UNFROZENCAVEMAN
New member
3:00 a.m.
"Palms are sweaty, boots are heavy, footing's unsteady..... success is my only mother@#$ option failures not!"
Oh, wait those are MY lyrics, M&M cranking in the background I got out of bed to catch up with Youngblood for breakfast. Eggs, cheese, pepperoni, bananas, peanut butter, bagels, cream cheese, orange juice - let's go!!!
5:15 a.m.
Left the parking lot to begin the adventure, never done one of these - been thinkin bout it for a while though.
........................................................................................................
Memorial day weekend was the beginning of me turning up the notch on the whole "get in better shape thing", I always stay active but I wanted to take a crack at doing a loop and figured that if I was going to do it I wanted to A: enjoy it, and B: finish in a respectable time - I'm not an "ultra" kinda guy so you won't find me running these things but I can hike pretty hard sometimes. Also, I was going to be doing this with my buddy Charles (Youngblood) and I always feel like I'm holding him up since he is in a LOT better shape than I am, and so the "training" began.
I hiked solo that weekend but then got together with Charles for some longer hikes / backpacking trips and during the week mixed in some power yoga and some mountain biking. One thing that Charles and I came to realize was that he is a stronger climber when it's really steep, we're about equal on moderate inclines, I can give him a run for his money on flat stuff and slight downhills (he tells me he has a hard time keeping up but I think he's just massaging my ego), I descend quicker than him on steep stuff (mostly because I'm trashing my body harder than he wants to) - all in all we're a pretty good team, we work well together.
........................................................................................................
We had decided on a counter intelligence attempt since we didn't want the neverending railroad beds to end our day with, I've dealt with them a couple of times while doing traverses that included the the Bonds and it just pulverizes my brain that late in the day - makes for a grumpy ending to what was otherwise a great day.
So out Lincoln Woods then Wilderness then up Bondcliff Trails we went powerhiking as best we could. Just before popping up onto Bondcliff we were putting our jackets on and consuming some calories when out of nowhere pops Albee in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, Power bars and Snickers duck taped to every strap on his backpack, "Hey I know you!" he says. It was here that we were digging into some "inspirational chocolates" that a friend had given me, when you unwrap the chocolate there is a little saying on the inside of the wrapper, Charles opened one that said, "It's a bubble bath kinda day!" That kept us laughing the entire rest of the hike.
We were all taking about the winds and I offered up a long sleeve shirt to
Albee since he was traveling a little light, he accepted and then left us in his dust. The winds were pretty darn strong up on the Bonds, with a bag on I'm a couple hundred pounds and I was doing the drunken stagger for sure.
Onward we pushed up over Bond and then back into the shelter of the trees when we got to the spur we confirmed our earlier decision by taking a left and checked off West Bond on the way by - "What's an extra mile between friends?"
When we got to the exposure by Guyot, the wind, it was a little bit ridiculous. I couldn't really stay on the trail so I wound up doing a crouched run to keep my momentum heading in a relatively strait line - talk about get your heart pounding - man that's exilirating!! Back in the woods... "Hey Charles, it's a bubble bath kinda day!"
Over South Twin and down the knee wrecker we headed, I told Charles, I'm taking my time here and he agreed that was a good call. About 2/3 of the way down we ran into a couple and asked them if it was still morning and they responded, yes for about an hour and 4 more minutes - my original thought was if we make it to the hut by 12:00 that leaves us 7 hours to do Garfield and Franconia Ridge (that's what it took me over Memorial day weekend when I left on fresh legs from the Galehead hut - I was hoping I had gotten strong enough to do that after bagging all the Bonds before getting there) and then 2 more hours to get out of the woods which would allow us to complete the circle in 16 hours, at least that was what we were shooting for. We were ahead of schedule, life was good!
We didn't stay long at the hut, probably 15 minutes for lunch and grabbing water - we left there at 11:30 and headed for the ridge.
Just after leaving the hut we started running into all the people that were doing the loop clockwise and continued to run into them for about 2 more hours which was fun for sure.
Garfield was a bear, the legs had (what like 15 miles on them?) started to feel the day and the pace that we were keeping and it was slowed considerably, we kept pushing on though.
The PUD (Pointless Up and Down, a.k.a. FUD - figure that out for yourself!) between Garfield and Lafayette wasn't too bad although it still took it's toll on the energy level. Then began the official climb up Lafayette - I told Charles that it was another PUD and after about 20 minutes of climbing he asked, "This is another one?" I cruelly responded, "Yup, we're gonna drop back down and then start the real climb." A while later we broke out of the tree line and I laughed and apologized for lying to him, he said, "No problem you can keep those kinds of lies coming all day!"
On the way over to Lafayette we ran into probably 10 groups of peole and when we asked about the conditions on the ridge they all responded "High winds, probably 50+ sustained with 70 mile per hour gusts" I mean, it was like there was a 70 mile an hour convention going on up there, EVERYONE said 70 mile an hour winds, it was crazy - and so were they. Unless things really changed in the time it took us to get up there Charles and I were estimating 35-40 with gusts upwards of 50 or so - I don't think they were hitting 70 though.
