Subject: JMT Run (part two - long) Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2000 19:02:02 -0700 From: Buzz Burrell To: "Ultra List" (cont from part one) Peter was fantastic. He was very fit, supportive, never made mistakes, and was capable of clear judgment and strong action at the same time. He carried the map in his hand rather than the pack, calling off the times as we made the "cut-offs". I just had my head down and was concentrating on moving forward at all times. I was barely hanging on. It was ludicrous to be so intense on such a long run. I would hold my bladder in order to not waste time. We carefully arranged our packs so snack food was on the top to save precious seconds. If I got a stone in my shoe, I wouldn't stop; too much time to empty it. We tried to run the downhills non-stop, and only snack and drink on the up hills to save time. We had calculated every way point, and each time we hit the "cut-off" exactly. We were totally and completely focused on hitting 4 days flat. It was not fun. We did not admire the flowers. It was like the final 5 of a hundred miler - except we were doing 60 that day. The demarcation line was Tuolumne Meadows, where our fabulous crew would meet us. From there, it was only 23 miles to the Valley. Tuolumne was where our final push would begin, where we would take the caffeine pills we had been saving up, where we would ingest whatever herbal stimulants we had, where we would simply do anything, anything at all to hang on and hit that 4 day mark. Blake had done that final section in 7 hours. We had matched his times the whole day - working as hard as we could, we had not gotten a minute up nor a minute down. We needed to hit Tuolumne at 6 pm for a 6:14 pm departure ... or be faster than 7 hours to the finish, which was questionable considering how we were feeling. I was toast. It was amazing. Every run seems to take on its own mythical character, its own supreme symbolic meaning, and this one became abundantly clear: I WAS AT MY LIMIT. Never before had this happened. In over 30 years of ultrarunning, I had somehow never been "exhausted". My legs may have been too sore, my electrolytes screwed up, or I was breathing too hard to go faster, but never had I been "exhausted". It was a feeling like none other. It permeated my being ... I was unable to fantasize about anything positive, even though I tried thinking good thoughts, I couldn't even do that. When it started to rain for the umpteenth time (the weather now had changed to the opposite of the earlier part of the trip) and I stopped to put on a jacket, I had to concentrate to avoid keeling over, falling asleep before I hit the ground. It was fascinating. It's a wonderful thing to explore your limits, to know, first hand, just what you can and can't do. This is very important to a Man ... to make an absolute all-out effort, and to hit the place that you can't go past ... this is deeply rewarding, in a way that can only be described as spiritual. We live in a world where thru artificial means there are no limits, we've created this huge, polluting, de-humanizing civilization just so we can feel no restrictions ... but in doing so we have lost part of the very essence of the male character. Another really interesting thing about exhaustion, is unlike other forms of limits, this one has a highly undefined boundary. There is nothing really to make you stop, as Will can keep you going ... as long as you can muster it. I was in new territory, and unsure where it would lead. As many people have done, I had always fantasized that given the right opportunity, I would be totally tough, and execute a wondrous finish to a perfect run ... but now I wasn't sure I could do that; I wasn't sure I had what it takes. Oh yeah the rain ... we had been listening to continuous thunder for the past hour, as the sky was black and in turmoil up ahead. As we approached Tuolumne - our sacred cut-off point, the magical demarcation line where we would exit the world of effort and pain and enter into the rarified world of pure spirit and intent - the rain picked up, then really started coming down. I kept stopping and adding clothes until I wore everything I had, and was still getting cold and soaked. Thus stimulated, my legs showed some spunk and we picked up the pace, running through a full-on hail and lightening storm. Incredibly, Galen had come out in the storm to the trail junction with food for us to keep going without stopping. What an effort! But the ferocity of the storm made even simple conversation difficult, so we beat a retreat to the car, piling in amidst a 6" deep stream running across the parking lot. The time was 6:04 pm. We were still right on! For now. We decided to drive a half mile to a Cafe to dry off, regroup, and wait for the storm to subside. But the Park Service closed the highway! It was a river ... fist sized rocks were washing across the pavement, hail was piling up like snow ... a scene of carnage. We drove back to trail head, and dashed inside a building to discuss the very suddenly shifting situation. It was ... The Perfect Storm. I looked at Peter. This guy was incredible. Peter has a Ph.D. in Physics, and is one of the most methodical and calculating people I know. Now, he was totally committed, totally focussed; he just