To: From: "Matt Mahoney" Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 15:52:16 -0400 Subject: [nolans14] Nolan's 14 race report Below is the race... er... run report I wrote for the ultra list, in case you haven't seen it already. First I'll post some more details that are more appropriate for this list. I don't have any split or finish times yet, but my run went something like this. Split times are from memory and are approximate. I'm looking forward to seeing the offician numbers. I also want to thank all the volunteers who spend as much time on the course as the runners and didn't have nearly as much fun. 0600 Start, trail to 2nd lake at 11600, then E ridge 0855 Massive with Eric Robinson, Ginny LaForme, Steve Simmons 1015 W. Halfmoon aid via scree W of summit, left Steve 1320 Elbert (alone) via NW ridge 1530 La Plata trailhead aid via Bull Hill, Echo Canyon, 82 1910 La Plata 2330-0330 Winfield aid, sleep in Jim Nolan's truck 0710 Huron 1000-1130 Cloises Lake aid, waited for Hans Dieter Weisshaar 1410? Missouri 1440 Missouri Gulch via scree directly from summit, Hans left 1650 Belford via Elkhead Pass 1740 Oxford 1930 Pine Ck aid via "Matt's Transfer" S of Oxford 2200 Harvard via NW ridge 0305 Columbia via boulder field and steep loose rocks in the dark 0615 N. Cottonwood aid via S ridge 1030 Yale via N avalanche chute to E ridge with Dennis Herr 1400 Denny Ck aid 1915 Princeton via 306, CO trail, Maxwell Gulch, NE ridge (over cutoff) 2225 Out at E ridge (got off course after dark) My pace was about the same as last year. I made some route changes that compensated for being not as well acclimated this year and a little bit of pulmonary edema on Elbert and La Plata and doing most of the run alone. The PE was exactly like at Hardrock. I would have a cough for the first hour of the climb, then after 2 hours my breathing would improve and I would climb faster as I ascended. I would have no problems with the descent but symptoms would return at the start of the next climb. I believe they were brought on by pushing too hard up Massive to stay with the others. The PE cleared on its own while I slept at Winfield and I had no trouble for the rest of the run. On the second day of the run, I finally felt the altitude training take effect. I could climb much faster with the same effort. This was after 14 days acclimation. I had a similar experience when climbing Sneffels on day 13 of my acclimation for Hardrock. The transformation is quite sudden. I remember reading about Rick Trujillo and Ricky Denesik breaking the 14er record (then 14 days) and having similar experiences on days 6 or 9 of their efforts. The route changes I made were as follows: - Up Massive, instead of turning left on the CO trail, we went straight to about 11600 ft, turned left at the second lake and briefly up through the trees and onto the W ridge. I had not seen this route before, but I was with other runners who knew it. - Down Massive, instead of returning by the E trail to the CO trail, took the scree slope directly W of the summit to the N. Halfmoon trail near treeline. The scree was very soft and fast down to a tundra field, then onto good runnable trail to the aid at W Halfmoon, 2 miles W of the CO trail. From there, I went 2 mi. S on a jeep road (110B?) to a rocky gully on the left at about 11400 ft and climbed 3000 ft. in 1 mi. to the summit in the gully and the ridge to the S of it. Last year this route was about 30 min. faster than the CO trail. - Down Missouri, went down scree from a chute about 100 ft. N of the summit, rather than the saddle about 1/2 mi. N. This scree is steeper but soft and runnable about 1/2 way down before becoming mixed with talus. This saves going along the ridge to the scree further north which is no better. - Up Harvard via the NW ridge instead of the NE ridge, saving a 2 mi. hike down the Pine Creek trail. You cross the river on 2 logs just below Bedrock Falls aid and have to bushwack up to treeline. There is a rock outcropping which you cross to the right on an ascending ledge to get on the easier tundra slope to the right (W). It is rockier than the NE ridge, but easy to navigate at night simply by going up until you reach the summit. - Down Columbia via the S ridge instead of the SW basin which Eric and I took by accident last year. The slope is gentler (can be walked instead of butt slide) until it becomes very steep at treeline. I took a poor route down, however, staying on the right side of the drainiage below treeline instead of crossing to the