C2C Sunday May 18th

[Mountaingoat]

Hi all,

Did my regular routine. Wait for the tram guy to open the gate at 5:30 drop my bike at the tram. Drive to the museum, get on the trail.
Today though it was already 82 when I started at 6:00, little to late for a hot day like that. Ran into a guy right out of the gate, believe his name was Jack. At about 1800 ' this guy (Fernando) just blasts by me running never saw him again. Shortly after I ran into the 2 guys from Seattle. Then before flat rock I passed a group of 3 younger blokes, seemed to be going strong. About 1/2 mile below coffman I ran into Tinaballina and her friend Mark. Liked his british accent. Made it to the tram at 11:30 had a could one and took the tram down to pick up my bike and ride down to the museum. Boy was that ride hot. I thought my ears were going to burn off!!!
Anyway all in all a great hike 5 hrs 25not bad with that late a start.
It was very nice meetn youall!!

Berne Mettenleiter

[Marknhj]

Tina and I left at 4.07am yesterday. It was 80 when we hit the trail but felt hotter en route to the picnic tables. Made it there in 30 mins, the cairn at 4300' in 2:55 and Flat Rock in 5:00. I'd started to feel it after 4:30 and had already consumed 2 liters of water/gatorade. We stopped for 15 mins at Flat Rock where Fernando showed up and we had a nice chat. Headed off and my legs felt very heavy. Berne caught us below Coffman's Crag and we had another enjoyable conversation.

Then the fun began for me. I felt horrible, no comparison at all to my first time up two weeks ago. No dizziness or nausea but my legs appeared to have morphed from muscle, tendons and ligaments to cylinders of lactic acid attached to my hips. I literally had to stop every 25 - 50m to rest for a minute. Tina, who has now done Skyline 4 times in 16 days including her back-to-backs and 5:22, appeared to be on a Sunday afternoon stroll. She hung back and offered encouragement of the tough love variety (!). To me, it seemed like an entity of indeterminable origin had showed up on the mountain and had stretched out the last section, while also cranking up the incline a significant few notches. A friend who had come up to give us a ride back to the cars came down to Coffman's Crag (he sent me a few texts en route, my last reply included a brief and somewhat vulgar description of how I felt). He had some water which I drank, making my total consumption on the hike 5 liters.

I made it to the top in 7:55, one hour longer than my first time and all that time was lost in the last section. Got home, jumped in the pool and decided never to do Skyline again...lol

[tinaballina]

LMAO, that was a great description. You did good, keep in mind the temp was jacked up through the roof yesterday so that didn't help with our ascend. It is our own fault, who other than a couple of newbies decide to hike one of the toughest trails in 110 weather.......can you say DUMB ASSES. It was a good day though, thanks again for the hike.

Bernie, it was a pleasure meeting you, glad you enjoyed your cold one.

[labgloves]

Mountaingoat:

I am one of the three younger blokes you passed before flat rock. I am the one that was wearing a brightly colored long sleeve shirt. It was nice to meet you. And, you are very kind to say that we were going strong. We certainly took our time, but had a great day. All three of us eventually made the summit.

We started walking from Ramon Rd. at 4:15 AM. We started out pretty consistently and made it a bit above 4000' feet in ~ 4 hours where we were passed by a very fast guy (Fernando I assume). Another fast guy (Mountaingoat) passed us a bit later closer to flat rock. Two of our party felt pretty good, and the other was hurting a bit so we took a number of breaks between flat rock and long valley. Somewhere in here we were passed by an extremely fast girl on her way up. When we got to long valley we ran into her again as she was on her way back down!!! With the extra breaks towards the top we did not arrive in long valley until 1:30, but I feel very confident that I could do it in 8 hours or so.

After a brief stop at the ranger station, the three of us split up and went to the summit via the long valley trail at our own pace. I reached the summit with one friend, and then descended very quickly as I was responsible for recovering our car from Ramon Rd. I stashed a bike at the top of the tram the night before but didn't need it because I met a very nice fellow (and long-time Skyline veteran.) on the tram who offered me a ride back to Ramon road. My other friend reach the summit a bit later and the two of them descended together. And I returned to the tram parking lot shortly after they got off the tram.

We all enjoyed the beautiful views of the city at night, the desert and the nearby mountain ranges. We also enjoyed the wildflowers and the pleasant breeze that followed us all day.

[pdforeme]

ah, so much to say, tempted (for tinaballina) to say I'm a legislative aide to Sen Cantwell and after the "feedback" going to jam some wording into a parks bill restricting the trail

Better to say....first our effort on the trail.

