John Muir Trail Record Attempt 22-July

"the problem is you can't tell if it is working or not till you get home."

That is the general problem with any one-way device. No feedback.

Spot probably says to keep it on the outside simply so that you can see that the antenna is oriented toward the sky. I think lots of people who use these things keep it in an outside mesh pocket or a dedicated pouch on the outside.

–B.G.–

Sounds like Leor Pantilat is starting this Friday, supported. He's bringing a Spot.

It's very simple with smartphones providing you've got network coverage at some stage.

Create an Instagram and Strava account.

With network coverage, turn Strava on and take an Instagram photo. The photo syncs with Strava so you can see the location on the map with the photo below.

If you don't have network coverage, do the same as above but the photo's will sync to the last track recorded.

Depends on how much battery you have but I might walk 100 metres and take a few photo's every day.

Allen – where did you hear about Leor ?
I had heard rumors but wasn't sure.

He posted it on Facebook yesterday. He's looking for support crew and pacers to help out…

Great! Leor has been talking about it for a couple years – glad he's going for it. He definitely has cred. Can you post his spot link here when available for those of us who are not FaceBoogers. Thx.

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0MG361q5uXV1UdPxUbNskRVB0XHsJL7PQ

Leor’s SPOT Link

Looks as if he's been underway for about 1.5 hrs…

Of course this really isn't backpacking or hiking, but it sure is entertaining! I'll be checking in obsessively for the next 4+ days……………..

I think Leor is going for the 3 day 12 hour record.
Look for him to finish by 7 PM Monday night if successful.

To make following his splits a little easier, I plan to update this CalTopo map with Leor’s arrival at notable points on the trail.

The timestamps will be (obviously) relative to his start.

Going to be eating a lot of popcorn this weekend…

Super! Thanks for the effort.

3:05 to Whitney summit??!!!

HOLY MOLY!!!

"3:05 to Whitney summit??!!!"

That's a pretty respectable time.

The fastest that I ever walked up to the summit was 4 hours 15 minutes, but that was when I was much younger. Plus, I was the slow poke. A guy with me went up in 3 hours 42 minutes.

–B.G.–

Hal & Mike did 3:36 to the summit. Hopefully Leor isn't starting too fast!

Looks like Leor reached Pinchot Pass in 17h30, then had about 4 hrs rest near the Taboose Pass jct.

Fingers crossed

Dave

Leor is seriously moving! I'm definitely rooting for him, I think he's got a great shot at the FKT – he's been tearing it up in the Sierras for a while now…

Check out his blog at http://pantilat.wordpress.com/

Update: looks like he's at Mather Pass at 8:33am so 25:33 elapsed time.

At Mather Pass Leor is about 2 hours ahead of the splits that Aaron posted on the first page of this thread, which were for a finish 1-2 hours under the current record. Plus, he got a 4-hour rest last night. His SPOT is working great! Go Leor!

Allen,

I’ve never met Leor, but I’ll second your recommendation–his blog is awesome. It’s how I became introduced to some of the crazier stunts you distance runners do. For example, he would run loops that it would take me five days to backpack, and he’d do it in a day! Amazing!

Really, I have the utmost of respect for all of you in the community.

Back to his blog; his photos are outstanding. I still go to his blog for trip ideas.

Here’s a linked version of his blog for those on tablets/phones: http://pantilat.wordpress.com/

And back to his FKT attempt; he’s about two hours ahead of Aaron’s proposed splits (on page 1), and has been since around Glen Pass…(edit: Peter beat me to the punch, above)

The CalTopo map is updated through Mather Pass, where he is now.

Update: apparently Leor has now gone insane and is entirely off the trail and going in circles.

Either that or his spot has gone wackadoodle…anyone want to guess which it is? his spot track is starting to look like a 5 year old's etch-a-sketch…

Peter said "His SPOT is working great!"

and then this happened

I guess he's just moving so fast the satellites can't keep up ;)

Dave

If you study this, most of the time when the satellite track seems to go crazy it is in a steep location with lots of mountain peaks surrounding it and relatively few GPS satellites in view. The GPS receiver gets temporarily into a condition of multipath interference and the apparent location will jump around by a few miles. Basically, it means that one or more GPS satellite signals are hitting the antenna on a "bounce shot." This adds delay error to some of the signals, and this makes the calculated location appear to be way off.

–B.G.–

Kings River, Middle Fork – ~ 83 miles in ~29.5 hours for ~2.7 miles per hour.

Wow!

Anyone know what when a sleep break might happen?

Well, the first sleep was at the Bench Lake side trail iaw Aaron Sorensen's JMT split times above, so the next might well be Selden, or Edison as in the next table.

I've been educated.

Guesses removed.

See Aaron's post below.

Leor had 4:15 of down time this morning at the Taboose JMT junction from 1:50am to 6:05am.

He was in his sleeping bag from 2:20am to 5:30am and slept good enough.

Legs were a little sore and was having some issues with food going strait through.
The down time seemed to help a lot.

His next sleep will be sometime from Mono to Silver Pass unless he can get over Silver without the need and get 3 more hours at a lower elevation.

Looking at the splits made up for a 3 day 10.5 hour time.
The record is 3 days 12 hours and 41 minutes.

At the top of Muir Pass, Leor was 50 minutes up on the 3:10:30 pace.
Arrived at Muir ar 4:38pm.

The way he's going, if he can hold the pace, he'll be 3 hours up on the record by Happy Isles.
Still a long way to go though!

.