Comments by Hans on the “14er record”.
Record? comparisons Since no one has attempted the 14 - 14ers prior to this, it is natural that I would get the record for it! I thought that since most of the year, when the 14ers are climbable, one of those 14ers is illegal to climb, it would be appropriate to have an “early and late season record”. Or more accurately: pre and post July 15th 14ers record. That is the start date for the ban on access to Mt Williamson that runs until December 15th. As to my adventure compared to Jack and Josh, - their efforts were different and you can’t say that I would of “beat them” given the data from our results. I owe a great deal to Russ McBride who did an incredible amount of recon work to figure out the best ways to link up the peaks. It’s just crazy the deep wilderness Russ was going into with no prior experience being out there, and with very little clothing and gear to survive should something go wrong. Russ shared all his marked up topos with me.
Heart Rate, Legs, and pace. I think my Average HR was 128, at times I saw it float up at 145 for a particularly continuous section where I plowed ahead, my max was probably 165 for very short bouts. Russ McBride warned me not to go out to fast, he was terrified that I’d bonk. On the first trailhead from South Lake to Thunderbolt I thought that I would jog/run all the level and downhill sections, - this I did on my recon hike five days before starting to check out this trail. On the actual record start I ended up only jogging the downhills. After summitting Split, 20 some hours into the fun, I still was able to hold my legs well for some good scree skiing on the down hills where terrain warranted that. I also was jogging some of the down hills in the trail section. The last 4 miles of the trail I was hiking fast AT BEST on the downhills. For White mountain I walked or walked fast the whole way, NO running. I was so tired and legs so stiff that I had to stick to the switch backs on the road. I ran/jogged about 50% of the downhill section on the descent. My legs felt like logs as I approached the car. Going up to Langeley I was in full zombie mode, -just walking, luckily Patti Haskins and Tom Lambert joined me for moral and mental support. Descending off Langeley towards Muir I had a second wind and was able again to do some good scree skiing on the descent. By the time I got down from Russel and was on the way out to the JMT I was in bad shape. I stopped at a stream and completely submerged my lower body in the 40 degree water for 15 minutes about a mile before reaching the JMT. –THAT again gave me a second wind, had I not done it I think my legs would of folded with in the hour. I attempted to jog some of the downhills on the JMT but it felt pathetic. So I opted for long hiking strides most of the time. When I reached the base of the 45 degree angle slag scree up to Tyndal I was in bad shape, I had to draw on every positive thought I could muster to focus on summiting and take each step. After topping out 40 minutes before sun set I some how still had leg strength enough to banzai down the 5.2 granite slabs and scree. Just making it to Sheep Pass trail as I put on my headlamp. Then came the DEATH MARCH. My secret weapon definitely was needed here – MP3 player with 70s tunes! When I reached the car no part of my lower body had not gone through the pain, numb, pain, numb cycle. I was truly ready to cancel the plane flight and blow off Shasta. OK I didn’t quit, there was too many people watching and waiting to see what I’d do, it’s not so much the thought of letting THEM down, as the thought of not knowing whether I’d make it if I quit, - I’d always be asking myself… Shasta although daunting in some respects is simple in that it’s a straight forward slog. So slog we did, Tom and Theresa joined me on this and Tom summited with me. It was the descent on this one that hurt the most, my legs were wooden logs from the first step down. Glissading the snow sections was pure focus on holding my legs in place and stopping every minute or two to catch my breath. – Sections that I would of laughed at when I’m fresh and descended in one fifth the time with no resting. The pain or dull ache in my lower body so bad with each step that I ran the last 300 yds to the parking lot as it seemed no difference in pain whether I ran or walked.
