Hand Crack and Singletrack: August 2017

Beautiful Scenery early on the Highline

The Highline trail(025) runs the length of the Uintah Mountains from east to west or vice versa. I believe it's much more popular among the backpacker crowd than the IAD ultrarunning crew, but maybe that's just standard for most >26 mile distances. After Court ran it several years ago while I was in Florida and hearing his bold claims of it "being the hardest thing I've done in my life", well how could I not want to try it? Davy Crockett seems to have put the single push effort on the radar with his first attempt back in the late 2000's. Many have since run it with the FKT being somewhere in the 25.5 hour range. Surprising since the Highline's stats are seemingly puny as compared to many 100 milers, being only 78-80 miles with 14k vert. Heck, Hardrock is 20 miles further with twice the vert and 25.5 hours was the 3rd place time this year. I ran the Bear and Wasatch 100's with similar times.

It didn't take very long for me to realize why this is the case.

The 2nd biggest hurdle to completing the Highline after actually running it is the shuttling. The start(most run east to west) is at the Leidy Peak TH which is about an hour from Vernal on a dirt road, seemingly as close to nowhere as possible. The end is at the Hayden Pass/Peak TH which is up the Mirror Lake highway, which while much more accessible and popular, is still 5 hours away regardless of which Mapquest route you choose. The only real option you have is to beg or pay a friend, spouse, or hitchhiker to shuttle you as the logistics of doing it as runners alone is really quite burdensome. Luckily I have such a wonderperson in Annie. Steve and Shane, my co-runners, also had angels in the form of Pete and Vince. Thanks to you people. May Hoka money fall from the sky upon you.

The three of us departed from the Leidy Peak TH at mile 0 at around 6:40am. We had of course the number one goal of finishing, second goal of FKT, and third goal of sub 24. I personally didn't think either of the 2nd/3rd were possible based on our lack of fitness, the number of solid folks who have tried, and weather etc. We quickly realized what we had read about the Highline trail and what it entails:
1. There is often no obvious trail, only large cairns or tree blazes, with an occasional sign. This presents two challenges: the lack of runnable trail and navigation. While I will say that we really had no trouble with navigation thanks to the Gaia GPS app, its impossible to not be slowed by the rough terrain. Night navigation is much more difficult and doing it solo would be a huge mental drain. And when there is a "trail", its likely the worst trail you've ever encountered. I've seen Spartan Trail Races with less obstacles. Trails serve a couple purposes, one is to get you from point A to B, the other is to do so more efficiently than if you did it sans trail. The Highline only manages to accomplish the first.
2. Marshes: As if the lack of trail wasn't tough enough, then the Highline Gods throw giant wet marshes at you that are basically unavoidable. One went up to my knees. Then there are the 500 creek crossings. This creates not only slow progress but wet foot skin destruction, which would be my downfall.
3. Weather: Davy Crockett made some comment about how he wouldn't attempt to run the Highline again if there were any chance of thunderstorms. So he is basically saying he is never going to run the Highline again. 20-30% chance of thunderstorms is the norm up there. Best to get that in your head.
4. Lack of support: Honestly for me this was the best case scenario. The complete lack of support options means you can't bail, or if you do, it will be worse than finishing. The nearest road at any point is at least 16 miles away, and if your shuttling angel is expecting you at Hayden, they won't be pleased to hear they have to drive back 3.5 hours to some other random TH to get you. The commitment factor was key for me as it almost guaranteed a finish, barring a broken femur, where as in other 100 milers practically every aid station is a mental battle to not quit. On the Highline, there is no quitting because there is no one to help you do so.

We ran/walked/hiked for about 10 hours across some really beautiful terrain, basically alone minus a few backpackers and some SAR folks looking for an 80 year old guy who had been missing for a week. We crossed several passes, the largest being North Pole. I think we were all doing ok until somewhere around mile 40 near Anderson Pass when we realized we were only halfway, tired, and it was starting to rain consistently and darkness was approaching. I became significantly mentally broken here but managed to become revitalized with the first of 3 Taco bell $1 burritos. Amazing really. The rain and wind kept their barrage up for around 3-4 hours until we hit Porcupine Pass at dusk and dawned the headlamps. We were lucky the weather wasn't any worse.

