As the plan has evolved the goal has stayed the same, finish the challenge in under 24 hours. It appears that we will be starting at 6:30 pm.

The journey will cover roughly 135 miles of road riding which will start in Badwater, California at -282’ below sea level. The ride will continue to the Whitney Portal and we will dismount from our bikes and start the hike up to the summit. Mt. Whitney sits at 14,505’ and is the highest point in the lower 48. The ride alone will have 14,819’ of elevation gain and the hike will ring in at 7,153’ of elevation gain. Making the 24 hours total elevation accumulation sit at or near 22, 044’ with roughly 146.55 miles traveled to reach the summit. To end our day back at Whitney Portal will have knocked out a cool 156.94 miles in total.

Planning session #1

This session was a basic meet and greet for the team members that are unknown to each other. We covered previous 14er experience, riding experience and medical qualifications. Andy (team leader 1) has put together some great logistics and planning by way of spreadsheets and shared it to the group file. We learned that the time and distances were based off of Russell’s previous ride. At that time he chose to camp at Lone Pine and hike Mt. Whitney rather refreshed. He will be offering sag support for our group along with Chris; they both will be hiking the mountain with the team.

After the meeting I secured a motel room for October 5 through October 8. This will coincide with the day of our arrival and run through the day after we summit and act as a base camp for the MST Adventures team. Andy has secured a room in Furnace Creek for a pre ride nap to prep for the start and all night ride.

Training

Everyone is training on their own at this time and the riding experience is varied through the group. We created a Strava Club to help with motivation and see how much everyone is riding. I will be working on some “sweet spot” training and hill work outs from Fascat Coaching for my preparation, in addition to continued trail running.

Route

We will be following the main road (CA190) from Badwater, Ca to the Whitney Portal, Ca. Once at Whitney Portal we will follow the Classic “Whitney Trail” to the summit and back.

As I write this I am just a little nervous about the totals. They are intimidating to say the least. Stay tuned as the plan unfolds.

Fundraising

We will be fundraising with this ride for NextStep. Please see below the Update page for links.

Get the Ride Kit Here

Support the Team with a Shirt Purchase Here!

The current Team for this challenge consists of 5 riders from Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and California and 2 supporting members for the sag wagon, who will join the team as pace setters on the hike.

Updates below keep scrolling!

Update: Training, Road Closures, and Fundraising

16 days before our start.

Training: it’s a funny thing. With a known end goal and the proper amount of time you can train for anything to be a “finisher”. When I started my “training” I was already 11 weeks out from the start. So I opted to get some coaching from FasCat Coaching. I started with a Sweet Spot 6 week program. This is based off of your FTP score to find your estimated 60 minute power (in watts). Some numbers are added into the Training Peaks and presto you have a program you can mindlessly follow. It has made training boring but efficient. I added a few fitness checks along the way to gauge how I feel and to act as moral boosters.

Fitness Check #1: Oakflats XC MTB race. This was a fast paced xc mtb race. I rode the intermediate category or Cat 2. I managed to eek out a podium finish in 2nd place for my age group. It felt good to steal souls all day as I cruised the course.

With that race in the books I was pretty stoked with the training thus far. I train roughly 1-1.5 hours a day with a long day or two on the weekend. The program calls for a group ride on the weekends, since I normally do not ride the road I don’t have a roadie click to group ride with, the races have become my “group ride”.

Fitness Check #2

Albuquerque Dirt Fest, Day 1: This is a 12 hour XC MTB race, that I rode on a team. We placed 11th at the end of the day. Each lap was roughly 12 miles and I rode 4 for the team, Dustin rode 3, and Rhys (grom) rode 2, due to a crash and injury. We had a great time though.

Day 2, of the Dirt Fest I ran the 10k trail race. This was a fun race and it helped me gauge nutrition from two days of work and overall fatigue. I took second place overall for the men, and 3 for the whole field. A gal fast as lightening took first. This was another successful weekend and my fitness seems on track.

Dirt Fest 10k 2nd place overall. My kids celebrated with me.

