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RUN REPORT // The Snowsemite 100

“Shit. Where the hell is the trail?”

It’s somewhere around 1:00 in the morning, and Peter and I are lost again. For two and half hours now, we’ve been punching our way through the crunchy snow. Our feet are soaked. And freezing. And right about now, I’m wishing I could just chop them off and be done with them. Oh yeah, it’s also pitch black except for the sweep of our headlamps. And yet again, we’ve lost the trail. It’s one of the rare times that I’m in front, and I swivel my head to look for any clues to where this damn trail is. For a moment, I wonder what it would take to rescue two morons who are out in the middle of the Yosemite high country, totally alone and 30 miles from the nearest civilization.

That’s when I remember that this was something I actually wanted to do at some point.

A few weeks ago on one of our PMR runs, Peter threw out the idea of running a self-supported 100-miler through Yosemite. In fact, it just might be the first ever. It seems just dumb enough that it sounded like a good idea. Plus, I had never been to Yosemite before, and this seems like a perfectly reasonable way to see the park. We set a date, and it was a go.

In the week leading up to the run, we were kept a close eye on the weather. We had intended to start on Friday morning, but there was a snowstorm rolling in on Thursday night. As we looked, it was becoming strikingly clear that a Friday attempt would be out of the question. Peter, who knows the park extremely well, had designed a brilliant route. The only issue—or rather, two—was that we would have to travel over the 9,940-foot Cathedral Pass and then follow that up with a trip over the 9,931-foot peak of Clouds Rest. There were reports that around 20 inches of snow had dropped on nearby Tuolumne Meadows.

An excited/hopefully Facebook post that I posted about our attempt quickly filled up with fun comments from “friends” with things such as:

“We just got a foot of snow. Good luck with that…”

“Hope ya like post-holing!”

and the always encouraging

“Don’t die!”

As we rolled into the park on Friday afternoon, a thick layer of clouds clung to the mountains, obscuring our view of most of the Valley. To be honest, I was getting a little unnerved. This run was a true backcountry adventure. We’d be caring all our gear and food on us. (Our packs weighed in at around 10% of our body weight—15 pounds for me.) With Tioga Road closed due to the weather, we were really cut off from any civilization and would be miles and miles away from anyone in case anything went wrong. And to compound matters, my left knee had been giving me tendinitis-like issues, and my hamstring was knotting up in a weird pain just days before. If either one of those issues reared their ugly heads during the run, I was going to be S.O.L. And S.O.L in the middle of nowhere.

To be honest, Peter and I were not feeling good about our chances. Running 100 miles seemed out of the question. Even half of that seemed kind of far-fetched given the conditions.

But, we had committed to it. There were some Facebook posts, there was a blog post. Thus, it was real. We were committed and couldn’t turn back now. We just had to be smart.

Saturday morning, we woke up early-ish. The air was clear and delicious. We were in a positive mood, and the weather seemed to be cooperating. As we drove into the park from our campsite in Wawona, it was hard to miss how great the weather looked. Peter turned to me and said, “Damn, dude. We might actually have to run 100 miles today.”

Looking out from Tunnel View, it seemed like he was right. The Valley was absolutely stunning in the early morning light. The sky shone clear. And the mountaintops in the distance looked dusted with snow but not snowed it.

“Damn, dude. We might actually have to run 100 miles today.”

Some of the best parts of running ultras are the insane views that you get. But I’d argue that sometimes the best part is the people you get to spend those views with.

Dom and Katie had tagged along on our adventure and decided to run the first 23-ish-mile loop with us. I think they half tagged along to run Yosemite and half tagged along to make sure we didn’t die. Either way, Peter and I were very grateful to have them along with us. (Plus, Crista of Dirtbag Runner fame was also joining us for the adventure but was recovering from a Grand Canyon Rim2Rim2Rim so she’d be sitting out the running parts of the weekend.)

Right around 8:42am, we set off from the Yosemite Valley Floor.

