I set out for La Plata, now 15-30 minutes behind John, Blake, Jim, and Mike. I ran out of water again (!) an hour below La Plata's summit. This time I shamelessly asked returning climbers if they might spare me any extra water. No luck. Despairing I trudged onward and upward. Soon I saw Dennis Herr below me on the trail and steadily gaining ground. I was not moving very fast any more. Dehydration and depletion were grinding me down.
I reached the summit at 1630, five minutes before Dennis, and half an hour behind the front running four. I was in crappy shape though. As I Lurched down the mountain, Dennis closed the gap in rapid order. We continued picking our way down the large talus, aiming for the saddle and the trail that would drop us into the willow basin near timberline on La Plata's south route.
By the time I reached the saddle I had gained a few minutes on Dennis, but in an attempt to avoid the willows and the muddy terrain I recalled from previous La Plata climbs I stayed west and high. It turned out that it wasn't all that muddy this late in the year and Dennis moved rapidly along the trail. When I finally dropped down to the trail, Dennis had moved ahead by a few minutes. The trail drops from the high basin alongside a running stream-the first opportunity for water in nearly two hours.
Never having properly rehydrated after Elbert, now I was severely dehydrated. Still, I was able to run hard once I'd filled up, catching Dennis below the trailhead on the road to Winfield.
Dennis "Animal" Herr once ran the Wasatch 100 "double". Most runners have a hard time finishing the Wasatch 100. Well, one year Dennis started from the finish line and ran to the start in time to run the race. That's class in the small world of ultra athletes.
We departed for Belford on the <easy> route up to Elkhead Pass and the easy trail along the ridge, rather than the more direct route straight for the summit. Only an hour later we were on the summit-I doubt we would have made it any faster on the direct route. Less than an hour later we had completed the traverse to Oxford, returning to the Belford-Oxford saddle for the descent to Pine Creek. I had done this descent twice before, but it had always been a tough descent through cliff bands and steep forest.
We made a try at finding an easier route described by Hans and others, but in the end wound up "in the cliffs". We still managed to reach the trail from Oxford's summit in 1:22, faster than my two previous descents. Getting on the radio our next objective was to find Fred Vance's aid station. After 15 minutes of going up trail and down trail, finally Fred's son found us and led us to the aid station.
We were ready to eat! Oatmeal, Ramen noodles, hot chocolate…bring it on! When it started to rain for the only brief weather disturbance of the race Fred let us into their tent where we "rested our eyes" and waited for the passing of the squall. On the radio Ginny inquired after Eric Robinson. Seems she hadn't seen him in a while and she thought he should be just behind her on Harvard's slopes. After some time Eric responded that Ginny had woken him from a nap at the 13,000-foot level. Both of them must have been hailed on there during the squall. When we reached Harvard's summit more than two hours later hail lingered in the cracks and crannies up high.
Setting off along the south ridge we hoped to find the proper scree chute other Nolan's runners had previously scouted. Neither Dennis nor I had done this route that led down a gentle scree chute, dumping out at the N. Cottonwood Aide Station. We came on the "normal" route down to Horn Fork Basin, where the "trail" bent west. Ignoring this "trail" we continued south along the ridge per the directions we remembered from scouting reports. When we next came on a long flat cairn after a couple hundred yards we misinterpreted it as the marker for the correct descent chute. It was fast enough and an easy descent, though Dennis kept falling behind. I would descend for a few minutes, turn to see where Dennis was, then wait for him to catch up again before continuing. My headlamp was a distinct advantage to his handheld flashlight. After an hour or so we finally had dropped enough elevation to reach timberline. We were off route though near Horn Fork Basin. Consulting map and compass I kept us on a heading to run into the trail, but it was rough going through the deadfall and soggy ground.
Suddenly the sky lit up and a huge fireball fell from the sky. It looked like it fell right on the aide station! At first I thought it was a flare sent off by Richard at the aide station to help us find it. Two weeks later an article in the Colorado Springs Gazette about a meteor dropping to the earth near Creede at that exact moment explained it. I have never seen anything like it.