left where the trees were cleared by an avalanche. I navigated the upper section at night by using the North Star and the silouette of Yale to go directly south. There were 3 cairns on the ridge where the descent starts. - Up Princeton via the NE ridge instead of the steep, loose talus slopes near the summit (as I did twice in training, since I didn't reach Princeton last year). From the Maxwell Gulch jeep road N of the drainage, when you come to the clearing at 10600 ft, go SW across walkable boulders and tundra to the ridge and climb about 100 ft. of loose rocks to better footing all the way to the summit. There is a significant false summit about 1/2 mi. and a few hundred feet below the real one. This route is much safer than climbing the loose rocks from the top of the basin. Below is the report I posted on the Ultra and Hardrock lists on Sunday night. There were 12 starters and 4 finishers at Nolan's 14 on Aug. 16-18. The run crosses the Sawatch range in Colorado with 14 summits over 14,000 ft, 45,000 ft. of climb, and only 56 miles if measured along straight lines, but closer to 100 miles along practical routes. You can choose any route between summits. There are 8 aid stations and a 60 hour time limit, some of which had to be backpacked in up to 10 miles. There were no finishers during the previous 2 years. Mike Tilden was first on Shavano, the last summit, followed by Blake Wood, John Robinson, and Jim Nelson. I don't have times, but they were at the bottom in the last hour of the time limit, although the finish line is at the top and it probably took about 1-2 hours to descend. Robinson led for most of the first day, with Wood on the second day. They wisely stayed together during the second night. They did not stop to sleep. We were very fortunate with the weather. There was a strong west wind which brought in cool, dry air to supress the normal afternoon thunderstorms. However I did get about 20 minutes of snow with gale force winds during a brief storm on the second afternoon while I was climbing Belford (summit #6). Temperatures ranged from about high 20's to 60's above 14,000 ft. and up to the high 70's at the lower elevations. Steve Bremner and Laila had planned to get married on the summit of Shavano, but the race turned out tougher than he planned, and the wedding was moved to Princeton (#11), which he reached at 4 PM Saturday (58 hours). Laila only climbed Massive (#1) with the group on Thursday morning and Princeton. This was all coordinated by the FRS radios that we all carried. Steve Bremner and Dennis "animal" Herr ran together for much of the race. They are very fast and good climbers, but took too much time sleeping. I caught up to Animal at the start of Yale (#10) at 48 hours, where we bushwacked up a steep avalanche chute and found aircraft wreckage that had probably been there for years. Steve has climbed just about all the 14ers in Colorado, including some winter technical routes. Ginny LaForme and Eric Robinson made it to Princeton also. Ginny was the only woman in the race. She has run Hardrock, Eco Challenge (8.5 days), and is a rock climbing instructor and former nationally ranked weightlifter (80 kg clean and jerk, 60 kg snatch). Hans Dieter Weisshaar of Germany was about an hour behind me on the first three mountains (Massive, Elbert, La Plata) and I would have waited for him on La Plata but it was getting dark and I wanted to get off the difficult summit rocks and on to the better trail before I had to use my flashlight. I got to the Winfield aid station at 11:30 PM and slept 4 hours, asking them to wake me when Hans got there so we could coordinate plans to climb Huron (#4) together and make the difficult descent after sunrise. He was not ready at 3:30 AM and told me to go ahead. I waited for him at the next aid station at Cloises Lake and we climbed Missouri (#5) together starting at 11:30 AM Friday, but he had pulmonary edema and was very slow. He described it as being very weak, and a feeling of fullness in his lower lungs. It took us 2.5 hours to climb from 11,000 to 14,000 ft., about an hour longer than normal. He hiked out Missouri Gulch and came back the next day after recoving to climb Belford, Oxford, Harvard, and Columbia (#6-9). Hans was the oldest runner, at 61. Last year he set the record for the most 100 mile finishes in a year, 20 including Hardrock. However this year, Monica Scholz of Canada (who holds the women's record at 16) is trying to break this record with 22. This weekend she ran Leadville in 27 