Up Lafayette and across the ridge we went, yea the winds were strong but they kept us moving as fast as our legs would allow. About the time we got to Lincoln it cleared and we could look around and see the days work and what lay ahead.
We pushed past Little Haystack and stopped for some more chow and to look over at the end of the ridge. They were right there, what a feeling to see them that close - we knew we had it at that point so we got on our feet, said, "Let's git'r done" and away we went.
Coming up on Liberty was great, I love that mountain, especially approaching it from that direction, it just looks so cool - big pile of rocks that boy.
From there I had made it over to Flume in about 30 minutes last time I was in the area so we tried to put the hammer down which didn't work so well at that point - I was feeling pretty weak and found it very difficult to climb with any speed. One thing that I was able to do however was keep climbing without stopping, not fast but continuous - so we continued to make progress and I reminded myself that just being able to continue climbing without stopping, even if it was slow, was an indicator of how much stronger I had gotten...it helped me keep my spirits up.
We hit Flume and the wind was still cranking pretty good so Charles wanted to get in out of it snack under cover - we stopped at the top of Flume Slide Trail to eat and check out the time. When he pulled out his watch and it was 5:25 both us us were shocked - we had done Garfield and Franconia Ridge in under 6 hours. His response, "Dude, we can crack a sub 14 if we hustle." Nuff said, we both took a breath that contained a Snickers bar in there somewhere and headed down Osseo on tour with 5.5 miles to go.
I was thinking back to what a friend of mine had said on Friday when I told him what I was doing on Saturday and how we wanted to break 16 hours, he said, "Lance Armstrong was quoted as saying that a young person will never win the Tour De France, they just can't handle the pain." He then went on to tell me, "You have the body, it's a matter of how painful you want it to be."
I might just as well have been stoned out of my mind for I was feeling no pain as I ran down Osseo. Remember how I said that I typically descend faster than Charles? Well I was getting a little ahead of him but stopped so that we were together again and mentioned that I'd rather make up time while running down this and then power hiking the last 1.4, he said, I'd rather mix this up with some power hiking (which will be easier on the knees) and then run Lincoln Woods - I obliged.
When we popped out onto Lincoln Woods we asked a group standing there what time it was and they responded 6:30, we now had 45 minutes to cover the last 1.4 miles - we did it in 30.
13 hours and 45 minutes - I'm happy with that. Mahoosics, here we come!!!
"Palms are sweaty, boots are heavy, footing's unsteady..... success is my only mother@#$ option failures not!"
Oh, wait those are MY lyrics, M&M cranking in the background I got out of bed to catch up with Youngblood for breakfast. Eggs, cheese, pepperoni, bananas, peanut butter, bagels, cream cheese, orange juice - let's go!!!
5:15 a.m.
Left the parking lot to begin the adventure, never done one of these - been thinkin bout it for a while though.
........................................................................................................
Memorial day weekend was the beginning of me turning up the notch on the whole "get in better shape thing", I always stay active but I wanted to take a crack at doing a loop and figured that if I was going to do it I wanted to A: enjoy it, and B: finish in a respectable time - I'm not an "ultra" kinda guy so you won't find me running these things but I can hike pretty hard sometimes. Also, I was going to be doing this with my buddy Charles (Youngblood) and I always feel like I'm holding him up since he is in a LOT better shape than I am, and so the "training" began.
I hiked solo that weekend but then got together with Charles for some longer hikes / backpacking trips and during the week mixed in some power yoga and some mountain biking. One thing that Charles and I came to realize was that he is a stronger climber when it's really steep, we're about equal on moderate inclines, I can give him a run for his money on flat stuff and slight downhills (he tells me he has a hard time keeping up but I think he's just massaging my ego), I descend quicker than him on steep stuff (mostly because I'm trashing my body harder than he wants to) - all in all we're a pretty good team, we work well together.
........................................................................................................
We had decided on a counter intelligence attempt since we didn't want the neverending railroad beds to end our day with, I've dealt with them a couple of times while doing traverses that included the the Bonds and it just pulverizes my brain that late in the day - makes for a grumpy ending to what was otherwise a great day.
So out Lincoln Woods then Wilderness then up Bondcliff Trails we went powerhiking as best we could. Just before popping up onto Bondcliff we were putting our jackets on and consuming some calories when out of nowhere pops Albee in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, Power bars and Snickers duck taped to every strap on his backpack, "Hey I know you!" he says. It was here that we were digging into some "inspirational chocolates" that a friend had given me, when you unwrap the chocolate there is a little saying on the inside of the wrapper, Charles opened one that said, "It's a bubble bath kinda day!" That kept us laughing the entire rest of the hike.
We were all taking about the winds and I offered up a long sleeve shirt to
Albee since he was traveling a little light, he accepted and then left us in his dust. The winds were pretty darn strong up on the Bonds, with a bag on I'm a couple hundred pounds and I was doing the drunken stagger for sure.