Peter had scouted out a rarely used trail called Rockslides Trail that would take us to the top of the park. In fact, it was so rarely used that it wasn’t even on most maps. Back in the ‘50s the trail had been paved to give visitors easy access up the side of the Valley. But a series of pretty hardcore rockslides destroyed the trail and deposited massive boulders onto it. As a result, the trail was in wonderful disrepair—crumbly and full of scrambles and semi-sketchy sections.

The climb was gradual and pleasant. And in the morning sun, the four of us playfully romped up the trail. I stripped down to my black base layer North Face long-sleeve, but even that seemed too hot.

About two miles into the climb, we began to hit a thin dusting of melty snow. Another half-mile in, I looked down to see a clean set of bear tracks. Let the fun begin, I thought.

Our climb up to the top was pure joy. We’d gained nearly 4,000 feet of elevation, but I was feeling like I hadn’t run anything. (And that’s particularly nice considering I had ticked off Zane Grey 50 just too weeks ago.) We were trouncing our way through thickening snow, but I really wasn’t worried. The conditions were far better than we had imagined. The temperature was warmish, and there was zero snow on any part of the trail that was exposed. Our spirits weren’t just high; they were soaring.

As we finally reached the end of our climb, we topped out on El Capitan. From the bottom of the Valley, it’s a monolith. From the top, it’s just sort of a bald, sparse rock. But the view was mighty insane. The four of us wandered down to the very edge. There’s a gentle slope as the rock falls out and then WOMP, it just drops into the abyss.

As we messed around on the top, I realized, We’re going to be out here a really long time. It wasn’t a bad realization. It was just that the realization that we were all having a lot of fun, and it’d be more fun to mess around and have fun than to try to run this sucker fast. Thus, we’d be out there a long time.

After the obligatory photo opp, we left El Cap and headed towards Eagle Peak. El Cap may get the fame from the ground, but from the air, the view off Eagle Peak is totally insane. Holy cow. We sat up there for a few minutes, looking out, eating some of Peter’s amazing rice bars and stretching my hamstring which was starting to tighten in a pretty troubling way.

From here, it was all downhill. We dropped off the peak and careened down the trail. A few miles down, we hit the top of Yosemite Falls. That was my first taste of “Whoa, Yosemite is Disney World.” The Falls were packed with groups of worn out hikers. Most of them gave us confused looks as we sauntered over to the lookout point. Up there, a group of climbers were anchoring a slackline rope across the Falls. ACROSS THE FALLS. It was a rope that they were going to walk across above Upper Yosemite Falls, i.e. 3,000-ish feet up. I’m stupid enough to attempt a self-supported 100-mile run through Yosemite, but I’m not stupid enough to do that. Holy cow. But I digress.

We shot off again, galloping down the Yosemite Falls Trail. That thing is no joke. The rock stairs are kind of gnarly. And this was the point when I realized that every trail in Yosemite is actually trying to kill you.

As we ran down past the throngs of tourists, Katie heard someone sneer, “I bet they don’t even have dental insurance”—referencing the fact that we’ll fall and bust in our teeth I guess? “Those are the people that the rest of us have to pay for. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll just fall off a cliff instead.”

OK, first, all four of us are fairly successful people at pretty great advertising or engineering jobs. Second, HOLY CRAP. IF YOU’RE THAT ANGRY, MAYBE YOU SHOULD SEEK OUT SOMETHING EVEN MORE THERAPEUTIC THAN HIKING IN A NATIONAL PARK. But I digress again.

The run down Yosemite Falls Trail was long and—in the lower half—kind of boring. We gritted our teeth and just got it done. But it was far longer than I was expecting. It wouldn’t be the first time that that happened.

Finally we reached the bottom. I wouldn’t say we were thrashed, but we were tired. I had been eating pretty well thus far, but I was in need of a serious calorific influx. The four of us decided to run over to the deli. We were gross, sweaty and stinky; it must have been quite the scene in the store. We didn’t care. Peter and I both grabbed a burrito and an ice 20 oz Coke out of the fridge, and hooooolllllllyyyyyy shiiiiiitttttt that was good. A healthy 700 calories straight to the body solves everything.

