seano
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Post by seano on Jul 21, 2012 8:37:38 GMT -5
Does anyone here know an FKT for the Chicago Basin 14ers without taking the train? According to 14ers.com, this route is 42 miles round-trip with 12,000 feet of climbing. I found one mention of 13h30 by Jim Nelson in 2006, but suspect someone has run them considerably faster. I did them on 7/20/2012 in 11h21 ( trip report), with the following splits: 2:26 - Purgatory Creek trailhead 3:21 - Animas bridge 4:37 - Needles Creek junction 7:43 - Eolus summit 9:09 - Windom summit 9:55 - Sunlight summit 11:50 - Needles Creek junction 12:47 - Animas bridge 1:47 - Trailhead |
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Post by pbakwin on Jul 21, 2012 19:28:05 GMT -5
Good! Please tell us who you are.
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seano
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Post by seano on Jul 22, 2012 13:47:31 GMT -5
I'm Sean O'Rourke, 35 years old. I'm mostly a peak-bagger, but I occasionally run an ultra.
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Post by Eric on Jul 24, 2012 11:10:18 GMT -5
Very nice Sean, I ran them a few years back and figured it could go closer to 10-11h. I have been meaning to get back down there for another go.
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seano
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Post by seano on Jul 25, 2012 7:31:07 GMT -5
I ran them a few years back and figured it could go closer to 10-11h. I might have gone sub-11 by (1) doing less by headlamp, and (2) having less fun taking pictures and hanging out on summits (but I was also there to have fun). Since much of the trail is very runnable, I wouldn't be surprised if a fast ultra runner (Nick Clark or someone) went sub-10. |
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Post by solarweasel on Aug 11, 2012 20:29:08 GMT -5
Very cool! I've had this route on my to-do list for a while. Now there's more incentive to do it!
I'm planning to try it out tomorrow, departing Purg Flats at ~4am. The intent is more of a "scoping" mission (since I haven't been up Eolus and Sunlight before, and am aware they can be a bit technical) assuming an FKT attempt on a later date, but I will carry a GPS and treat it as an FKT attempt just in case -- you never know!
Cheers,
Brendan
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Post by solarweasel on Aug 12, 2012 18:55:52 GMT -5
Tagged Eolus and Eolus N. and bypassed Sunlight/Windom (back to TH in 10 hours) -- hence no FKT today. Awesome route -- now I've scouted, can't wait to give it a real go in the future. As Sean says, going sub 11:20 shoul dbe very doable for any mountain runner worth his salt.
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Post by antonkrupicka on Jul 15, 2013 19:20:30 GMT -5
I ran this from the Purgatory Trailhead this morning (7/15/2013) in 7:58:34 car-to-car, starting at 6:04am. These Weminuche runs that end on an uphill climbing out of the Animas River canyon are tough when you give yourself an on-the-fly, voluntary time-goal (8hr in this case).
Splits:
Animas River bridge - 0:37
Needle Creek bridge - 1:26
New York Creek bridge - 1:47
Twin Lakes/Columbine Pass sign - 2:36:30
Eolus summit - 3:45:30
N. Eolus summit - 3:55:30
Twin Lakes - 4:12
Sunlight summit - 4:45
Windom summit - 5:11
Twin Lakes/Columbine Pass sign - 5:46
New York Creek bridge - 6:15:30
Needle Creek bridge - 6:28:30
Animas River bridge - 7:14:30
Purgatory TH (pavement) - 7:58:34
So as to make a more aesthetic route (more of a loop), once I got into the basin and was on the trail heading up toward Twin Lakes I left the trail and scrambled up the southeast ridge of Eolus (you could keep it 4th Class but I was taking the most direct lines I was comfortable with, so had plenty of low-5th moves), and then went across the Catwalk to N. Eolus. This rock was surprisingly similar to Pikes Peak Granite. From N. Eolus I descended directly down its east face, past the small lake below Glacier Point, and then continued down the scree chute east that goes directly to Twin Lakes. I had a couple small route-finding issues near the summit of Sunlight (I've never done these peaks before), descended the same way, and then scrambled directly up Windom's NW face before descending its West ridge and eventually connecting back into the Twin Lakes trail leading back down to the Needle Creek trail. All in all, the long running approach and de-proach wasn't nearly as monotonous as I'd feared and the whole outing was a blast. A nice mix of actual running and proper scrambling.
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seano
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Post by seano on Aug 11, 2013 14:10:28 GMT -5
I ran this from the Purgatory Trailhead this morning (7/15/2013) in 7:58:34 car-to-car, Nice! That's more like what I would expect for an FKT. Style points for taking the direct, scrambly routes rather than trails. For something similar and also fun, you could probably knock out Arrow-Vestal-Trinity from Molas Pass in the same time or less. |
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Post by Peter Bakwin on Aug 11, 2013 14:48:50 GMT -5
I ran this from the Purgatory Trailhead this morning (7/15/2013) in 7:58:34 car-to-car, Nice! That's more like what I would expect for an FKT. Style points for taking the direct, scrambly routes rather than trails. For something similar and also fun, you could probably knock out Arrow-Vestal-Trinity from Molas Pass in the same time or less. He already did: antonkrupicka.blogspot.com/2013/07/july-1-7.html?m=1 |
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