Bighorn Trail 100, June 17 2005 Beth Epstein, crew & pacer On June 16-17, 2005, I helped crew and pace Kim Gimenez as she completed the Bighorn Trail 100 Mile Endurance Run. This was Kim’s third hundred miler. She won the women’s race in 27:19, a new course record, and placed 7th overall. The event is a tough, well-organized mountain race on a beautiful course with remote aid and challenging weather and terrain. Ordinarily I don’t submit summaries of ultras, but because there is so little information available about this wonderful event, I wanted to make the work of future crews and runners a little easier than mine. This report is a bit of a ramble. At the end I’ll list Kim’s approximate splits as well as references that I found useful. Planning and Crew Logistics Wyoming is a long way from our home in Long Beach, CA, and just arranging to visit the area was an adventure. Kim’s primary pacer, Tim Downing, grew up just over the Wyoming border, in Hardin MT, and we were lucky to have help from his family who came down from Billings. We flew into the closest major airport in Billings, rented a 4WD car and drove down to Sheridan, Wyoming for the medical check-in on Thursday, the eve of the race. We chose to stay in Sheridan, 20 miles from the start and finish in Dayton. Sheridan was the location of the check-in and award festivities and had a variety of lodging, stores and restaurants. It is an easy drive to Dayton, which argues just as strongly for staying in Dayton or the nearby town of Ranchester so you can hang around after the race, or access your lodging during the event. Either one works well. I do wish we had scheduled more time in the area to inspect the course and see some local attractions like Kings Saddlery in Sheridan, the Little Bighorn Battlefield, the Cloud Peak Wilderness or Yellowstone. The surrounding area as well as the course is varied and beautiful. The race management had thoughtfully booked a few blocks of discounted rooms at some of the Sheridan hotels, which was fortunate since the dates coincided with a Biker Chick rally in Sheridan. (We got a little less sleep than we would have liked on Saturday, but more than we expected!) Planning the crewing and pacing for this race is a puzzle. First you have to get a big mental picture of the course, and it takes some time correlating the maps, aid station list and course description before you get a handle on the geography. Bighorn is an out and back course which starts at the base of the mountains on the southeast side, climbs northwest out of the Tongue River canyon, over some ridges and down into a second canyon, the Little Bighorn River, follows that canyon up to the high point of the course, then drops slightly to the turnaround at mile 48. You reverse the route on return, finally running back past the start and into the town of Dayton. There are essentially 3 major aid stations which can be crewed, and where drop bags can be accessed. Since it is an out and back course, in theory you can visit them twice. The first major station is Dry Fork, at mile 13, after the first big climb out of the Tongue River drainage. The second major station is Footbridge, mile 30, after the descent down into the canyon of the Little Bighorn River. The third is Porcupine Ranger Station, high in the mountains, where the runners turn around at mile 48 after ascending the Little Bighorn Canyon. On the return, Footbridge is mile 66, and Dry Fork is mile 82. The hints are there, but no one really comes out and says that crewing all the major accessible aid stations is pretty nearly impossible with one vehicle. The first station, Dry Fork, is in the middle of the mountains, accessed from the west. To reach the second station, Footbridge, you have to drive out of the mountains to the west, completely around them on the south to their eastern edge, up a road best driven by a someone with high clearance and little emotional attachment to the appearance of their car. To access the third station, Porcupine, from Footbridge, you must return to the western side of the mountains, so you have to exit to the east, circle back around to the south, then drive north past the first station and into the mountains from the west again. Then the course reverses, and goes back to the eastern edge, then back to the western side, etc. Because there are no published splits, it took some imagination to realize that it might be physically impossible to reach the second station, Footbridge, from the first, Dry Fork, by the time your runner arrives. The RD confirmed this at the check-in, describing the sight of disappointed crews arriving at Footbridge. Luckily for us, finisher Charles Hansberry wrote to the race website’s message board with his estimated splits from his 28:44 finish in ’03 (remarkably, he has improved his times by an hour every year). Thanks Chuck! It took him about 3:15 to run from Dry Fork to Footbridge. The estimated driving time was 2.5 hrs. Hmmmm. We looked at the times of past race finishers and compared the times of folks we knew had run the same events as Kim, and judging from their times, estimated that Hansberry’s time would be close to what she might do, so we based our planning on his information. The race