Updated the table and profile through Baxter Pass Trail. Awaiting another ping–Sean should be at or near Woods Creek Crossing.
I did a little bit of homework since the last post, so that I’d know what I was talking about.
First of all, for those that don’t know, Sean set the FKT on the Tahoe Rim Trail last year. Trip Report here: https://www.scribd.com/document/272681637/Tahoe-Rim-Trail-FKT-Trip-Report
Second, I spent some time doing some (enjoyable) reading of Andy Bentz’ TR to see what I could glean from his splits.
Now, back to Sean’s attempt: Looking great so far. He was atop Glen in 13h 58m. Andy Bentz reporting taking a one hour break at 13h elapsed. Andy was one mile from Glen Pass when he took the break.
So, it’s safe to say that Andy didn’t summit Glen Pass until 14h 20m or so, and therefore atop Glen, Sean was ahead of Andy (caveating it with the fact that at that point, Andy had taken a one-hour break, of course, and Sean had not).
Andy’s hiking speed was pretty much dead even with Leor’s through Donahue and only vary while each one slept. Other than that they were identical.
After looking over Andy’s splits, I tend to agree, more or less. The two are quite different in background and experience; Andy just came off 2,660 miles on the PCT, while the JMT was the longest outing Leor had ever done, to date.
One might conclude that Leor is nearly mortal for multi-day efforts, but I think his recent Sierra High Route clearly shows that to be an absolutely foolish notion. I suspect Leor could shave quite a few hours off his JMT time if he was interested in doing it again.
Andy’s time is phenomenal, as evidenced by the fact that it’s stood up to multiple challenges over the last couple years. Perhaps more so than Leor’s, when you consider the pack weight and the lack of support.
Thanks for the thanks, Bob!
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