 liters of water the whole day.

We hit Titcomb Basin, which is a beautiful valley of lakes with pristine, jagged peaks all around(see sarcastic video) around mile 16 and just had to make up to Bonney Pass, a wicked steep climb either on loose boulders or soft slushy snow. We split it 50%, 2 to the snow and 2 to the rocks. At this point, Steve, who hadn't been training quite as much as he should have in order to do this horrible murder run, started to fall behind. The other 3 of us hit the top of the pass(see other video in next email) while he was only half way. We were a little worried, but decided to take off without him. We slid down other side of the pass on our stomachs via snow and then crossed the first glacier on somewhat unstable snow. We then started up the mountain proper and found ourselves at the crux of the climb, the bergshrund. This is where the glacier has separated itself from the mountain and so a huge crevasse forms and is impassable late in the season. Luckily we made it over it as there was a short vertical snow bridge that passed over it. Soon enough we were on top, 8:15 hours later. We met another group attempting a 24 hour push. They had left the parking lot at 11 pm the night before, for a fairly ridiculous time of 13 hours. They felt good about themselves till we got there, having beaten them by 5 hours. We tried not to rub it in.

The hike out was, well, awful. While crossing the glacier a hailstorm came in. Steve had just summited and was now almost an hour behind us. Greg almost fell into a crevasse and lightning struck nearby. We arrived back at the top of Bonney pass unscathed but fairly ready to puke. The last 15 miles was just mental. Run when you can, walk the flat, crawl the uphill. We were hoping to make it out before dark, but the headlamps came out about 9 pm, and we finished an hour later at 10 pm, 17:14 hours and 40+ miles later. Steve came in an hour after at 18:30. He said the other 24 hour group was quite a bit behind, so they didn't make it unfortunately. All in all it was an awesome experience and one that we will remember for a long time. Very hard and long. Greg, who runs 100 milers, said that Gannett seemed almost as hard as lots of 75 mile runs he's done because of the vert. Fun stuff.

I just had to share. I'll never be as cool as Spence. Or as crazy.