starts at 11 a.m. Friday to allow the 100mile /50 mile /50k /30k runners to all finish together before 9 p.m. on Saturday. It became clear that in all likelihood, Kim would be running the tough section from Footbridge (mi 30) to the turnaround at Porcupine (mi 48) and back to Footbridge (mi 66) at night. The race directors accommodate this by allowing runners to pick up a pacer at mile 30. We mulled over the options and finally decided that Tim would drive his family’s car up the west side to Dry Fork and crew Kim at mile 13. I would drive up the east side to Footbridge and crew at mile 30. Kim would run without a pacer from Footbridge to Porcupine. After crewing Kim at Dry Fork, Tim would drive to the other western station, Porcupine, the turnaround, where he would leave his car and pace Kim from there. They’d run together from Porcupine (mile 48) back to Dry Fork (mile 82). We’d skip crewing Footbridge at mile 66. Instead, after crewing at Footbridge on the outbound, I would drive to Dry Fork, get some sleep and take over pacing from Tim for the last 18 miles. Tim would pick up the rental car I left at Dry Fork, drive back to Dayton and see us at the finish. This worked well except we were all exhausted when we had to make the long (but spectacular!) drive back to fetch the car Tim had left at Porcupine. I expect people could arrange ridesharing to accomplish all this more efficiently. Many people travel a long way without crew to this event, or can’t access as many stations as they’d like because of all the driving. Fortunately for everybody, the aid station volunteers on this course are great -- experienced, good natured and proactive. That is what allows so many people to run this race successfully without crew and pacers. This year’s winner, Jeff Browning, ran unsupported and came closer than anyone has to Brandon Sybrowski’s astounding course record. The aid stations make it possible. Because we were still uncertain of our plans at the deadline for leaving drop bags, all three of us left drop bags at the possible places we’d need them. Kim had extra shoes in each one, Boost, snacks, varied drink mixes and electrolytes, dry shirts and basic foot care and contact lens supplies in each. In her Footbridge bag she left the warm clothes required for the nighttime ascent to Porcupine. Crewing and Pacing the Race The 11:00 a.m. start on Friday was a little disorienting…what, no layers to shed? No 3:00 a.m. breakfast? A real chance to sit on the loo? I thought it was great to be able to sleep in but for Kim it was just 6 more hours of fretting. The 9:30 a.m. pre-race meeting allowed us to get answers to all our last-minute questions, then the first challenge of the day: finding the start. The written driving directions were good, and a caravan of vehicles headed up Tongue River Canyon in a cloud of dust. The disadvantage of the 11:00 am start is that if it is going to be hot day you are in low elevation canyons in its midst. If afternoon storms are coming, they’re not far off. Weather, as in most mountain races, is a serious and somewhat unpredictable challenge. The preceding weekend it was snowing in the Bighorns. For the two weeks following this year’s race, it rained. The night before the start, we had spectacular thunderstorms. The morning of the race, a valley fog hung in front of the eastern escarpment. The prediction was for hot weather and sure enough I recognized the Bighorn equivalent of our Southern California temperature inversion. Kim started the race with a bottle and no camelbak, planning to pick up her pack at Dry Fork, mile 13, in the event of afternoon showers. It stayed hot throughout the race, unseasonably hot, and many runners suffered from it. Every other year they have had freezing temps during the night. This year everyone ran in t- shirts. Some runners ran out of water between Dry Fork and Footbridge. Kim found one runner lying in a stream trying to cool down. After the start, I returned to Dayton, bought a coffee and prowled through the used bookstore, where much to my delight I snagged a copy of the Custer biography Son of The Morning Star (excellent background reading for the area!). I then drove way too fast to Footbridge and made it in about 1.5 hours. The driving directions are adequate but the mileages are funky. Until I reached the 45th parallel signpost I wasn’t entirely sure I was in the right place. The mud holes and fords were deep. The canyon was beautiful. I arrived early and enjoyed watching the frontrunners come in and the aid station at work and had just turned to get something from the car when Kim arrived 45 minutes ahead of our estimate. Yikes! A crew nightmare barely averted. In the ensuing panic she left without enough food and hit a metabolic low point on the way up the canyon. The remote aid stations can’t carry much in, so runners should carry food between Footbridge and Porcupine. Realizing Kim was ahead of schedule and her pacer at Porcupine might also be caught unaware, I decided to make the drive up to Porcupine. This is a winding mountain highway and can be slow going. It took me about 1.5 hours out of Dayton, again driving too fast. When I got there, Tim was getting ready. The Porcupine station was a