September 14, 2002 – 24 miles
On Friday at work, I considered what I would hike on Saturday and started thinking about Kings Peak. I remembered on my first backpacking trip there, that we saw a guy day-hiking it. He took all day, but did it. It is normally a three-day backpacking trip. I have hiked it twice. The more I thought about it, the more I thought I could do it in one day. I finally decided to do it and asked Linda if it would be OK. I would need to be back home on Saturday by 4 p.m., so it meant that I would have to start hiking VERY early in the morning.
I left home in the evening and traveled to Fort Bridger to spend a few hours resting in a motel. On the way I went to Wal-Mart in Evanston and bought a headlamp and other stuff. It turned out that I hardly slept at all that night. I was too hyper to get going. At 2:30 a.m., I finally got up and prepared for the hike. I drove the 30 miles to the trailhead at Henry’s Fork. When I pulled up at 3:30 a.m., another guy was starting out. (I wasn’t sure how far he was going to go). I quickly got on the trail, wanting to be well ahead of him. (It turned out he wasn’t trying to go all the way.)
The temperature was cool, in the 30’s, and I hiked in a sweatshirt and shorts. I did my best to jog on the fairly level stretches. The first six miles was through woods and it was challenging stepping around all the rocks on the trail, in the dark. It felt neat to travel so far, so fast. As I reached the open marshy areas, the ground was frozen which made it easy…no mud to deal with. The moon was out and it was peaceful and eerie, hiking and running on the trail. I didn’t see a single person on the way up, except in the distance waking up at campsites. As I passed Dollar Lake, I was amazed at how well I felt and how quickly I reached that spot, which normally is a full-day’s hike for the backpackers. As I neared Gun Sight Pass (about the 11-mile mark), the sun started to rise. Snow appeared in places. As I was hiking up the trail to the pass, I started to stumble with poor balance. I felt fatigued. I concluded that I had a mild case of hypothermia, so at the pass I broke out the long pants and coat. I warmed up, ate some, and felt much better.
I then pushed ahead and hiked through the cutoff, following all the trail markers, and winded around to the Highline Trail, at the foot of Kings Peak. The sun came up nicely, but I soon hit snow. It became deeper and deeper. I started to slip, fall, and then had to hike in a foot of snow. I pushed ahead the best I could almost reaching Anderson’s pass, but concluded that I would have to turn back. It was 8:30 a.m. and by my calculations I was out of time. I took out the cell phone, got a nice signal and called Linda to let her know that I was on top of the world, just a half mile from the summit.
I turned back and made good time. Near the end of the cutoff, as I approached Gunsight Pass, I ran into two hikers. They were stunned to see me coming down. I let them know what the conditions were and gave them directions though the cutoff. I tried to explain that I had started off my hike from the parking lot, but I don’t think they believed me. At Gunsight Pass I ran into two other groups. They also were greatly surprised to see me. I changed back into shorts, took off the coat, and began the ten-mile hike/run back to the car. I saw a few groups and they gave me funny looks as they watched me run by.
With about six miles to go, my legs and knees were complaining. I did my best to keep up the pace, but just couldn’t keep it going very fast as the pain would rise. I thought the last three miles would never end. I was drained from not eating or drinking enough, but after a couple days had recovered fine.