Santa Rosa Traverse in One Day-Unsupported

[zippetydude]

Although I'm no fan of Bobby Knight, I do like this quote from him: “The will to win is not nearly as important as the will to prepare to win. Everyone wants to win but not everyone wants to prepare to win." I think he hit the nail on the head. My first complete Skyline was after I had done successive cache planting up to 3000', 4000', and 5000'. And that was in the fall, after I had already run a number of marathons and ultramarathons. On huge undertakings, huge preparation is required. Just jumping into something might work on a kooky 3 mile mud run, but 41 miles of madness would never have happened. The cool thing about it is that even the prep is a ton of fun when you're out in the wilderness. Yes, it takes effort, but I don't recall ever returning from a hard run, mountain bike ride, or even hike/run up Skyline regretting having done it. The wilderness does that to you.

z

[cynthia23]

I"ll simply ditto what others have said here about a very impressive feat, and, as you and Zip say, the 'behind-the-scenes' conditioning work needed to make it happen. Kudos to you. btw, coming down the dirt road, did you see the blue boat? There is a big forty foot boat somebody dumped off the dirt road at about 5k, in what seems to be an informal dump for Pinyon Pines. It's hidden in the brush, but the weirdest sight in the world once you spot it. It's not often you see a boat on a mountainside. Maybe it's the ark?

[Robert Hunt]

Z, that is a great quote and a great description of what it really takes to do something on the order of Skyline. I heard a similar quote just yesterday from the legendary American miler Steve Scott after he paced a kids mile event that my son ran in. He was asked if it was difficult to run a sub 4 minute mile and his reply was "No, because I was training to run a sub 4 minute mile." At the event, I was talking to a record holding 800 meter runner about his training and I gotta write that I think I like my training better by far! You are so right that no matter how hard a trip in the wilderness is, I've never regretted having done it.
Thank you Cynthia23. At 5k, we were in fog so thick we almost couldn't see each other so I didn't see the ark (boat on a mtn-haha). I sure hope dumping there isn't an ongoing thing.