hours, the first of 9 consecutive weekends of 100 mile races. Simon Shadowlight reached Huron at noon Friday (30 hours), way behind the other runners, left the course to sleep, then returned to continue through Columbia without aid station support. He qualifed by volunteering last year (rather than finishing Hardrock), and had no real running experience. Steve Simmons arrived with no altitude acclimation or experience on the course. He ran with Ginny, Eric Robinson and me on Massive, then took an hour at the aid station and climbed Elbert alone. He took the wrong descent route, bushwacking down a draw instead of the trail down from Bull Hill. He dropped out due to wrinkled feet (he has very thick callouses), but then decided to continue the next day without aid station support. He started at noon Friday (day 2), climbed La Plata, reached Huron at sunset and made the difficult descent down steep loose rocks and bushwacking below treeline in darkness. On the summit of Missouri in the middle of the night his flashlight went out and he had to sleep with just a space blanket on the summit in very cold but dry conditions, unable to downclimb in the moonless night. In the morning he climbed Belford and Oxford, without water until he got to the stream at Pine Creek. However instead of hiking out the 10 miles to the nearest road and radioing to get picked up, he was out of FRS range and walked 20 miles on the Colorado trail and then hitchhiked to the race HQ cabin in Buena Vista a few miles away. The moonless night made it very difficult to navigate. Normally in daylight above treeline (11,800 ft) you can see terrain for miles and easily figure out which direction to go, but at night your entire world is the range of your flashlight, about 50 feet. I reached Harvard at 10 PM using the NW ridge, a route I haven't tried before, but which worked well. But I got off course on the familiar route to Columbia and it took 5 hours when it should have taken about 2. The route is about 2 miles on mostly grassy tundra, from 14,420 ft down to 12,600 and back up to 14,000. However the route I took crossed boulder fields and climbed a lot of dangerously loose rocks, scree, and talus. It was impossible to find the correct route given that there is no trail. I reached Columbia at 3 AM and bushwacked down the steep south ridge to reach the N. Cottonwood aid station at 6 AM without sleep on the second night. I had finished 10 summits on pretty much the same schedule as last year, 55 hours. But instead of stopping, I tried to make it to Princeton with 5 hours remaining. It was a long hike to the start of the climb at Maxwell Gulch, about 10 miles, so when I got there I had less than 2 hours to climb 4500 ft. I went anyway but only made it to about 12,500 ft. when the 6 PM cutoff expired, but I still had to go over the summit to reach the east ridge trail to get picked up. There was a storm to the north but all I got were strong winds and a few snow flurries. I reached the summit at 7:16 PM and started descending the horribly steep trail, cursing as I stumbled over loose rocks and slipping on loose dirt and falling on my butt. I tried going directly over the rocks to reach the better trail below, but as it got dark I lost sight of the landmarks I was using to navigate. I ended up having to very slowly traverse miles of a steep hillside covered with dangerously loose boulders. One boulder the size of a table slid out from under me and I had to jump off. In the tiny world lit by my flashight, I could see only rocks in all directions. I did not know if the trail was above or below me. Charlie Thorn was going to pick me up, and I was going to ask him to walk out on the trail with his light, but the ridge blocked the radio signals. I was able to contact Jim Nolan, but he had miles to drive over slow jeep road to get to the trailhead. I thought to myself "please God, let me get out of this alive". Last night on Harvard I saw several meteors including a giant fireball to the south as bright as the moon, leaving a vapor trail, and about 2 minutes later, a faint "boom". I had not seen such a bright fireball since I was 7. Was this an omen? As it got colder and windier, I thought it was safer to descend rather than climb, and by luck I found the trail after moving only a few hundred feet in an hour. "Thank you, God". The trail was worse than Massanutten's Short Mountain, but vastly better than the alternative. I arrived at Charlie's truck at 10:30 PM, over 64 hours. -- Matt Mahoney, matmahoney@yahoo.com