We had planned to be rolling at 330; with a few checkpoints en route. Instead we were moving at 415. My climbing buddy was slow early into it, and i thus forced our pace a bit. He then got some nasty leg cramps but tried vainly via water, electrolytes, gels, salt packs etc to power his way through it. He was hurting pretty badly by 7ish, say around 2000 foot elev. At 3100 i made the call to reverse, calculating it would a miserable but survivable descent. We each had about 5 quarts of water at that point.

The return was uncomfortable, and from the picnic tables pretty hellish. I pushed my water and reflective umbrella to my buddy and he got better, and i muscled through the heat. wow.. we even passed a short day hike guy under a rock at say 800 feet....he assured us 3x he was fine and that he had water. We finished at about 11am. My gps showed about 7.75 mi rt.

Learnings..
a) buddy didn't train enough, and had trouble w/ the 78-85 degrees we were hitting.
b) I knew he didn't train enough but i wasn't cold and calculating enough to kill the hike. (we had pre purchased tickets....no choice to postpone)
c) Weather rules, same as in snow, so does heat.
d) I was fine, and i think w/ some pain could have topped out at the tram.
e) but buddy system pays off; we set some checkpoints and I made the right calls
f) I've never (i think) bailed, and this was good learning for me....especially when i'm used to gauging "am i a wimp or is this a real problem" but now i was in the role of "i really don't know if i can motivate him past his problem, so i have to make the call ...now

Were we stupid or foolish? I dunno.
-- we have almost 2 gallons of water
-- a "saved us" solar reflective backbacking umbrella (guides on Rainer swear by them)
-- gps w/ full track from that geocities website (thank you whomever uploaded those)
--on con side, we should have taken the tram and done some round valley excursion.

For any readers pondering why we tried this. Well i love to hike, and I also find most hikers really great people.

Kudos to Mountaingoat....he was screaming up the hill, but slowed to talk for a brief amount of time. It cost him nothing to slow down, but also was invaluable in helping my buddy (help me) is self assessing his plight. Mountain goat roughly said, "you better save something for that last 2000' or so, that's really steep) (buddy immediately said, ok, lets go down). And also mountaingoat was smiling, pleasant, and fun to talk to. You reminded me of an acquaintance, Phil Ershler (go ahead, google him).

brickbats to tinaballina...she blew past us and never slowed. Someday you'll need help and wonder about those times you were the buff and amped up one, but gee, now you need help. (its of course a lesson to me when i fly past the new immigrants in Seattle testing their tennis shoes on the ascent to Camp Muir.)

Thanks all for the advice. I'll be back in the Fall. It was a pretty trail and I look forward to making it to tram station

[drndr]

pdforeme, unless I'm missing something it sounds like you're giving a dig to tinaballina. Could it not have been her? You started at 4:15 and she started at 4:07 with a friend. She has always had great trail manners in my opinion. Maybe I misread your post.
D.

[tinaballina]

i am kind of puzzled here, i did start with mark at 4:07 and i think we were the first ones on the mountain that day. we only ran into two people whom passed us, mountain goat and fernando. there was never a girl that passed us up either. i would never go up the mountain without saying hello to anyone. on top of which when i am on the mountain people always can hear me, i don't tend to hold anything in, meaning i am not the quiet type.

[Marknhj]

pdforeme, unless I'm missing something it sounds like you're giving a dig to tinaballina. Could it not have been her? You started at 4:15 and she started at 4:07 with a friend. She has always had great trail manners in my opinion. Maybe I misread your post.
D.

I wondered whether I'd misread the post as well. It certainly wasn't Tina, we started at 4.07am and at 7:02am were at 4300'.

[labgloves]

I think I can stick up for a few people here:

pdforeme - you must be referring to the extremely fit blond girl who passed my party between flat rock and the top of skyline. I chatted with this girl twice, once when she passed us and as we topped out and she was on her way down. She seemed like a pretty nice person to me. Anyway, I think tinaballina (who I never ran into - we started 9 minutes later from Ramon Rd. and moved slower) is off the hook.

Also, I don't think you were stupid or foolish. You and your climbing buddy gave it a go, decided it wasn't your day, made a good decision to turn around and got back safely. I've bailed on plenty of routes and stomped home determined to finish the route at a later date. Good luck in the fall.

[tinaballina]

[quote="labgloves"]I think I can stick up for a few people here:

pdforeme - you must be referring to the extremely fit blond girl who passed my party between flat rock and the top of skyline. I chatted with this girl twice, once when she passed us and as we topped out and she was on her way down. She seemed like a pretty nice person to me. Anyway, I think tinaballina (who I never ran into - we started 9 minutes later from Ramon Rd. and moved slower) is off the hook.

Thanks labgloves....i can't believe we didn't run into you guys, we were not far in front of you, would have been nice to meet you. i appreciate you defending me, i was kind caught off guard here with pdforeme, someone of whom i have never met.
Anyway, hope to see you on the trail in the near future.