Onward we pushed up over Bond and then back into the shelter of the trees when we got to the spur we confirmed our earlier decision by taking a left and checked off West Bond on the way by - "What's an extra mile between friends?"
When we got to the exposure by Guyot, the wind, it was a little bit ridiculous. I couldn't really stay on the trail so I wound up doing a crouched run to keep my momentum heading in a relatively strait line - talk about get your heart pounding - man that's exilirating!! Back in the woods... "Hey Charles, it's a bubble bath kinda day!"
Over South Twin and down the knee wrecker we headed, I told Charles, I'm taking my time here and he agreed that was a good call. About 2/3 of the way down we ran into a couple and asked them if it was still morning and they responded, yes for about an hour and 4 more minutes - my original thought was if we make it to the hut by 12:00 that leaves us 7 hours to do Garfield and Franconia Ridge (that's what it took me over Memorial day weekend when I left on fresh legs from the Galehead hut - I was hoping I had gotten strong enough to do that after bagging all the Bonds before getting there) and then 2 more hours to get out of the woods which would allow us to complete the circle in 16 hours, at least that was what we were shooting for. We were ahead of schedule, life was good!
We didn't stay long at the hut, probably 15 minutes for lunch and grabbing water - we left there at 11:30 and headed for the ridge.
Just after leaving the hut we started running into all the people that were doing the loop clockwise and continued to run into them for about 2 more hours which was fun for sure.
Garfield was a bear, the legs had (what like 15 miles on them?) started to feel the day and the pace that we were keeping and it was slowed considerably, we kept pushing on though.
The PUD (Pointless Up and Down, a.k.a. FUD - figure that out for yourself!) between Garfield and Lafayette wasn't too bad although it still took it's toll on the energy level. Then began the official climb up Lafayette - I told Charles that it was another PUD and after about 20 minutes of climbing he asked, "This is another one?" I cruelly responded, "Yup, we're gonna drop back down and then start the real climb." A while later we broke out of the tree line and I laughed and apologized for lying to him, he said, "No problem you can keep those kinds of lies coming all day!"
On the way over to Lafayette we ran into probably 10 groups of peole and when we asked about the conditions on the ridge they all responded "High winds, probably 50+ sustained with 70 mile per hour gusts" I mean, it was like there was a 70 mile an hour convention going on up there, EVERYONE said 70 mile an hour winds, it was crazy - and so were they. Unless things really changed in the time it took us to get up there Charles and I were estimating 35-40 with gusts upwards of 50 or so - I don't think they were hitting 70 though.
Up Lafayette and across the ridge we went, yea the winds were strong but they kept us moving as fast as our legs would allow. About the time we got to Lincoln it cleared and we could look around and see the days work and what lay ahead.
We pushed past Little Haystack and stopped for some more chow and to look over at the end of the ridge. They were right there, what a feeling to see them that close - we knew we had it at that point so we got on our feet, said, "Let's git'r done" and away we went.
Coming up on Liberty was great, I love that mountain, especially approaching it from that direction, it just looks so cool - big pile of rocks that boy.
From there I had made it over to Flume in about 30 minutes last time I was in the area so we tried to put the hammer down which didn't work so well at that point - I was feeling pretty weak and found it very difficult to climb with any speed. One thing that I was able to do however was keep climbing without stopping, not fast but continuous - so we continued to make progress and I reminded myself that just being able to continue climbing without stopping, even if it was slow, was an indicator of how much stronger I had gotten...it helped me keep my spirits up.
We hit Flume and the wind was still cranking pretty good so Charles wanted to get in out of it snack under cover - we stopped at the top of Flume Slide Trail to eat and check out the time. When he pulled out his watch and it was 5:25 both us us were shocked - we had done Garfield and Franconia Ridge in under 6 hours. His response, "Dude, we can crack a sub 14 if we hustle." Nuff said, we both took a breath that contained a Snickers bar in there somewhere and headed down Osseo on tour with 5.5 miles to go.
I was thinking back to what a friend of mine had said on Friday when I told him what I was doing on Saturday and how we wanted to break 16 hours, he said, "Lance Armstrong was quoted as saying that a young person will never win the Tour De France, they just can't handle the pain." He then went on to tell me, "You have the body, it's a matter of how painful you want it to be."
I might just as well have been stoned out of my mind for I was feeling no pain as I ran down Osseo. Remember how I said that I typically descend faster than Charles? Well I was getting a little ahead of him but stopped so that we were together again and mentioned that I'd rather make up time while running down this and then power hiking the last 1.4, he said, I'd rather mix this up with some power hiking (which will be easier on the knees) and then run Lincoln Woods - I obliged.
When we popped out onto Lincoln Woods we asked a group standing there what time it was and they responded 6:30, we now had 45 minutes to cover the last 1.4 miles - we did it in 30.
13 hours and 45 minutes - I'm happy with that. Mahoosics, here we come!!!
