2014 14er Speed Record Attempt

[I fall a lot]

I think the biggest attribute all these guys have in common is the propensity to be able to suffer for long periods of time which is mind boggling. Hoping Andrew keeps the momentum going! Love watching stuff like this.

Agreed!

[rob runkle]

I think the biggest attribute all these guys have in common is the propensity to be able to suffer for long periods of time which is mind boggling. Hoping Andrew keeps the momentum going! Love watching stuff like this.

No doubt... That's an Ultra runner trait. Not sure I have that either. Too scared to try and find out. 26.2 sucks bad enough. I'll stick with that...

[zinj]

Okay, now for some unfair armchair quarterbacking (which is the best kind):


From where Andrew exited the trail to take a direct shot at Handies (closest mark: 7:38am Elev: 11665 ft), we're looking at 2377 vertical to the summit (9:16am Elev 14042 -- using his data, not the 'official' elevation). That's what he has to gain regardless of route.


We don't know how straight Andrew tracked, but his route from 7:38 am to summit at 9:16 am is showing as 0.76 miles. There's probably a little wiggle in there, so call it 0.8 miles. 0.8 miles over 98 minutes (1.63 hours) = 0.49 mph.

Tapping out waypoints on a satellite photo, I APPROXIMATE the standard route from the trail closest to Andrew's 7:38 at 2.5 miles. That's probably accurate to no better than 1/4 mile or so (which is a pretty big error as % of distance traveled but this is back of the envelope, so bear with me). If he were to take the SAME amount of time -- 98 minutes (1.63 hours), he would have to move at an average pace of 1.54 mph to cover the ground so that both vesions of Andrew meet at the summit at the same time.


Could Andrew have banged out 1.54 mph on the standard route? That's a brisk pace going uphill, but that trail is very good, so I think he could have. Would it have been more energetically taxing? Hard to say. Certainly per-step the standard route is much less exertion, but there are 3x as many steps to take.

The question here is: What is the optimal route on Handies for time? It could be ascending and descening by different routes, but I've poked at only the ascent here.

[unclegar]

Somebody please give Andrew a cool nickname. Cave Dog -- Cool! Homie -- Cool! Andrew -- boring and forgettable.

Hammie Dog

o.k. maybe not so great.
Seriously though, I'm enjoying watching this just as I did watching Homie. Best wishes and prayers for safety for Andrew. Very cool to sit at home and follow along. Go Andrew! errr Hammie Dog!

[Phill the Thrill]

Somebody please give Andrew a cool nickname. Cave Dog -- Cool! Homie -- Cool! Andrew -- boring and forgettable. I will be hiking (and cheering) Andrew on this morning in the San Juans around Handies and S/R. SJ Ron

Ham Bone!

[zinj]

Somebody please give Andrew a cool nickname. Cave Dog -- Cool! Homie -- Cool! Andrew -- boring and forgettable. I will be hiking (and cheering) Andrew on this morning in the San Juans around Handies and S/R. SJ Ron

Ham Bone!

I like Ham Bone. But it's gonna mutate into Bone-head or Ham-ster.

[GreenHorn]

We don't know how straight Andrew tracked, but his route from 7:38 am to summit at 9:16 am is showing as 0.76 miles. There's probably a little wiggle in there, so call it 0.8 miles. 0.8 miles over 98 minutes (1.63 hours) = 0.49 mph.

Tapping out waypoints on a satellite photo, I APPROXIMATE the standard route from the trail closest to Andrew's 7:38 at 2.5 miles. That's probably accurate to no better than 1/4 mile or so (which is a pretty big error as % of distance traveled but this is back of the envelope, so bear with me). If he were to take the SAME amount of time -- 98 minutes (1.63 hours), he would have to move at an average pace of 1.54 mph to cover the ground so that both vesions of Andrew meet at the summit at the same time.

Using your figure of 2377 feet, he averaged nearly 1500 ft/ hr over that 98 minutes. That's an impressive figure. I think if he can manage that on the more direct (steep) route while shaving off a mile in each direction it's the more favorable route in an endeavor that will total in the hundreds of miles. Those saved steps add up over 10 days.

Also, if both versions of Andrew met at the summit it could unravel the very fabric of the space time continuum.

[zinj]

We don't know how straight Andrew tracked, but his route from 7:38 am to summit at 9:16 am is showing as 0.76 miles. There's probably a little wiggle in there, so call it 0.8 miles. 0.8 miles over 98 minutes (1.63 hours) = 0.49 mph.

Tapping out waypoints on a satellite photo, I APPROXIMATE the standard route from the trail closest to Andrew's 7:38 at 2.5 miles. That's probably accurate to no better than 1/4 mile or so (which is a pretty big error as % of distance traveled but this is back of the envelope, so bear with me). If he were to take the SAME amount of time -- 98 minutes (1.63 hours), he would have to move at an average pace of 1.54 mph to cover the ground so that both vesions of Andrew meet at the summit at the same time.

Using your figure of 2377 feet, he averaged nearly 1500 ft/ hr over that 98 minutes. That's an impressive figure. I think if he can manage that on the more direct (steep) route while shaving off a mile in each direction it's the more favorable route in an endeavor that will total in the hundreds of miles. Those saved steps add up over 10 days.