Road Closures: For the third time this summer the road in and out of Death Valley is closed. It has been a crazy weather year. The first closure started with a summer monsoon rain that dropped 17. inches of rain in like 2 hours in DV. This washed some roads out. Next it was a hurricane that traveled up the Baja, and its tentacles dropped more rain in DV, again washing out roads. Now a third rain event has come and washed roads out. According to the park officials the roads will open soon, they have stated that they are back filling the lost pavement with gravel for the time. Sweet! you can read a fun article about these events here.

Fundraising: The group collectively decided that we were going to try and raise some money for an amazing non-profit called Next Step. They help those in need in the paralysis community to live a healthy, happy, and independent life. This is done via life changing rehab accessible and affordable for those with paralysis.

I would love to reach our $5,000.00 goal. You can learn more and donate below.

Learn more / Donate NOW!

Pre Game

It started like any other adventure, with a long drive. I left Albuquerque in the rain, and I was happy to get headed west. I drove straight to Bishop, California where I met with our TL Andy, and sag support Russ for dinner. After plowing through some great pasta, we headed up to our lodging for the evening in Big Pine, Ca.

There we met with a few additional members of our hiking team and sorted gear for the next day. Our plan was to meet Joe, our ride leader, the next morning and park my truck with the hiking gear at the Whitney Portal in preparation for our arrival the next morning. We would then shuttle into Death Valley National Park to start the ride.

Death Valley National Park still had major road closures listed on the website that affected our travel to Badwater Basin via the shuttle bus. These closures were due to the historic monsoon season the park experienced earlier this summer, which washed out several roads. We hoped that they would only minimally affect our ride once it got started.

The drive into Badwater Basin was uneventful and we all continued to hydrate as much as possible in preparation for the ride. They say you pack your fears, and we were heavy on food and water, no one seemed to pack extra legs. Badwater Basin is a cool place, there is a salt flat that stretches for quite a distance from the parking area and you are backed by a tall ridge. Looking closely, you can see a sign 282 feet above you marking sea level. This area gets a fair amount of visitation and many walk out on the salt flat to get a feel for this unique area. We arrived at 6 pm and began to get our kits on and bikes setup. It was still 104 degrees as the sunset.

The Ride: Strava

Departing Badwater Basin at 6:19, we rode for about 30 minutes until we turned our lights. We all had a bit of nervousness and our pace was a little faster than we anticipated. But it sure felt good to get some wind through our helmets. We all took turns on the pace line and settled in to a rhythm that felt good. Our first check point was Furnace Creek, there is a cool hotel there surrounded by beautiful palm trees. We stayed on the main road, loaded bottles, and grabbed additional water and nutrition and headed back out. We continued this leap frog the rest of the ride. We took a long pause at midnight when we arrived at Emigrant Campground. This was a great place to rest and eat. It also has a nice restroom and water spicket, where we refilled our large water jug.

This was where the first road closure was located (Town Pass). As we remounted our bikes, we waved good bye to Russ, and headed through the road closure. In preparation of this section, we knew we would be with out sag support, or phone reception so we packed extra food, water, and repair gear for the bikes. We were three days out from the full moon, and the sky was clear, so once we crossed the barrier, we turned off the lights to conserve battery power as we slowly climbed up Emigrant Pass. Along the way we could clearly see a lot of piled rocks on the sides of the road from the monsoon rains. It was as if NPS or Cal Trans had taken a snow plow and pushed the rocks to the side of the road. There were piles 6-7 feet high!

We stopped at the crest and donned warmer gear and added the extra lights. Based on the rock wash on the way up we determined that the way down would probably have more road issues so we decided to take it “slow” and with as much light as we could through forward. After a few miles and began to see sections of the road that was coned for safe travel. They would direct us from the right lane to the left lane to the center and back again, as we passed washed out and undercut sections of the road. A car would have had a hard time traveling this section but it was no problem on our bikes.

