John Muir Trail Record Attempt 22-July

[Bob Moulder]

Perhaps they are using a preset GPS route with key waypoints, or a track from from a previous hike.

Surely they are using a GPS to record their track.

Once did an overnight traverse of the Presidentials and the preset route was invaluable in the drizzle and fog.

[Greg Mihalik]

At 7:33 "SPOT Time" they were about 2 miles south of Pinchot Pass, ~ 61 miles covered in 23 hours.

[Billy Ray]

'spot time' ??????

[Greg Mihalik]

"SPOT Time" – the time indicated on the SPOT tracking page. Versus PT or MT or CT.

When I expand the Tracking Progress tab it shows the most current update for point 50 to be 7:51 "Local Time". I'm in Colorado where it is 7:51. I'd assume in California it is 6:51.

So what one sees on the SPOT Tracking page appears adjusted to the observer's time zone.

[Greg Mihalik]

Can anyone tell me how to see the total track?

For me it appears to truncate to the last 50 points.

[Bob Moulder]

At the bottom of the track list, go to page 2.

[Dave G]

There are 50 tracking points per page, to see earlier ones, go to the relevant page using the controls (bottom left)

Dave

[Greg Mihalik]

Yea.

But nothing for the entire route?

The track points keep shifting ahead, so "50" is always the current one. There are, at the moment, 84 points.

[Peter Bakwin]

As far as I know, you can only see 50 points at a time. The owner of the device can download all the track points to a gpx or kml file after the fact, but I believe you have to do this within about a week or the points just disappear off the web. It would be cool if their team downloads the points and makes them available to future FKT aspirants.

As far as nighttime navigation, I'm sure they have excellent headlamps and maps, and perhaps GPS. Navigation on the JMT is easy. When I did FKT runs in 2000 and 2003 we did not have GPS and had basically no navigation issues. That was, in 2000 anyway, with no prior knowledge of the JMT, while Jenn at least has spent a bunch of time on the trail. Both these ladies are very experienced navigating on trails at night!

As far as I can tell they took two breaks of approx. 90min. each last night. This is more than most JMT FKT-ers have taken on the first night, but may serve them well as the trip unfolds (assuming they got some sleep). Whether they are ahead or behind at this point is probably irrelevant – it's what happens in the last 24 hours or so that matters.

Exciting to watch!

[Greg Mihalik]

11:11 am – Mather Pass

Target was 10:45 am, so not to bad.

[Art …]

so my question regarding the Split Chart provided above,
is this chart provided to us by the girls as their target plan ?
or is it provided by Aaron as his suggestion of how this should be paced ?
I'm unclear.
the long breaks last night were clearly not listed on the split chart.

[Bob Moulder]

Current track looks as if they've taken a break… almost an hour at this point.

Oops, never mind… I misinterpreted the coordinates.

Mighty impressive effort!!

[Peter Bakwin]

Well that's weird – I don't see how they thought it would take only 2 hours to do the 13+ miles from Mather to Bishop Pass Trail. It has been over 4 hours already & they're not quite to the jct yet. That's a loooong downhill (4000' vertical).

[Aaron Sorensen]

Peter,
I asked if they wanted me to make up some splits for them.
The Bishop time is way off. Never had a split there and only did because of the resupply.
No way are they going to do 14.7 miles in 2 hours.
Splits will be fine after that. Brett flew through the first few days.
Also Brett's 36:45 up to Muir was with 6 hours of sleep, so I had them getting there 2 hours faster.
I only looked at the 5 hours it should take to get from Bishop to Muir and subtracted that time.
I didn't take in to account what the time was from Mather Pass to Bishop.
Just goes to show you how fast Brett was.

Playing catch up will come in the 2nd half as long as they still feel good.
The sleep areas and time are just there (not where they are going to sleep).
It's just there to take the time off for each night.

Here is a better file with the other times on it.
BM=Brett, H&M Hal and Mike.

Time was for a 2:00am start, but also has a 0:00 time going up on it.

It's spliced from 2 pages so it doesn't look all that great.

.

[Peter Bakwin]

Thanks Aaron! If I got this right they're at Bishop Pass Tr in 33hr more or less, so 3:15 behind Hal & Mike. H&M did 84h12m41s, Sue J. did 92h00m, so it seems like K&J are probably close to SJ's pace. Of course there's plenty of "racing" to come (like 50-60 more hours).

Edit: Sue got to Muir Pass in 38:45, which K&J will likely beat, but Sue slept 4.5 hours the first night!

[Aaron Sorensen]

They are 30 minutes behind Brett's time to Muir Pass.

I think Hal and Mike may still have been virtually ahead of Brett at the time, but not for long.
So Brett got 6 hours sleep and the ladies got 3 or so and are 30 minutes back.

Tonight is going to be a rough night for them.
I hope they'll are still in the fight when morning comes.

[Greg Mihalik]

so… at Muir Hut around 8:17 Pacific Time

[Bob Moulder]

Wow, looks as if they're about an hour away from a 2000-ft climb. Will be interesting to see their time on this.

Whatever the outcome, these are some very impressive athletes.

[Peter Bakwin]

It is now 48 hours since their start and they are paused at the Piute Creek resupply. It's interesting to note that Sue J. left Piute Creek at 48h27m after a 4 hour break. !

[Gordon Gray]

Wonder if Reese Witherspoon could beat them?

[Ralph Burgess]

What's the current thinking on sleep strategy for a 3-4 day attempt like this? Perhaps it's physically better to take frequent short breaks, but mentally I'm not so sure – importance of REM sleep.

[Peter Bakwin]

At Seldon Pass they have dropped slightly behind Sue Johnston's pace. It's a pity there are no updates from the field (from their crew). Well, I'm sure everyone is busy, stressed and tired. Maybe we'll hear something after they pass through Reds early tomorrow morning.

[Art …]

Does this recent strategy of running as a team of two ultimately work for the best ?
Sure its great to have companionship, but this is not like having multiple pacers.
The team can only go as fast as the slowest most down person at any time.

[Ralph Burgess]

Thursday 2pm, approaching Bear Ridge
I make that 125 miles completed in 55 hours at 2.27mph
93 miles remaining – they need to average 2.5 mph to match Sue Johnston's 90 hour FKT

[Greg Mihalik]

"Does this recent strategy of running as a team of two ultimately work for the best ?"

I've never done anything like this…

But it seems possible that by encouraging each other, the lows might not get as low, or as long. So much of this is mind over body that anything that helps you through the dips is good.

Hopefully they are never "in sync" on the lows.

Personally, I'd go it alone. I'm always more comfortable at "my pace" than trying to adjust to someone else's.

[Author]

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