Also, if both versions of Andrew met at the summit it could unravel the very fabric of the space time continuum.

Yes, 1500'/hr is a great pace. It may come down to what pitch he is optimized on. I find that I outmaneuver my usual climbing partner on moderately steep slopes and can settle into a zone where I can go and go and not need a break. His little legs can't match it. That said, he's sometimes faster on really steep pitches -- his optimal pitch may be more climb-ey than mine. Of course, on flat stuff it comes down to who feels like jogging (or more typically, not).

In light of Andrew's data, if I were ever to try this (and no, it's not going to happen due to a constellation of lifestyle issues and missing knee cartilage), I would be tempted to fast-step it up the long-loop trail and then descend more directly like Andrew did down the slope.

You end up doing the same amount of WORK in the sense of ascending to the same spot -- but the actual calories expended and exhaustion experienced would be impacted by the style of movement the climber is most efficient at performing.

Interesting to think about...thanks Andrew for being the Guinea Pig (I wasn't aware of Homie's attempt until the very end, so missed following his saga).

There's another nickname - Guinea Pig...perhaps Pika would be better?

[justiner]

I'm still amazed that the pace of CD, Homie and Andrew can be so close, and, at least in the beginning, the route so similar. It may take a breakthrough with a different route plan to get a faster time, perhaps. The Silverton Train and Culebra sure make things difficult . Got no ideas, myself.

[justiner]

Somebody please give Andrew a cool nickname. Cave Dog -- Cool! Homie -- Cool! Andrew -- boring and forgettable. I will be hiking (and cheering) Andrew on this morning in the San Juans around Handies and S/R. SJ Ron

Family Guy.

[jdorje]

I'm finding the Delorme tracker somewhat confusing...less so since I switched it to topo layers...possibly because A-Ham keeps checking in with "I am on top of a peak" from trailheads and towns.

But anyway, it looks like he summitted Handies at 9:16, or 1:04:46, a bit less than an hour behind Cave Dog.

CD's San Juans time (just under 48 hours) was phenomenal. I think Homie might have been even faster? But both ran into huge slowdowns later: CD lost ~24 hours due to snow on the Elks, and Homie lost many hours after an ankle/foot injury in the Blanca group, which eventually forced him to abort. With such close pacing, luck-heavy factors like that will likely determine if the record can be broken.

John, do you have a list of all your peak (or trailhead) splits? Looks like peak splits are more useful for comparison, since we have definitive check-ins.

Oh, one other question: if you do a check-in with spot, it does not get a timestamp from the GPS. If you check in at 8:30 and the message doesn't go through until 9:16 (a common scenario), it shows the check-in timestamp as 9:16. Anyone know if Delorme has the same bug? If so that makes split comparisons very inexact (which they soon will be anyway as the peak order will diverge).

Cave Dog times:
Sunshine - 1:07:45, corresponds to 12:15 PM today
Redcloud - 1:08:25, corresponds to 12:55 PM today
Uncompaghre - 1:12:39, aka 5:09 PM
Wetterhorn - 1:15:05, aka 7:35 PM
San Luis - 1:22:01, aka 2:31 AM
End San Juans - 1:23:54, aka 4:24 AM

[zinj]

@justiner -

I'll bite. It's fun to think of alternate routes. I think you HAVE to start up in Chicago Basin, 3000 ft below Windom/Eolus (only 1 ft apart in elev). Anything that puts the this group later will require a substantial (and time consuming) in-hike. Don't see any advantage to starting on the East or North slopes of the group either. Weiminuche forces the climbers hand on this one to starting in Chicago basin.

Which means you're stuck dealing with the train, which totally shuts down any opportunity to innovate with radically different (earlier/later) start times.

But what if....Sneffels is the second target AND you traverse it, starting Yankee Boy and dropping down the North side toward Blaine Basin. Pre-positioned (human-powered) mtn bike at 11,150 ft you use to drop 1,800 ft to East Dallas Cr TH where your motor team is waiting for you. [EDIT: this is probably outside the rules? Using wheels on what is supposed to be hiking track is kind of against the spirit of the challenge)]

I see that saving ~50 minutes of drive time (30 Yankee Boy - Ouray (4:40a-7:19a points) and (20 Ouray-approximate point where route 62 meets the track up to East Dallas Cr TH (1:46a-2:06a when they were driving the opposite direction).

You don't get all 50 minutes, of course. You give back whatever it takes to drive 9 miles from East Dallas Cr TH to route 62 (Ouray County Rd 7). You also sacrifice any extra time the Blaine descent costs vs the Yankee Boy descent (if any???) and, of course, your arms get tired on the mtn bike. Also, this is going to give you a much later start on the Wilson group which is not ideal for visibility

This alternate would then run the Wilsons in reverse of Andrew's track, exiting via Kilpacker, going over Ophir pass to Silverton and then ton Cinnamon Pass, which are all roughly in line from this approach, but covering no more or less total ground than Andrew's road routes. You do get a bit longer contiguous road travel -- if the hiker is a passenger from Kilpaker, over Ophir pass to at least as far as Cinnamon pass entrance, could be useful sleep time?

I'll bet Andrew considered some variant of this. Would be interested to know how he eliminated this option.