When we caught up with Russ we were just outside of Panamint Springs. This marked the next pass to climb. This was a little more challenging due to wind but we continued to move forward. It was cold at the top when we met up with Russ, which was just passed Father Crowley Overlook. 49 degrees I believe, what a temperature swing! I was ok with the cold, it kept me shivering, which meant I was still awake. I sustained some heavy eyelids on the climb up in a few places.

Our plan for the next closed section of CA 190 was to try and see if we could ride through, it would be daylight and that meant construction would be taking place. On a previous scouting mission, Andy and Russ had chatted with some CAL Trans employees and they said you could come through from Darwin. As we arrived at the next closure, we met a great guy who was flagging traffic. He told us that we would have to wait until 8 am for a pilot car to take us through. It was 6:57am. That didn’t sound too bad to us. So, for the time being we made some coffee, ate, I took a 10-minute power nap and Andy rolled out. We were in the home stretch…for the ride that is. With the sun up everyone had a little more pep in their step.

Once the pilot car came, we set off, it was nice to roll through the construction area with not much traffic. It seemed that the monsoons had washed out several culverts and a few parts of the roadway. The Cal Trans folks had their work cut out for them. We could see Mt. Whitney in the distance and our anticipation for the hike was building. We need only finish the last climb from Lone Pine to the Whitney Portal, which would prove to be rather challenging.

Riding out of the Owens Valley from Lone Pine to Whitney Portal, the mountains explode upwards at a staggering degree. Simply put, it is impressive. The ride up has an average grade of 7.7% which was intimidating to drive let alone ride after already covering 100 plus miles and 10,000 feet of climbing. We all collectively decided to ride this monster at our own pace. We spoke with Russ and determined our rest stops for water and to cool off. He would then traverse back and forth between the high and the low spots as we all rode at our own pace. Ice water on a cotton towel stuffed around my neck and into my jersey was clutch to climbing this monster at lunch time. Small incremental goals allowed me to visibly see the progress I was making as the climbed turned from 7% to 8% to 12.5%.

I rounded the last corner and the Whitney Portal was in sight, I could not help but smile. What an amazing accomplishment just to do the ride. But all along I knew it was only half of the adventure. Climbing off my bike I was happy to rest in the shade of the tall pines at the camp ground with Joe. Andy would soon be arriving and we would then start the hike.

Andy and Russ were not far behind, as we later learned Andy bonked out pretty bad on the climb up in the heat. He was tapped out with only 2 miles of the ride to go. He could no longer push the pedals around so he hopped in the van with Russ and met us at the top. We decided that it was best to head out in the morning for the hike up Whitney.

Hot tubs and cold pools make for a fast recovery tool and we took advantage of them at the hotel in Lone Pine after smashing a whole pizza and platter of salad each. Crashing at 7:30 pm we set the alarm for 4:30am and called it a day.

The Hike: Strava

We met Joe the next morning, and started up the trail. The first mile was a little stiff but all in all, I felt great. It was refreshing to be out. The sunrise was rather beautiful as it hit the sun faded granite mountain above us and the soft fall colors along the trail made happy hiking up. We stopped a few times here and there but mostly it was hike for 50 rest for 10, and move along. By the time we got to Trail Camp Pond we all had consumed between 2-3 liters of water. Which was not too bad, so we filled up and headed for the 99 switchbacks. Mt. Whitney Trail is an easy trail to hike, and it’s punctuated by a few landmarks, like Trail Camp, 99 Switchbacks, and the John Muir Trail intersection. All of which have wonderful views.

We hit the summit at 1 pm and took a few minutes to rest, eat, and grab a picture before we started down. We moved with deliberate ease and before long we were back at Trail Camp filling water again. This was an interesting place as many folks were settling in for the evening in preparation of hitting the summit in the morning. Trail side chats with other hikers became an enjoyable part of the journey down and helped pass the time. Before long we were descending in the dark under the full moon with headlamps. The trail has a level of steepness to it you don’t realize in the dark. You can see the campground (camp fires) below and it made me think we had quite a bit further to go but the optical illusion is that the trail head was coming up fast and so was the end of this journey.

Lowest to Highest was completed late in the evening without fanfare.