My transistions were not rushed. At the return to the trail head of Split Mountain Mike Ayon had two Omaha steaks coming off the barby for me. I sat, ate, and drank, likely for a good 30 minutes while we could have been driving to White Mountain. From White we went to bishop for a shower, calls, vehicle change, and food, rather than going straight down to the Langeley trail head. – That cost us about an hour. Preperations at the Langeley trailhead took nearly 45 minutes. Returning to the Tyndal trailhead or sheep pass trailhead, we ate and cleaned up for 20 minutes, drove to Bishop, got a traffic ticket for running a stop sign, hung around Mara and Ken’s house for 30 minutes getting gear and mental prep ready, then went to the airport and waited 10 minutes for Ken to arrive with the plane. Upon landing near Shasta Michael Massari picked us up and swung by his home for an extra jacket and gloves we thought we might need, which we did not. The parking lot transition was about 20 minutes, and off we trotted. In total I guess I could of cut off 4 hours just in transitions, that’s nearly 2% of the total time the adventure took me, and 40% of the total transition time.
Foot wear. I wore Nike ACG cindercones for all of day one, the first seven summits.- simply put there is no better choice for this day with it’s very technical terrain for such a long section. On White mountain I wore Nike Air Pegasus “street running shoes”. – I think I should of gone for a trail running shoe with more protection/support as the rocks and debris on the road beat up my feet. From Langeley all the way to Tyndal and out I wore Nike ACG Air Theilsons. – A great trail shoe, gave me all the comfort I needed for the long miles, seemed to protect my feet well yet be light enough not to slow me down. Unlikely a good choice for folks not comfortable on the technical climbing sections, but was more than fine for me. For Shasta it was the Nike ACG Tallacs, BackPacker magazine said something to the effect of “the hiker’s dream boot”, I concur, Darn light AND protected and SUPPORTED my feet for the final summit. I put Kahtoola crampons on for the brief snow sections on the way up.
Gear and food. I brought Leki hiking poles with me everyday and on Shasta a Leki pole with a self arrest nylon pick on one handle. For day one I wore a fanny pack as I did not want shoulder straps inhibiting my movement while climbing. I also felt that I didn’t need much room for clothing etc on this day. I brought two Nike Altimeter watches and a Heart Rate monitor. I brought an MP3 player with three change out SD chips, about 80 songs. Clothing: long tights, synthetic T, long sleeve, fleece vest, windbreaker-not really rain proof, Balaclava, fleece gloves, Shorts, sunglasses, baseball cap, KynEsys sunblock, E-blanket, cell phone – to call in webpage reports, digital camera- old 1.3 mega pixel, pocket knife- I dropped on top of Thunderbolt and couldn’t find, paper and pen to record things, and topos. The Langeley to Tyndal outing I took a bivy sack, Jet lite halogen light, and a back pack. Food for day one, first outing, was: nuts, dried fruit, jerky, Power bar- harvest, pria, original, and power gels. Also Revenge sports drink mix, and a packet of UpTime just in case. For White mountain I brought one liter of water and a power gel. For the Langeley to Tyndal outing I took much the same as the Palisades outing plus some Mahogany meats Cowboy jerky! Shasta was three bars and two gels. I never started at a trail head with more than a liter and a half of water, there was no need to carry a ton of weight. I had it figured out to get water along the way such that I was rarely carrying all my water capacity on me.( which was three liters).
Other. I wrote an aphorism at each summit register I encountered. I knew in advance that the altitude and physical exhaustion might cause me to stick my foot in my mouth or look stupid, but then that was part of the challenge. I quoted Earl Nightingale, Denis Waitley, Katheryn Heburn, Zig Ziglar, and others. You'll have to climb the summits* to read them all, - there's incentive, ehh? Here's the one I started with on top of Thunderbolt: "we become what we think about we become." EN I figured that I better believe it here so I could make it through the next 13 summits. * I took pictures of all the summit registers, so you can catch the other aphorisms if you see me live at one of my shows!
Future attempts. VERY unlikely that I will ever do these peaks in a push again. I suspect that my best effort of the trip was the speed in which I traversed the Palisades ridge, - technical terrain being my strong point. Any mountain or ultra runner will be able to carve a good 20 to 40 % off all my times on the trail sections of the adventure. I’m excited to see how others go about doing the 14ers in the future. – Call or email if you want beta from me.:)