Check this out:

http://www.geocities.com/pbakwin/gannett.html

Both of them are highly accomplished ultra-distance runners, among other things. I think Burrell was part of the first team to run the Colorado Trail.

Edited by jswan on 12/31/2004 11:21:29 MST.

Yes, they are very accomplished to do what they did on Gannett (and other notable achievements).

Being a far cry from a "highly accomplished ultrarunner", a partner and I did a one day ascent of Gannett in 2003, sort of. It would be more appropriate to call it a "single push" or "campless" climb. It was a far cry from a "run" and we actually moved fairly easily most of the way.

We left the trailhead at 8 pm, arrived at the base of the climb at 4 am, summitted at 8 am, back at the base at 10 am, hiked until 11 am, and then took a nap for FOUR hours in the warm sun! This was key! Then, we started hiking again and were back at the car by 10 pm, for a round trip time of 26 hours.

We wore trail runners and Kahtoolas for footwear and used trekking poles (one with a BD whippet) all the way to the summit and back.

We did take a canister stove and a Foster's Lager can for a pot to brew tea and cook a hot meals, Aqua Mira to treat water. I took a light wind shirt, Wild Things EP Jacket, windstopper gloves, powerstretch beanie hat, and a pair of GoLite Reed Pants as my extra clothing, and wore Cloudveil rodeo pants and a smartwool shirt.

Which route did you do?

This is another example of what we can do when we think out of the box. However I notice two interesting facts.

1. The second is not protected on a traverse while much slack accumulates in a static 5mm kevlar (Spectra?) cord. I hope the leader is providing a very dynamic belay or this would be a death fall....

2. The caption reads on the decent of the same class 5 slabs that they repelled from a single 5mm cord. Did they leave it!!? Bad form.

Just my observations. dellrazor.