Feeling better, we sauntered over to the parking lot where we’d left Peter’s car. His watch said 23 miles. A few more than the 17 miles he had projected for the loop on the Map My Run route. No biggie. Just 77 miles left. Or whatever it was going to be. We didn’t concern ourselves to much with the precise mileage. We were just going to run a lot. Also, we were 7 hours in.

We loaded our packs up with all the food, clothes and emergency gear we’d need for the rest of our journey. And damn. They were heavy. Like, really heavy. In fact, I was running with an Ultimate Direction PB Adventure Vest, and I was carrying so many calories with in the form of gels, chews, bars, etc., that I had no room left in the pack for anything else. I had to lash a waterproof Sea To Summit bag to the back of my pack that held all my shirts, gloves, tights, shells, microspikes, etc.

Once we were fully loaded up, it was time to say goodbye to Dom and Katie. They ran with us to the start of the Snow Creek trail, and then we hugged goodbye. It was a little sentimental, a little exciting and a little scary. We were headed off into the unknown.

Gear roll call:

New Balance 1010v2 trail shoes

Injinji 2.0 compression socks

North Face Flight Series shorts

North Face base layer

Mizuno long sleeve zip-up

REI eVent shell

Suunto Ambit3 GPS watch

Minzuno gloves

Tony Krupicka edition Buff

Ultimate Direction PB Adventure Vest

STUN glasses

Sawyer Mini water filter

Kahtoola MICROspikes

Sea to Summit eVent Compression Dry Sack

Darn Tough Hiker Crew Socks

The climb up Snow Creek was hot. And steep. And hot. It was only a few miles up, but it took us almost two hours. We were adjusting to our packs and the exposed afternoon sun. As we ascended, we were rewarded with remarkable views of the north end of the Valley. I’m not sure the enormity of our task had really quick sunk in yet.

Finally, we topped, hitting a refreshing, crisp pine forest on top that breathed life back into us. For the firs time, we stopped at a roaring creek and filtered our water through our matching Sawyer Mini water filters and into the bottles. The water was so cold, and it nipped at our hands and we dunked our filters in.

The next section of trail was unremarkable but also beautiful. The high country is a landscape unlike any other. There’s something about alpine flora and alpine air that pours into your soul. And we chugged away under the pines.

Around this time, my hamstring started seizing up again. There were a ton of trees that had fallen over the trail in this section, and as I kicked my leg over one, my hamstring contracted into a horrific charlie horse. We instantly stopped for a few minutes as I laid on a log and did a series of stretching exercises that Dom had showed me outside the Yosemite Village Store about ten hours prior.

Back on my feet, things were going well. Except for my stupid rice bars. Pre-run, I was so excited about cooking my own rice bars. They were intended to be my replacement for “real” aid station food that’s normally important during a 100-mile race. Keeping your stomach full and happy is important. Man cannot survive on gels alone, right? So a few days prior I made two sets of rice bars out of the Feed Zone cookbook. One was sweet—blueberry and chocolate chips—and one was savory—Denver omelet style. Right around mile 28 I decided to trot out my savory bars and give them a try. And holy crap they were terrible. I had had the sweet one already, and it was good—moist, chocolatey and tasty. But dang. That savory rice bar was dry and bland and just awful. I remember as I was making them thinking that the ingredients all seemed like they were half much as they should be. And within the first bite, I had confirmation. The bars were bland and terrible. I shuddered to think that I had 1,300 of my 9,000 calories committed to these terrible things. Never try anything new in an ultra right?

But of course, we continued on. There were some really beautiful and weird sections of trail in this area. We ran over exposed rock switchbacks, under beautiful pine canopies and past glassy alpine lakes. In some ways, this was the coolest section of trail. But it was also so remote. We’d left the few high country campers back at the top of Snow Creek. Now we were totally and utterly alone.