The start

Early Tundra running

One of 900 named lakes I don't remember

heading up to North Pole Pass

This is not representative of the quality of the trail. It looks good here

Better representation. Much rockier

Excellent example of the trail. Where is it? Exactly

Here comes the rain. Heading to Anderson. All of the running is staged. -"Hey Shane, act like you're running". -"Ok".

Running down Anderson into Gorgeous Yellowstone Basin

Yellowstone to Tungsten Pass

The weather continues. Tungsten Lake

Odd evening colors up to porcupine pass

The course from Porcupine to Red Knob is really long, and doing it in the wee hours of the morning made it seem even longer. Court had mentioned he had gotten lost on Red Knob and sure enough, Steve's GPS track took him and Shane too far to the right. We were able to correct w/o too much hassle. We were all surprised at how warm it was too. We had all prepared for a pretty cold night but Shane didn't even use his coat for a lot of the evening. The Highline Gods took mercy on us.

Crossing over Red Knob and down to Dead Horse Lake around 1-2 am was probably the low point for the three of us. Steve and Shane were moving much better than I. My feet had been wet all day and now that the sun was no longer present, they weren't drying. I was beginning to feel the blisters forming. How the other two managed to salvage their feet may have something to do with their gators or shoe stack heights. Or they failed to fall into the rivers 15 times.

We made it over Dead Horse Pass and then down to Trail Creek, which was by far the worst trail of the entire day. Steep, loose, terrible footing. We tried not to complain but failed. We finally told Shane to ditch us at dawn so he had a chance at beating the FKT. Steve and I crested the last pass of Rocky Seas right at the 24 hour mark with 8.5 miles to go. Theoretically this mileage with 1.5 hours to go would be a cinch with a nice trail, healthy feet, and fresh legs. Alas, none of those were to be found. I slogged it out in 3 hours with what has to have been the longest 8 miles of my life. I've had some really bad finishes where I wanted nothing more than the parking lot to show up, such as on the Grand Teton or Bear 100. They all paled in comparison to the pain and suffering I felt in my feet those last 8 miles. I honestly don't know my official finishing time, but its somewhere close to 27 hours.

Crappy photo of sunrise from Rocky Sea pass

After finally arriving at the TH and removing my shoes, it became apparent why it felt like glass shards were cutting me on every step. I had 3-4 large longitudinal fissures running down both my feet, with 12 separate blisters and what was obviously trench foot like skin. One week later and I am still suffering the aftereffects of this horrid hamburgization. If I had one piece of advice it would be to avoid getting your feet wet at all costs.

They felt worse then they look

This is what eternal hell must feel like

Despite the obvious pain, this was a significantly rewarding experience. I proved to myself that I can do a long, difficult trail run unsupported, and it was spectacular, secluded mountain terrain. Davy suggests the Highline is as difficult as any mountain hundred, and I'd have to agree for the reasons I stated above. It is not to be taken lightly. Doing it with good friends is key. Solo I can see how much more difficult it would be.

Big congrats to Shane for snaking the FKT by 3 minutes! Now that's just cruel. Travis and Bret have to be a bit erked by that one. Sorry guys, it was my fault. He could have broken it by at least an hour if he wasn't so nice and waited around for my sorry butt. I also believe a sub 24 finish is not that far away. Just needs the right person, ahem, Jared Campbell.

Other info: Drank 100% unpurified water w/o regard to its source. As Shane will attest, every water source looked "perfect". Steve got giardia several years ago from Henry's Fork, but I've never had any issues. Purifying takes too long and Flagyl is cheap. As Court said, "if you aren't willing to drink straight from the source, you aren't meant to be on the Highline". Take it has you may. Ultimately I highly recommend this as a bucket list run for those so interested. It may take a week or two off your life like it did mine, but its definitely a gem.

