Leor Pantilat – Sierra High Route FKT attempt

Off trail, over mountains: only with Leor would you say “38 miles to go, so he should finish by tonight”!

The SHR is on-trail now down to Tuolumne, which I expect he will run at a good pace if he’s feeling good.    But from the Gaylor Lakes, there are >20 miles off-trail, until the last couple of miles.   I think if he gets over Horse Creek Pass at 6 miles to go by dusk, he should be able to follow the drainage down, even if slowly by flashlight.   Obviously he will be keen to get there by tonight – it would be frustrating to have to wait until daylight just to do the last few miles.

Should be an exciting finish.   I’ll be online today, I will try to update, although his SPOT signal was flakey yesterday.

169  Tioga Rd
174  Mine Shaft Pass
181  Sky Pilot Col (Shepherd Crest)
189  Horse Creek Pass
195  Finish

From Erica on Leor’s Facebook page:

“He sent a text from Tuolumne meadows ~7:30am. He’ll try to hit the custom message a few times today since now he knows SPOT is being spotty.”

So, 26 miles to go as of 7:30am. He is truly world class, but to me the most impressive part of this is that I’m pretty sure he could go even faster if he had to. He is going to break the FKT by a huge margin, while not moving for about 10 hours each night.

He just pinged from Gaylor Lakes just beyond Tuolumne at 9am.  So he’s leaving the trail,  about 23 miles to go, 11.5 hours of daylight.   Looking good to finish this evening.

Past Conness at noon!

17 miles to go, 8.5 hours of daylight.

At 6pm Leor was approaching Horse Creek Pass, about 7 miles to go.  2.5 hours of daylight.   The last 6 miles are downhill, and the last few pick up a trail.  He’s looking certain to finish this evening now.

8:05 PM HE’S DONE!!!!!!!!
NEW FKT in the books!

Wow!  Quite impressive considering the rather extreme off trail terrain, the limited night travel and the not so easy navigation- congrats Sir!

Boy, I’m late to this party… Leor posted a TR yesterday (https://pantilat.wordpress.com/2016/08/14/sierra-high-route/), and I wanted to come here to post it. I should’ve known this bunch was spectating all along!

Outstanding and incredible. I’ve been putzing around on the SHR this year. 4d 16h 45m is herculean. Hats off to Leor!

I’m even later to the game.  To me, what’s even more impressive than the feat itself is the (credible) sense his trip report gives that the point was to experience the full aesthetic force of places he was passing, swiftly, through.  (On the other hand, if he was pursuing the sublime, why did he contrive to extract himself just as the Perseid meteor shower was taking it to 11 . . .? )