It’s a strange sensation to be alone. You feel it in the middle of the night when you run a 100-miler. But at the same time, you always know that you’re really just 5 to 8 miles away from someone, somewhere with some foods and probably a few other somethings. As we ran, it became increasingly clear that we were just alone. There wasn’t another human being for miles. And the farther we ran, the farther away they were. There’s both a deep thrill and a deep terror in that idea. There’s no one around. There’s no one around. There’s no one around…

The sun was setting. But by now, a thing mist was hanging in the air and holding the last rays of sunlight. Peter and I cut across a section of sheer granite and followed what we thought was the trail. We saw a number of cairns and followed them down into a ravine. It seemed liked no one had been on this section of trail in months, but we shrugged. Made sense. As we dived deeper down, the trail petered out, and we were soon scanning all directions for cairns. We did this for about 15-20 minutes until it dawned on us that this was not the trail.

Luckily, Peter had an app on his phone that was an absolute lifesaver. I’ve never heard of the Gaia GPS app before, but now I want to kiss the developers on the mouth. Essentially, you can download a map to your phone. Some people don’t know this, but even when you don’t have cell reception on your phone, you have GPS. So, the app plots your position against the map you’ve already download. It was almost literally a lifesaver, and we used it to find how far off the trail we were. After scrambling over a smooth rock dome, we eventually found our way back onto the trail, thanks to Gaia. Then we lost it again. Then we found it. Then we lost it. Then we found it.

We were entering a section of snow. And the white ground cover was making it nearly impossible to see where the trail twisted and turned through the woods. On top of that, some of the other snow had already melted and flooded the area. So we were literally stomping through a meandering, icy, dark swamp. This is right around where the fun stopped.

We paused for a little bit and dropped our 500-pound packs for a moment. The temperatures were dropping quickly, and the sun was all but gone except for the last slivers of light. We both opened our packs and slipped on our multiple layers of gear. We were headed into the night. Into the cold. Into the unknown.

To best honest, the next hour or so was a little blurry. All I remember is scanning the ground for slight indentations in the snow that could possible signify a trail. We were lost more than we were on trail. It was frustrating, and I wondered “How far can we honestly make it like this?”

Eventually the woods opened up and we found ourselves in a series of open, snow-covered and water-drenched meadows. They were both creepy and cool, awesome and terrible. All the melting snow during the day flooded these alpine meadows. For us it meant hopping back and forth over soggy, freezing trails for miles. But I can’t tell what’s creepier: being surrounded 360 degrees by a forest where you can’t see more than 15 feet in any direction or being in the middle of a wild, flat, open expanse in the middle of the night that’s totally devoid if life (as far as you can tell).

We traveled along the trail for a bit until we made our way to Tenaya Lake. Our route had us passing below the lake and paralleling Highway 120 all the way until the JMT. Along the way, there were tons of creek crossings where we’d have to hop over icy rocks or balance on a fallen tree to reach the other side. But as we neared Tenaya, we saw water. A lot of water. In fact, as we neared, we realized the trail dove straight into a full-on river of water. We stood on one bank, looking at the other side. It was a solid 30 feet to the other side, through five feet of water. Normally not a huge deal, but considering that temperatures had now dropped below freezing, we were basically screwed. There was no way around. We stared across the water, dumbfounded and unsure what to do. This was not in the plan. I proposed we just say, “Screw it” and wade across. Peter, being the voice of reason, said, “Hellllll no” and we consulted the map for a better plan.

Luckily, the next few miles of our trip paralleled Highway 120, which we had just seen to the north. So, in a moment of brilliance, Peter suggested that we just hop on the road and run it all the way to the JMT. This idea was brilliant for a few reasons. First, it let us skip the water draining out of Tenaya Lake that were weren’t able to cross. But more importantly, it meant we wouldn’t be toiling in the woods for hours on end, trudging through snow and trying to follow a trail that was mercilessly non-existent under the snow. So, we hopped on the road and started to run.