welcoming place, hot soup brewing, lights shining, people mingling, radios crackling. No need to set up an individual station for your runner here – best to lead them into the welcoming arms and chairs of the volunteers. Runners arrived looking like they’d done a mud run. Between the snow and the snowmelt, they had. When Kim arrived she changed shoes and shirt, ate and took off with Tim. They headed up the snowy trail and immediately missed a turn, but recovered quickly and headed back into the nightlong mud fest. It was now almost midnight and I, too, was beginning to regret the 11 a.m. start. I headed off for Dry Fork where Tim had crewed earlier in the day. He said it was not too far. My reading of the directions was problematic here. There are two Forest Road 15’s signed to Dry Fork Gulch. The correct one is on route 14A immediately north of its intersection with Route 14, practically on the transition road between them. Needless to say I took the wrong one and didn’t recover as quickly as Tim and Kim. After narrowly avoiding a collision with a moose and her tiny calf on a dark, lonely dirt road, I decided to backtrack, finally arriving at Dry Fork at 1:30 a.m., and got 4 hours of sleep in the back of the car before one electrical device or another began to beep. It was a relief not to have to face the prospect of driving any more for a while. Although I was anxious while waiting for Tim and Kim to arrive, at least I could relax and not have to worry about getting to another station. There is the potential for many hours of waiting at these stations, and it is a good chance to talk to other crews and the volunteers and their families. Once I got to chill out at Dry Fork I regretted spending so much time rushing around. It is a long pull up to the Dry Fork aid station from Footbridge and you can see the runners coming for miles but no one had optics refined enough or eyes good enough to tell who was who. Your heart goes out to them coming up that long hill, and then all of a sudden you are on your way with them and heading up the next hill. Kim was having blister problems but didn’t want to linger for repairs. In retrospect I wish we had. Gaiters after mile 13 might have helped. Because of the condition of her feet it was hard for her to run much of the last 18 miles, but I still had to jog to keep up with her walking. I have no doubt she would have broken 27 hours if her feet hadn’t been such a mess, so you can probably use the rest of her splits for that time. If you have a chance to pace this course, do it – this last section was Sound of Music country, riotous with flowers. I was stunned to see what it was like, even though I had spent the previous day driving around every inch it. Two particular surprises were the way the course would sometimes just take off up a hill even though there was no apparent trail, and the steepness of the descent into Tongue River Canyon. My only complaints were the overlap of the different races – the 30k runners come flying by on the steep stuff and many don’t know how to warn you when they want to pass -- and the seemingly interminable road into the finish in the heat, which one runner aptly called “a gravel treadmill”. After the Race The post race festivities and barbeque in the park next to the river were like your favorite small town Fourth of July picnic with the addition of a massage tent. We hung out for a few hours but then had to retrieve the car at Porcupine. We returned to Sheridan, showered and taped feet, pulled ticks and had a great steak dinner at the historic Wyoming Rib and Chop House. The next morning we went to the pancake breakfast and awards ceremony (awesome pancakes, Kiwanis, thanks!), picked up the last drop bags and headed back to Billings for our afternoon flight. Folks were incredibly friendly and helpful everywhere we went. This race raises money for the Sheridan Search and Rescue organization. I can’t believe it nets them very much given the expenditures for supplies and transportation, and the effort put into the event from volunteers from many local organizations is outstanding, far outweighing anything you could pay someone to do. It makes you remember what the best parts of our country’s small towns are about and deeply grateful to everyone involved. Kim’s approximate splits: Dry Fork mi 13 - 3:15 hrs Footbridge mi 30 - 6:40 hrs Porcupine mi 48 - 12:45 hrs Footbridge mi 66 – 18:00 hrs Dry Fork mi 82: 23:00 hrs Trailhead mi 95: 25:45 hrs Finish: 27:19 hrs Although not many reports exist, the website and the message board are very good resources, and Kim corresponded with a runner she met at another event, Katy Cotton, who had run and placed in previous years, and was running again this year. I also found the following links useful: Excellent summary: http://www.vhtrc.org/forum/bighorn-dodds.htm This account scared Kim: http://www.cartegic.com/BH100-04.htm 50 miler but interesting: http://www.nttr.org/assets/bighorn_mountain_wild.pdf Great photos: http://www.dclundell.net/running/photos/2004-06-18_bighorn_trail_100/ More photos: http://community.webshots.com/album/194177118hTsEeO Cool split calculator with programmed Bighorn distances: http://www.trailrunners.net/tools/splitMaker/index.html