Travel back in time to mid-November, 2010
Ryan: “Hey Spencer, want to do a 40 mile cross country ski race through the Elk Mountains?”
Spencer: No.
(15 minutes pass, browsing the Elk Mountain Grand Traverse (EMGT) website and reading stories from past racers.)
Spencer: …alright, lets do it!
And that’s how it begins.
Zoom back to present
I wake with a jump and a constant throb in my head. –What just happened?– is the first thing that resonates in my cloudy brain. I took a look at my surroundings, quickly realizing what happened and where I am. After six and a half hours of skiing, I’m nearly to the high point of the 40 mile Elk Mountain Grand Traverse, not quite half way. And despite my best efforts, I had just fallen asleep while sitting on the toilet.
Stumbling out of the rustic back-country outhouse, I immediately run into Ryan, my race partner, and for the last couple of hours, the electric prod to my slow bovine butt. “Were have you been man? Are you okay? We’re about to miss this checkpoint and the next one as well… let’s go!”
You see, I’m in Bonk Town. The Pain Cave. Hurts-Ville. FML Land. My body has completely run out of energy and even the slightest excursion catapults me into oxygen debt. And if it wern’t for Ryan’s prodding, I would have likely layed down to sleep several miles back, missing the quickly approaching deadline.
Ryan’s prodding isn’t overly forceful. In fact, the average bystander might not have even noticed it:
“Let’s stick with this group.”
“Ready to go?”
“We’ll rest at the next creek.”
“Perhaps we should go ahead and have an energy drink.”
But to me, hardly able to complete a well structured sentence, each syllable felt like a jolt to my already cached gluteus maximus. And it helped. If it wern’t for those gentle pushes and the idea of Nicole and my mom waiting at the finish line, I would have ended the suffer-fest a couple hours back. Back when my vision began blacking out with each heartbeat.
At least I’m a bit better rested now. Time to go.
Fast forward 10 hours
After nearly 17 hour (16hrs 43min, to be exact), we finally made it to the finish line! My body and mind aren’t quite sure what to do. Where do we go next? (no where). When is the next checkpoint? (there isn’t one). Should I throw on my skins? (for the love of all things holy, no!). After spending the day – and night – dreaming of doing nothing but sitting down, it seems like a insignificant afterthought now. I can’t even begin to comprehend that the race is over.
After bonking at the Friends hut 10 hours ago (7am), we made the next cut-off at the top of Star pass, had a hot meal at the bottom, and I started to mount my comeback. Energy began to drip into my tired legs, my heart beat re-synced with the rest of my body, and the perception that Gumby’s body was better suited for the EMGT than mine faded. By the time we hit Taylor pass, I was feeling good. Real good.
We powered up Taylor pass (smaller-than-expected), over Gold hill (larger-than-expected), through the Barnard hut checkpoint (spirit-lifting), and onto Richmond ridge (spirit-crushing). By the time we were within sight of the Sundeck at the top of Aspen, I was in a must-finish-now trance, gracefully pushing through the pain. Until we were told that we had five minutes until the 4pm deadline at the Sundeck.
I probably should have mentioned that despite having carefully packed around 12-15 lbs of gear each – including two GPS devices – a simple watch did not join us for the 40 mile gaunt. Check-in time at the Sundeck for Team Yardsale: 3:57pm.
The 3,000ft decent of Aspen went about as well as you’d expect a 3,000ft decent of Aspen to go after 16 hours of cross-country skiing. My gear was better suited for the downhill sections than Ryan’s, and while I dropped knees on my lightweight tele-touring setup, Ryan tried to coax his back-country Nordic gear into cooperating, bending a binding in the process. Responses from the Aspen skiers to our unconventional clothing and ski choices were mixed… I’d say that slightly over half the skiers responded with confusion and hesitation (most people wearing fur fell into this category… and most skiers at Aspen wear fur), while slightly less than half responded with impressively enthusiastic cheering (including a particularly lifting group of a father and his five children).
Enough of the past, back to the now. We finished. We’re done. Challenge complete.
What’s next?
Ryan’s Perspective
Ryan has also written up a trip report from the EMGT, and did a great job sharing his perspective. He’s also posted all the EMGT photos on Flickr. Check them both out!