And because of the snow, Highway 120 was closed. So the two of us ran down the middle of the road, totally unfettered and totally unconcerned. It was eerie and wonderful all at once. A few times, we shut off our headlamps and peered up at the stars. It was almost dizzying to be 40-something miles in a look up at a sparkling cathedral of stars. Also, I looked out for bears.

The two of us were feeling pretty toasted by now. We were around 42 miles in, but more importantly, we were almost 14 hours in. (Slow by normal standards, but understandable that we were doing this a self-supported pair for “fun.”) But the time on our feet was starting to kick in, and we were feeling it. We walked a few sections of this road. When it was uphill, we shuffled along. When it was downhill, we begrudgingly ran it. On top of that, it was cold. I’m not sure which was more painful, the cold nipping at us when we weren’t moving quickly or our frozen, battered feet pounding on the pavement when we were moving. I know Peter was suffering pretty badly at this point. In a lot of ultras, I find that there’s always a section of long, boring fire road that tends to fall right in the middle of the race. You usually have to just grit your teeth and get through it. This section felt very much like that. Once I realized that, it felt at least a touch more comforting. Kind of.

A few more miles on that eerie-ass highway, and we finally hit the intersection with the JMT. Oh happy day. We were headed home. Or so I thought. Peter and I stopped for a good 15 minutes while we took shits in the port-a-potties miraculously at the trailhead, switched out our gels and slipped on all the remaining pieces of cold weather gear that we had. All the while, I scanned the woods for bears. It seemed like exactly the right place for a bear attack. So, ya know, I was looking to avoid that.

Refreshed (and bear-attack-free), we turned onto the historic JMT trail. Previously, we had been traveling on the road, which was free of snow. But we had seen that just off the sides of the trail, the snow was piling up more and more. Over the course of our climb, we had gotten above 8,000 feet (I don’t remember for sure), and the snow had collected far more. Not only had the precipitation dumped here, but the sun had also not melted it away like we saw in the southern section of the park. As we started up the JMT, we were instantly punching through snow. Shit.

Snow. Snow. And more snow. We knew that going over Cathedral Pass and Clouds Rest were going to be a lot of snow. But we kind of didn’t have another choice. Like I said, Peter knew the park extremely well, but I was just picking it up as we went along. As we stomped through the snow and talked, I realized that we basically had three option: 1) we continue over near-10,000-foot Cathedral Pass and then near-10,000-foot Clouds Rest to complete our original 100-mile route, 2) we turn around now, retrace our steps and rerun all the shit was just ran until we’re back at the car or 3) make it over Cathedral Pass and then follow the JMT down to Yosemite Valley, thus avoiding Clouds Rest and cutting out about 25 miles of our route.

As we punched through the snow, our running shoes soaking wet in freezing cold water, I realized that the third option was really the only option. But I wasn’t ready to admit it yet.

We stomped through the night. From my recollection, we turned onto the JMT around 11:30pm. And it was instantly terrible. The trail was covered in at least of foot of snow, and we were hiking straight uphill through it. We were fried. Our bodies were shivering. And worst of all, our feet were dead. Like, maybe literally dead. Throughout the night, on occasion, I would wriggle my toes to make sure I still had feeling in/control of them so that I could assure myself they were frost-bitten and about fall off.

I can’t express to you how horrifically miserable we were. The only small saving grace of the whole matter was that earlier in the day, somebody had hiked the trail. As a result, we had a pair of footsteps through the snow that we could follow. Without that, we would have been wandering in the snowdrifts looking for the trail for days. Instead, we were just wandering in the snowdrifts for hours. I wanted to kiss the man who walked through before us.

Even with all that, it took us 5 hours to go 9 miles. Five hours.

There’s no nice way to put it. The night hours were shitty.

We were climbing uphill into more and more snow. Snow that came up to our ankles. Snow that came up to our calves. Snow that we fell through and toppled us over, all the way up to our hip. We had stopped talking by this point and had mostly resorted to grunting and spewing a few choice obscenities.

