Kris Brown and I attempted this run on July 3rd - we gave it a good effort, but bailed just after entering the Desolation Wilderness from the north. We turned towards Lake Tahoe down a small, mosquito invested trail to General's Creek, Lake Genevieve, and eventually Meeks Bay. Instead of covering the estimated 63 miles, we ended up at just below 50 miles for the day.
After sleeping on a futon in Kris’s van, we started running round 6:15am at the PCT trailhead off of I-80. We both had hydration packs/vests, and we had them packed with approx 10 bars and 20 energy gels each.
We reached what I think was supposed to be the highest point on the trail (approx. 8,700), near Tinker Knob, at just over 11 miles. We felt great running down the open trail towards Squaw as the sun rose higher.
We made it down and then up the peak behind Squaw near the intersection with the Western States Trail, which had seen the racers only a few days before (approx. 7,500ft up to 8,500). That high-point came just before 17 miles.
We then descended into the lush valley behind Squaw towards Alpine Meadows and Ward Peak, where we hit a low of just over 7000ft. A stiff pace up from Five Lakes Creek to the back of Alpine Meadows might have been what put us into a deficit we couldn't recover from. We topped out around 8,400 and traversed around Ward Peak and Twin Peaks with a lot of little ups and downs. We passed Ward Peak just after 24 miles.
By this point, it had gotten pretty warm. It was sunny, and I’m guessing that the temperature was around 85 degrees in the sun.
Kris wasn’t feeling great on the traverse, but we had a nice descent down after passing Twin Peaks before heading back up to Barker Pass. According to my Garmin, Barker Pass was just over 32 miles (halfway) and we had been averaging 12:52 min/mile (6:51 total time).
We realized we were in trouble just after entering the Desolation Wilderness. We passed Nitter Creek (2.2 miles after Barker Pass) and Lake Richardson without refilling water. I'm not sure what we were thinking, but after passing Richardson Lake, we realized we had a while before our next water stop. We confirmed this with some PCT hikers heading north. The lack of water combined with the significant decline of our pace led us to the decision to bail on the trail to Lake Genevieve and Meeks Bay. We both felt pretty crumby...
The last 10 miles were pretty miserable – the lack of water and the massive swarms of mosquitoes and an eventual hailstorm didn’t make the bailout very easy… in a way it felt like punishment.
Throughout the day, we ran into a bunch of PCT hikers on the trail headed north – some looked a lot more stoked than others…
You can check out the first 32 miles of the run here -
app.strava.com/activities/65245499/overview. (My Garmin ran out of batteries just after 32 miles at Barker Pass.)
Kris recorded the final portion on his Garmin – I’ll let him post his on feelings and a link to his GPS data.