wanted to get back out there and keep going. He was one of the smartest guys I know, and yet he had but one thought left in his brilliant mind: keep running. Just do it. Thunder crashed and shook the building. Rain pelted the windows. I looked at Peter again ... and tears came to my eyes. "I can't go out in this", I said. And it was true. "I'm sorry, but I can't go out in this". Tears were now running down my face as our suddenly shifted circumstances sunk in. Everything we had been focussed on so intently was instantly changed, without our ever having a say in it. It then sunk in to Peter also, who resisted this shift more than I. This storm was so intense, even if we put on everything we owned, mere physical survival was questionable. There was actually no doubt. We might survive out there, but we certainly couldn't run. There was no way possible we could hit 4 days. It was ... The Storm of the Century. Three weather patterns had combined to make this the greatest storm ever: 1. Buzz and Peter were trying to set a record. The Mountain Gods often frown on such thinking, and punish it without remorse. 2. I had been complaining about the heat and dryness for days, and sometimes wished for a little rain to cool things off. Again, this is something one should never do whilst in the Throne Room of the Mountain Gods. 3. We were at one of only two road accesses on the whole route; if a killer storm were to catch us, this was the only place where it would be safe, where we could seek shelter. If this same storm had come elsewhere, we could be in real trouble. Interesting. We could wait the sucker out and then continue. But since were going on almost no sleep, we had to finish at our planned 1 am time; going the whole night without sleep was not possible at this stage of the game. But there was no place to sleep; setting up a tent in the thunderstorm was too much, and 4 of us in the car would have been difficult. This was a drawback to the "balls-to-the-wall" approach; there was no fall-back position. We did have a cabin reserved down in the Valley for that night ... our crew had been through so much, I thought this our best option. So we finally trundled into the car after the highway reopened, and drove for hours down to the Valley, spending the night in the place The strange thing is, at this point we could have driven to San Francisco, eaten some sushi, caught a movie, driven back, gotten on the trail, and still get under the existing record. As for myself, I suddenly realized I didn't give a rat's ass about the record. What I really cared about, was the SPIRIT of our attempt: the passion, the commitment, the boldness, the creativity, the teamwork ... the exploration in a very visceral way of what was humanly possible. The "Record" was a number; an abstraction. The feeling I had shared with Peter, of going all out, taking it to the limit ... that was beautiful, that's what I cared about ... and that was over. The next morning, after a 12/ 1/2 hour break from the trail, but only 4 hours sleep due to awkward logistics (next time we want an RV!), we started back out from Tuolumne Meadows. It was an outstandingly beautiful morning. Steam rose off the creek as the snow melt waters were warmer than the cold air. Frozen hail still covered the landscape, and we thought how impossible it would have been to navigate this last night, with hail covering everything. We casually sauntered along, and for the first time admired the flowers, marveled at the granite domes, appreciated the Yosemite high country than the trails' namesake, John Muir himself, had so vigorously championed. What a guy. Way back in 1874, when Nature was the Enemy and mankind did his all to tame, change, and push back the forces of nature, Muir was in his beloved Sierras during a huge windstorm. So he found the tallest Douglas Fir he could find, climbed to the top, and rode out the windstorm as the tree swayed back and forth over a radius of 30'. He later wrote "...all Nature's wildness tells the same story - the shocks and outbursts of earthquakes, volcanoes, geysers, roaring, thundering waves and floods, the silent uprush of sap in plants, storms of every sort - each and all are the orderly beauty-making love-beats of Natures heart." With about 10 miles to go, we were still at 9200 feet, and the outlandish Yosemite Valley suddenly opened up below, with Half Dome towering improbably in the distance. I was enjoying our morning's walk, and happy to see these sights in the daylight hours, but my thoughts had to turn to last night, and "what if" ... what if that storm hadn't come in? What if we found ourselves right at this point, on or behind schedule? Downhills are both our specialty; I live for and pride myself on the blazing technical descent. With 10 miles to go, 4,200 feet to drop, in the middle of the night, no sleep and behind schedule ... it would have been Glorious! But could I have done it? What would my limit be? Would I have had what it took? Interesting. I asked Peter if he thought we would have made it: "Very interesting". Very interesting it was indeed. Buzz Burrell Boulder, CO 8/6/00 For a preview, check out: http://www.bouldernews.com/recreation/articles/30gcen.html For photo's, wait until late Monday or Tuesday and then check out: www.dimensional.com/~buzz/JMT