Final thoughts: must do:
-later in the season is better despite lack of daylight as the wetness will destroy you.
-Plan on weather, bring wet/warm stuff
-GPS is essential. Screw paper maps. Get the Gaia. It will save your bacon.
-Bring bacon
- Dry socks. Dry socks. Bring 3 pairs.
- Bring a fun, optimistic friend. Or an ipod.

One of only 2 signs I saw that actually mentioned "Trans La Sal"

In today's ultrarunning community, there are a handful of "classic" traverses or adventure runs that run across or through the best of the national parks or forests. R2R2R, Zion, Teton Crest, Bryce, etc. These are all fantastic traverses in their own individual way. Most ultra-runners worth their beans have heard of most of these by now, if not attempted them. There also exists a plethora of other traverses than incorporate off-trail terrain, with lots of 3rd/4th or even 5th class terrain that may not appeal to the standard ultra-runner, like Nolans, WURL, or other peakbagging sagas. Two years ago I set out with good old Steve and Court to bag all the 12k' peaks in the La Sals, which was a spectacular day in the mountains, despite us failing to navigate our return journey correctly. This prompted me to do some more research about the trail systems through the La Sals.

One such pure trail run that I was not aware of until moving to Moab a month ago was the Trans La Sal trail. This obscure route was created many years ago, but either never really caught on or has purposefully been kept a secret by those in the know, maybe like the Zion Traverse was 10 years ago. There isn't much info on the internet about it, other than the CalTopo link I'll share below. The La Sals seem to be somewhat of a hidden gem mountain range, nested between the uber popular Wasatch and San Juans.

The route is completely logical, without any contrivances or pavement to link the trails together. In fact, there is no pavement anywhere on the route and very little non-singletrack. The route is almost exactly 30 miles with 8500' of climbing running south to north, or a bit more vert at 9500' running north to south. During my 7.5 hour trek I saw exactly zero people on the trail(quite a few campers at Oowah and Warner), which on a Saturday in the prime season of August was surprising. Good luck having that experience in the Grand Canyon. The route seeks out to accomplish just what the name suggests, covering the entire distance from one end of the range to the other, without crossing any actual summits. The wildlife is abundant, though unfortunately the non-wildlife has a higher prevalence(cows) which makes the drinking water situation a little more dicey. Might want to bring a filter or some Flagyl if you're planning on doing this one unsupported.

There are a couple variations, but the standard route starts at either the Doe Canyon Trailhead at the South end near La Sal(the town) or up at the North at the Bachelor Basin "Trailhead"( in quotes as it doesn't deserve to be called such, good luck finding it without prior knowledge or a GPS app). I chose to go south to north merely because we had a ward campout planned up at the Medicine Lakes area, so a dropoff would be easy. I would highly recommend a GPS app for this route as there are lots of trail systems up there that are unmarked or not marked with the same trail numbers as the map, as well as dirt roads that come and go. The route finding isn't complicated, but it's not NPS trail marking quality.

Basically the linkup is as follows: Doe Canyon to Pole Canyon Trail up to the South Mountain trail. South Mountain trail all the way to La Sal Pass Rd, then down to Squaw Springs. Squaw Springs to Boren Mesa, to Oowah Lake. Connector trail to Warren Lake, then Miners Basin Trail up and over, then take Bachelor Basin Trail up and over and down to the Castelton Rd. This link below will do more good than those words, but still nice to have some names to go with the pictures. Reasonable access points should you need support are: La Sal Pass Rd(4x4), Geyser Pass rd, Oowah Lake, Warner Lake, Miners Basin Rd.

Trans La Sal Cal Topo

Looking back at South Mountain after traversing around it. I ascended the obvious central couloir via Pack Creek earlier in the week to summit that peak.