After 3 years of additional aging, I was finally able to beat my own 2015 quintuple Mt. Defiance record and accomplish what I always thought was barely possible: the sextuple Mt. Defiance in 24 hours. The stroll in the woods lasted for 22:39:52 and included 72 miles and 30,000 feet of elevation gain. In other words, it was a decent Saturday. My type of Saturday. Let’s talk about Sundays another day.
Doing more than 29,029ft of elevation gain is called “Everesting.” Of course there is a website for this kind of craziness, but only for biking.
Mt. Defiance trail: 12 miles round trip, 5,000 feet of elevation gain. Commonly considered the most difficult day hike in the region. 6x Defiance = 72mi and 30,000 feet of elevation gain.
(Burning the) Midnight (Oil)
I started my endeavor at the Starvation Creek trailhead at midnight on Fri, Oct 6, 2018. The parking lot was empty. A police patrol car briefly stopped. I tried to look normal, which took some effort. This time I did not need help, but 8 hours later, I should.
I almost pushed this attempt back because of poor weather, but then decided to give it a go anyway. At best it would be an additional challenge to stay dry and warm. It was pouring cats and dogs at midnight. I geared up, manned up, waived to the cops, and headed into the dark as if this was the most normal thing to do on a Friday at midnight.
Based on many training runs on that evil mountain, lots of failed attempts, and endless hours pondering over Excel pace tables, I knew the timing was going to be on the tight side. The average round trip time, including refueling stops at the car, would have to be below 4 hours to get 6 climbs done within 24 hours. Based on my 2015 attempt, I knew this was not necessarily obvious, especially later in the game. I’m no Max King, who currently holds the fastest known time for a single climb: 1h 9m 8s.
It is on!
I don’t often shop for adventures, but if I do, I totally overdo it. That is box one of two full with junk food. It’s not from nothing that I’m sometimes called the Swiss cookie monster at work.
Wet (and not so Wild)
Lap 1 and 2 were wet, foggy, and dark. It wasn’t cold, but pleasantly cool. The only wildlife I saw was a mouse. It was a very peaceful night otherwise, at least once I got high enough to not hear the highway anymore.
I tried to throttle my pace a bit because it’s always tempting to go out too wild. The night and the rain helped to keep me rather slow.
A typical view on lap 1 and 2.
Comforting. Especially when it’s raining hard.
The only wildlife I spotted.
My type of nightlife: the scenic and exciting Mt. Defiance summit.
Reaching the bottom after lap 2. Not looking like a fresh flower and not knowing yet what unpleasantry was waiting for me…
Broken
After getting back from lap 2, I noticed a car speeding away from the parking lot a little faster that one would normally do. As I got closer to my car, I saw the shattered window. My first thought were my four rolls of Pringles. I checked and thankfully they were still there, uff! When it comes to stealing Pringles, my sense of humor ends. Plus, that would have ended my Defiance endeavor. No Pringles, no running. Period. You add Jello, and I go anywhere, well, almost.
As far as I could tell, nothing was actually missing, even though there were lots of things of value they could easily have grabbed. My guess is that I prevented any theft by suddenly appearing out of the dark.
I taped the window to prevent Pringles theft and cleaned up some of the glass mess. That cost me precious time, as you can see from the splits at the end. As I headed out on lap 3, the police patrol car was, coincidentally, parked along the highway and I stopped to report the break-in. But the guy was more curious to know exactly what I meant by going “up and down Mt. Defiance all night.”
Some jerk(s) smashed the window.
Damage control and making sure the Pringles reserves don’t get stolen.
My type of breakfast in bed.
Laps 3 to 5
In a nutshell: I kept moving as relentlessly as I was able to. Surprisingly, I never felt bad or tired. I ate very little and kept my refueling times at the car very minimal: a few minutes in the best case, a bit longer if I ate or drank something hot.
It was nice to see and talk to a few people during the day. They, for the most part, have inspiring and encouraging things to say. It’s always funny to see their reaction when they say “Wow, second time?” and you can say “Nah, it’s lap 4.”
As often on Mt. Defiance, several hikers turned around without making it to the summit. Two turned around near the very bottom because they were scared of slipping on what they called a “vertical” trail. I recommended Dog Mountain instead if they wanted some good vertical gain, but on a much easier trail.
As I descended from summit #5, I crossed a guy who asked how far it still was to summit. I always think that people who ask that question give themselves away as unprepared. It was getting kinda late for a summit and I wondered if he had a headlamp. Knowing that I would come up again, I wasn’t too worried about him.
The weather cleared up nicely and it was cool, but not cold throughout the day.
Summit #5. The thought of another descent, climb, and descent muddied my mood.
I’ve seen this enough now.
Let there be Light (or not)
I wasn’t sure if I had the mind and stamina to really go for a 6th loop, but I could not find a good reason not to as I had plenty of time and didn’t feel tired. It was really now or never, I told myself. So I readied myself for the night, upped my caffeine levels to dangerous highs, and headed out. It got pitch dark quickly.
Sure enough, perhaps 1.5mi into the climb, I encounter the guy who was in the process of trying to descend with his cell phone flashlight. But alas, by then, the battery was about dead. There was no way he would make it back to the car, I thought, so I offered him my emergency headlight, which he gladly accepted. I had spare batteries for my main light, yet, it always makes me a little nervous if an essential part becomes a single point of failure. Redundancy is a good thing.
But thankfully I made it. The last lap was otherwise uneventful. I cruised nicely and it ended up being a faster lap than lap 4.
The drive home is another story. Multiple times I had to stop and re-tape the shattered window. Shortly past midnight I was in bed and, despite the massive amounts of caffeine in my system, fell asleep like a defiant rock.
You won’t see me on Defiance anytime soon again. I probably said that before.
So, who’s next?! Can someone do 7 laps?
Ready to head out for lap 6. I felt surprisingly good, perhaps because I started to smell the barn.
Summit #6. You can see and feel the excitement.
GPS Data
- Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/1890254357
- The Ambit3 was on 1min interval, so it short-logs significantly. The actual distance is 72mi.
Splits
Lap = ascent + descent + refueling
- Lap 1: 3:35
- Lap 2: 3:58 (includes dealing with smashed car window)
- Lap 3: 3:34
- Lap 4: 3:39
- Lap 5: 3:59
- Lap 6: 3:54
- Average lap time: 3:47
As you can see, this time I did a much better job at keeping up my pace compared to the 2015 quintuple record. Perhaps not going out as hard as possible on lap 1 helped. That seems to be quite a common mistake.
Relive ‘New Sextuple Mt. Defiance Record’