At some points—I don’t totally remember when—we crested Cathedral Pass and hit an open night sky. The hiker’s tracks had ended a few miles back so had been trailblazing our own path through two-foot-tall snow drifts for the last hour. As we eventually crested over the top, we began to head down. Thank you.

Now on the south side of the mountain, the snow had melted a touch more. Normally, you’d think this would be good. But the JMT is such a rutted out trail. With all that melting snow, the deep-cut trail was now just a freezing creek running with water.

Previously, we had been frustrated with not being able to find the trail. Now that we could easily follow the trail, we didn’t want to because it was just a few inches of freezing water ready to soak our shoes any moment that we mis-stepped and fell in. As we ran ,we had to jump back and forth over the two feet of freezing water. And we did this for miles. It sucked. Maybe worse than before.

But finally, we found ourselves at an intersection, both metaphorically and physically. We stared at the signs that suddenly appeared in the middle of the woods. We could either turn as we originally intended, go another 15 miles in the snow to Clouds Rest and hit our 100 miles, or we could continue on the JMT down towards Yosemite Valley and hit 70+ miles for the run.

Peter and I stood at this crossroads, sure of what we should do but totally unable to express it. I knew that it was lunacy to continue over Clouds Rest. Sure, there’s only a very small percentage that we’d actually die. But we had just through from 9 miles of torture. And to imagine doing 15 miles more was just unfathomable. Our feet were soaked and screaming. On top of that, we were 52 miles and 17 hours in. Very best case scenario, we’d finish in 34 hours, around 6:30pm Sunday evening. Realistic scenario, we’d finished around 38 hours, well into Sunday night. And we had zero cell reception. There was no way to tell anyone that were OK until we made it down into Yosemite Valley. So as I saw it, we either cut it short—and still run way longer than we ever thought we would—or we keep being horrifically miserable and risk no one knowing where we were and potentially calling search and rescue on us. But of course, 17 hours in, I couldn’t probably express any of this to Peter. Instead we just flubbered a few nonsensical sentences at each other until we finally both came to the realizations that we had to kill the 100-mile dream.

It was of course a bummer. But it was also not surprising at all. Since I had heard about the snowstorm, I didn’t think we stood a chance. So being able to say that we were going to do 70+ miles was actually pretty exciting. It was far more than I ever expected.

After a few more grunts, we both agreed to call the audible and go with a more direct route down the JMT that would take us home.

We assumed—or at least I did—that heading down toward the Valley would make things easier on us. But instead, we spent more and more hours punching through the terrible frozen snow, stepping into rivers of water and just hating life in general.

By 4am, Peter was pretty toasted. His feet were killing him, and he was basically falling asleep standing up. I felt a bit more with it, but I was just miserable. Yay. Running. It’s a fun thing to do.

“When the hell is this snow going to end?!” I kept yelling it at random intervals. We were traveling down. But weirdly the snow wasn’t subsiding. I was ready to be done with it.

Sometime around 6am, we finally broke free. “No mo’ snow!” I shouted dumbly into the air. “I want no mo’ snow!” The mean, frozen descent gave way to sandy, soft, piney singletrack. We entered a burn area where blackened tree hung like sentinels over the forest. And the,n suddenly I saw Half Dome.

Several miles in the distance, Half Dome loomed. In the early morning light, it glowed a brilliant, warm pink. I’ve got to admit, I’ve never see anything like it. To be in Yosemite for the first time is one thing. But to see Half Dome up close for the first time in the glowing morning light of sunrise after running through the snow and the shit all night… that’s just something that no one can ever replicate.

At this point, I was a little disheartened to learn that we were still 4.8 miles away from Half Dome. But whatever. Light was beginning to show, and temperatures were on the rise. Peter and I stopped to unload some of our heaviest gear. We enjoyed running through the morning amongst the devastatingly beautiful burning area. But finally we made it to the bottom of the Half Dome trail.

