Any kooky memories from that crazy day?

[bluerail]

It's not that often that my body gets to hurt that much and then amaze me by continuing to work.

The pace and effort in that second trip were very memorable, thanks Ze.

Rick, real nice getting to hike with you and GigaMike and very glad you and Micheal made it down the easy way. Very big congratulations.

Zip, your a freak.

[Florian]

Mtnmama, i didn't realize Fernando was on the trial yesterday. He's one of the people i love bumping into on the Skyline. Sorry i missed seeing him.

-Florian

[Zach]

We had all kinds of crazy things happen... from the stories of what fire the burnt wood laying along the trail came from to finding a couple sleeping in the desert as we so queitly passed their campsite with Fernando yelling to us to keep it down as there were people trying to SLEEP..

HAHA!! That was me, Erich and Brandy!! They got tired and wanted to stop for a break. That would have been some strange camping with only water bottles and a jacket. I was laying off to the side when you guys passed.

[tinaballina]

Maybe not strange, but after going all out for 90 minutes, having pulled off 25000 feet of elevation gain, using up every last ounce of strength left only to get to the upper tram station to find locked doors ... ummm ... yeah that was probably the most memorable part. Guess they were pretty serious about the 9:45pm time. I got there about 9:45 and 30 seconds. I could hear the tram running. Thankfully things worked out in the end.

Perhaps the strange part is after the kind tram operator let us in and we didn't yet know if we'd get a ride down ... I didn't really care. I had succeeded in reaching my goal. I think I was just thankful I wasn't going to freeze to death on the back porch.

Thank goodness you guys were able to get down. huge congrats to you on your triple, nice work. It was great to finally meet you.

Zip, congrats to you as well on a successful triple mission. i gotta tell you that second round was a rough start. it took me two hours to get into it, i felt nauseous and my legs felt so heavy. i felt bad because i wanted to make my brother-in-laws first skyline trip a memorable one, not one of me puking while i baked in the sun. Luckily i held composure, ran into giga mike, steve and greg (or craig) after that i was fine. i wasn't moving fast but it wasn't as hard as the first half in the direct sun. Now back to strange things on the trail..as we are leaving bfr to do the last 15 minutes stretch, out of no where comes three runners running down the steepest section and chatting up a storm. this was about 3pm, i didn't even ask them what they were doing, at that point of the day i didn't much care...my goal was the bar.

Zach, it was a pleasure running into you.

[Ellen]

Howdy All

I felt much better about suffering in the heat on round two after talking with Tina about her experience. I never became nauseated (thank Cod) but I did feel that I would melt into a blond puddle between 3 and 4 K.

Another humorous memory:

When we met Stellar Jay in the Enchanted Garden, she asked what was ahead. Walt started out with a somber description of the grind up the ridge to the 5 K point, the downhill, and the Never Ending Ridge. He finished with, "On the Never Ending Ridge, you'll drop slightly to a rock that looks like a tombstone with faded writing on it. As long as you can pass that rock, you'll be OK." I lost it

Miles of smiles,
Ellen

[Walker Sky Ranch]

It was really nice meeting many of your on your way up as our RMRU team was working our way down!

[Zé]

another weird thing was anypoint on the trail i ran into someone i didn't know, they were asking if i was doing the 'double'. it's like everyone on the mountain that day knew about the back to back. someone i don't know told me they found out about my 'times' while on the summit of San J? lol

[tinaballina]

This is priceless:
http://gigamike.smugmug.com/2009-Pictur ... 8200_3oThZ
[url]

Gotta love my tree. i have a star for it that i will place on top when i next visit it.

[zippetydude]

Zé: I found that too! I'd come across someone and they'd ask if I was one of the people doing it twice. I don't know how they heard about it. I even had a few people say, "You must be the guy doing it 3 times?" How'd they know? Did I look that tired?!

I can just hear their conversation before I catch up to them:

"Look at this guy. He looks worse than all the rest of them. Man, he looks like carp! He looks so bad, I bet he's on his third attempt!" Ah, well. Life is humbling at times.

Still, I found it added to the sense of community on the trail. Everyone was either doing it or rooting for those who were, so it was a friendly point in common.

Tina: I still haven't seen that tree. Your directions from that time on Forsee weren't quite clear enough. As I recall, you said, "You know where there's that rock, and then there's a tree off to one side? That's where it is!" Steve just looked at me blankly and didn't say anything at the time. I'll come across it one of these times.



z

[Rick Kent]

Zip, you definitely didn't look tired to me! You made it look way too easy. You also may not know how close you were to being the only one to do the triple. After you topped out I remember thinking ... damn ... I can't compete with this guy ... might as well not even try. Took quite a lot of mental discipline for me to leave the festive mood at the tram bar.