Warning. Not much on the picture front, hey we were racing.
The Grand Traverse is a ski mountaineering race from Crested Butte to Aspen. Forty miles and about 7,000 vertical feet across the Elk Mountains. In 2017, it's celebrating it's 20th anniversary. As SkiMo races go, it's longer, less vertical and considered a bit of a sufferfest. Here's a link to the event website with some history, stats and pics.
https://www.facebook.com/grandtraverse/
Training consisted of long days on the weekends (see previous blogs http://kubeadventuresinc.blogspot.com/2017/03/grand-traverse-training-longs-peak-via.html) and some shorter weekday outings. Was it enough?
Springtime in the Rockies is very unpredictable. Warm temps and spring snowpack? Cold temps and deep powder? That outcome will decide the course and destination of the "Traverse." Previous years have had winter storms and the race "Reversed" not getting to Aspen. What will this year bring? Early forecasts called for storms, everyone whispered about another Reverse.
The race begins at midnight Sat morning and ends sometime Saturday in Aspen. With this timeline, Friday turns into sort of an odd day. Racer briefing mid day Friday reveals that the promoters are happy with the forecast and snowpack and so we are heading to Aspen. One of the race's peculiarities is that there's a fairly extensive required gear list and mandatory gear check. Once through this, it's time to pack, re-pack, re-pack again, try and nap, eat and wait for midnight.
The race starts at the base of Crested Butte Ski Area with a festival atmosphere. Once the gun goes off, all 400+ of us start a rapid skin pace up the mountain. Trying to stay with your partner at this point, is not really possible. Pavla and I set a plan to try and connect on the top of the ski area and if not possible, on the back side at the base of the ski area boundary. Pavla and I actually stayed fairly close to each other to the top, but got separated on the icey "Dark Blue" Indian Trail Ski run. To summarize the ride down, a racer fell near Pavla and slid down most of the run, unable to stop. Nothing like a stiff cup of coffee after midnight to wake-up!
The backcountry experience starts after the icey descent with a long side traverse to the mouth of Brush Creek drainage. Along the way, there are several ski off boot packing efforts due to lack of snow coverage or too steep ascents out of "elk wallows." I found it amusing, other's cursed under their breath. It was during one of these efforts that Pavla called out, "My boots are broken!" What? New LaSportiva Cyborg boots, maybe seven outings, but sure enough she pulled up and the instep buckle straps had snapped in the middle of both boots. Damn, are we done? Perhaps not, we have grey tape. Indeed, just enough grey tape to wrap around boots were strap once was. Will it hold for the next 25-ish miles? The next obstacle was that Pavla's rental ski Dynafit TLT Superlite bindings refused to lock into tour mode. Sort of important, since they just release when in ski mode due to side loading. After much fussing, it turns out the pins were maybe a little long or Her ski boots a little wide, or a bit of both, but the detents in the boots had to be absolutely free of mud ice or snow or they wouldn't lock. So we had a little ritual at every boot pack / ski transition where I got down and cleaned out the detents with an awl tool and she could lock in. Lot's of time lost, let's see what we can do to make up time.
The next segment of the race is a long grind up (~2.5kft vertical climb) to Friends hut and mandatory checkpoint. We seemed to be among slower skiers, but it's a single track so passing needed to be timed when there was maybe a side track. The passing went some thing like this. "Pavla? Are you there?" "Yes" "Are you ready?" either "Yes" or "Not yet." If "Yes" we'd accelerate around the string of skiers and step back into the track looking for the next set to pass. It's pretty difficult to gauge where we were relative to the masses, so we just kept this up till we reached Friends hut. 5:30 am, get some fluids, eat, head up Star Pass.
Star Pass, elevation ~12,400ft, was not to be skinned up this year. Hard snow / ice turned it into a boot packing climb. Once in the "line" there was no passing to be done as stepping to the side meant a potential slippery fall on smooth hard snow. Stay in line. Dropping off of Star Pass was just that. Dropping off a cornice into pretty steep terrain. Not the place to take a tumble. There was another mandatory check point at the base of the Star Pass descent, Geo's Bonfire. Sunrise.
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| Morning light on Star Peak. |
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| Early morning light was uplifting. Time to turn off the headlamps. |
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| Pavla (R) happy for a little break and some coffee. Communal cup. |
Somewhere around halfway at this point. Legs feeling ok. Time for a big climb back up to Taylor Pass / Peak, 12,400ft. Things have pretty well spread out at this point. We seemed to be moving a little faster than those around us, still passing folks. This is a long section of the course. Lot's of time above treeline, beautiful views of the Elks Mountains, wind packed snow. At the Taylor Pass check point we hear, 5 miles to final checkpoint, then 7 miles from there to Aspen. Damn, we're getting there.
Our pace started to slow going into Barnard Hut checkpoint. The aid station people laughed about how people enjoyed lounging there perhaps a little too much. The ramen was tasty. The drinks very liquidy. 10 am, think we could be in Aspen by noon.
Alright, seven-ish miles along Richmond Ridge. A section one of the promoters commented was used by evil Russian coaches to test their athlete's ability to withstand suffering. It held true to this description. Snow warmed and softened. Sticking to skins. Fatigue sets in. Pavla bonks. Bad.
To those that have bonked or been with someone who has bonked. It's not a pretty sight. Motivation evaporates. Tempers may flair. "I just want to be home!" Strategies to get someone through this vary: Browbeat - "Dammit why did you eat?" usually don't work so well unless this is the last outing you want to do with said partner. Silence and get them home, break the wind / break trail strategy can work, but they are going through their own inner Hell that if you've ever been there is like multiple root canals. Or, you can distract your partner with tales of childhood pets. Cats, hamsters, poodles, horses, etc. etc. If you want to do something again with this partner or have to wake up with said partner, I suggest option three. You never know when it might be your turn.
In the end we reached the top of Aspen Mountain (Ajax) after a 3 hour traverse and all that was left was a 3kft descent to the finish line. The Russian coach analogy lived up to it's name. We dropped in and skied the last stretch with pauses to let the jelly legs recover a bit. At the finish line, just under 14 hours from the start, was one of the race stalwarts who greeted us with a hug and finishing metals and a trail running friend, Deb Luther, who helped us navigate foot repair, food, pitstops while she waited for friends to finish.
My second GT race. Would I do it again? Perhaps with the right reason.