Peter had a permit so the two of us began our hike. Two miles later, we topped out on the top of the Sub Dome. And holy shit, what an amazing view. I think it might beat Eagles Peak. Maybe. But either way, the hike up there was rough in our black, long-sleeve base layers. And there was no way in hell I was going to go up the cables to the top of Half Dome. I like to think of myself as a brave person. But I was 60+ mile and 23.5 hours into a run with a sketchy knee and bitchy hamstring. There was no way I was going to pull myself 400 feet up those cables to the top. I think Peter was a little disappointed, but after a whole excursion based on a bad idea, it felt like a responsible move at least.

So, instead, Peter and I just sat on top of the Sub Dome, ripped off our soaking wet socks, let them feel the sun and ate a cheeseburger. It was fucking awesome.

From here, it was just a mere 5 miles down to the car. Or 7 miles. Or 8 miles. Or 10 miles. Really, it just seemed like the miles kept coming. I thought were finished, but my dear tour guide Peter had other plans. We flew down the JMT to the Nevada Falls Trail. From here, we continued to drop down to the Misty Trail at Vernal Falls. (Admittedly, despite it being a tourist attraction, this really was one of the prettiest sights of the entire adventure.)

We were over 25 hours in by the time we bottom out and dropped towards the Valley floor. My feet were en fuego. Except, whatever the opposite of en fuego is. They were so painful and swollen. In fact, my feet has swelled so much from the cold and water that I had had to loosen my laces several times in the final hours of the run because they were cutting into the top of my feet.

But finally, in what seemed like hours later, we made it to the bottom of the Valley floor. It was 70 miles and about 26 hours. Now we just had to get to the car.

We ran/shuffled/walked the last two miles in. It’s funny because I really didn’t feel that terrible all day in terms of muscle. But in the last mile, as my body started smelling the barn, it started to seize up. Because #ultra. It’s what should happen at the end of a 100-mile race. So why not at the end of a 70+-mile run?

Peter and I meander through the campgrounds and Valley Loop Trail until, finally, I saw in the distance our parking lot. It was around 11:30am on Sunday, and we figured that Katie, Dom and Crista would be out hiking. But as the car came into view we heard a whoop.

Then, “HEY, WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING HERE?!”

I’ve never been happier to see friends before in my life. Katie and Dom were standing there in their running gear. Insanely, of all the miracles, they had parked across from Peter’s car just minutes before we arrived and were a minute or two away from leaving for the day. But the three of them were standing right there, as we rolled up. Any extra minute filling up our bottles in a stream or walking down a trail anywhere or hammering up a climb or whatever, could have thrown us off. But instead, we ran in, right as our friends were standing there. I really can’t think of a more serendipitous thing that’s ever happened (besides maybe my San José/Liza mistake). It was the perfect ending.

We were done. I actually felt pretty damn good. The watch time was 26 hours, 39 minutes.. Total mileage was around 72. So, looking at all that, the run was fairly mellow. But it was still long.

I smiled happily and accepted a beer that Crista handed me. Peter and I began trading stories about our adventures, and my soul smiled deeply.

I remember thinking, “Nah, I’m not going to curl up and pass out or anything. But then, someone grabbed a foam pad and threw it on the ground in front of me. It looked so good and soft. I crumpled and fell on it. Someone else grabbed my sleeping bag and laid it over me. It felt good. I took another swig of my IPA. I was happy.

(Note that my watch was set to a really inaccurate GPS setting so that the battery would last long enough. So the time and distance are off. Peter’s watch was able to track it closely and gave us 72.2 miles. That info is here.)

EPILOGUE

What an amazing adventure. There’s something so unique about ultra-distance adventure runs over ultra races. And I’ve done my fair share of adventure runs. But running in such a remote place, over the snow and through the night was such a crazy, unique experience.

I can’t say that I immediately want to go back in the next month. But, in truth, with the snow gone, I think we both want to go back and complete our 100-mile mission. We’re mighty proud of what we were able to do, especially considering the conditions. Not it’s time to finish unfinished business.

So when are we going back?

#ultramarathon #ultrarunning #yosemite #adventure run #race report