Leafing through old New York Times papers that have been piling up here in my apartment today I came on the same article in the NYT. This was an extraordinary event indeed!
When we finally stumbled on the trail I knew from previous experience that we were at least three miles from the aide station. While discouraging, at least we were on a trail. Eric Robinson had been sleeping for the last three hours at the aide station, awaking just as we arrived. While I replenished Eric got ready to head out. I hadn't done this route up Yale before and at night I hoped to go up with him, since he had done the route in daylight before. Dennis decided to stop there and get some sleep. Eric set off, so I hurried up to catch up to him. He had a fifteen-minute head start, but I caught up with him midway up the avalanche chute leading up Yale, directly across from the Kroenke Lake-Horn Fork Basin trail fork.
Ascending the avalanche chute was easier than I'd imagined it would be. Somehow I'd envisioned easy hand and foot rock climbing with moderate exposure. Instead it was simply walking up steep high grassy terrain alongside a rushing stream. Large pieces of aluminum were strewn all up and down the chute. My first thought was aircraft, but Eric suggested it might have been mining equipment. The remains of a small engine were so rudimentary that it was difficult to believe that it could be capable of powering even a small plane. On the radio I heard reports from Blake, Mike and Jim as they neared the summit of Princeton, and shared information with Matt coming off Columbia.
Eric kept insisting that I go on ahead since "you are a faster climber than I". "No way!" was my response! Eric knew the route and had a high-powered flashlight-required equipment to illuminate the distant ridges for route finding. Eric tried to explain the route to me, but I was content to take it slow rather than risk getting off course. I was tired and having a hard enough time just consistently putting one foot forward. After finally breaking out above timberline we found ourselves on a ridge leading towards the main NE spine.
Suddenly we were faced with a precipitous drop of 250 feet. What now? A compass bearing showed the course had to be directly ahead-down the drop. After some consternation we went forward-this did indeed turn out to be the right way. It's never easy realizing you have to drop significant elevation-even in broad daylight. I was getting more and more tired-felt like I could lay down on the rocks and go directly to dreamland-I kept myself going by promising that I would hold off until I had reached the summit and then dropped below timberline on the descent-then I could sleep if I still wanted to.
At 0426 we finally found ourselves on top of Yale-approximately 4hr10min for the ascent. Dog slow, but given the conditions, acceptable. The descent was miserable. From the summit of Yale to the Denny Creek Trailhead took me two and a half hours. I had run this trail from the trailhead to the summit in 2:15 two years previous. Pathetic. I was amazed to see more than a hundred people pass me and this quite early on a Saturday morning. As these cheerful hikers passed me I could barely muster a semblance of civility. One asked me "Have you already been to the summit?" Taken aback I replied, "Yes, I was on top at 0426" "What time did you start??" "I don't know I've been climbing 14ers for 24 hours straight" I responded and kept on straight ahead. Later I learned that this day, August 18th was the 300th anniversary of the University of Yale and many alma maters decided this was a propitious time to make the climb.
Pushing off for Huron in the twilight we soon found we were still in bad shape. With frequent stops to admire the starry night we finally reached the summit in a slow three hours. We both agreed we simply needed to stop and sleep-see how we felt after that. Radioing from the summit of Huron down to Clohesy Lake Aide station we were not enthused about the sleeping facilities-a space blanket and an enclosed porch at the cabin…. Thoughts of Laila and a warm bag in the tent sent us back down to Winfield. Dennis slept in my truck.
After sleeping the sleep of the just, the next morning was a bright new day. We were recovered and ready to climb some fourteeners! Laila drove our packs down to the Missouri Gulch Trailhead, leaving us unencumbered for the four-mile run down the road from Winfield. This unusual "route" was a first for the Nolan's run, but another runner, Simon Shadowlight, later opted to do the same thing.
Feeling fresh we ran the road in just over 30 minutes. We asked Laila to later hike in our "night clothes" to the N. Cottonwood Aide Station; two miles up the Kroenke Lake Trail. Laila left to climb Mount Yale first-she won't waste the opportunity to bag a peak! We headed up the Missouri Gulch trail for Missouri.
