Wilderness 101-the end of my 100 era....

If I've said it 100 times, I'll say it again. The Wilderness 101 is just a classic PA route, and organized great by SMT. This year would be by 5th run at it (my 17th 100 overall), and I've already said this will be my last. Although, I hope to do a little better than my best time ever here (10 hrs), I know that impending stuff going on is probably going to halt my expectations although I have no idea how bad.

I know I need to keep light pressure on my feet these days, so I start off doing just that. This might sound all good and helpful but in reality it is meaning I put pressure elsewhere, namely my butt and hands....so now not only a few hours in are my feet hurting & burning so badly I can barely walk let alone pedal, my wrists are sore/numb and I just can't keep this much weight on my seat, it's killing, even the downhills are not fun this day....and this is some of PA best downhills!!

Along with my agonizing day, the route is also adjusted this year primarily due to the amount of people in the event, forest issues, overuse concerns. SMT is asked to divert 2 rather cool trail sections to gravel roads. One cool thing about the route in past years was the amount of trail vs road, and the super rough terrain of the rocky trails used. This year, the adjustments (albeit better for the forest) did not leave a good taste in my mouth. It was turning into a full on gravel grinder route, just not what I wanted here right now. All this combined and I was losing some time horribly on the last big climb, I got to the last aide (#5) in plenty of time to finish probably at ~11.5hrs, it just wasn't worth the effort now. I was nowhere near my best finish of 10, and the girls I should be near are well ahead. My feet are also at one of the worst points ever, I decide to bail here. I feel upset and wasteful, but I don't have a choice. I can't push through the foot pain anymore like I used to, it is just much worse and relentless. This time, it hurts for days afterwards, that is new. Usually it will go away just after I stop pushing on my feet.

I sag it back and it's still been a long day regardless so like usual I just get some food and bunk it up. Chris (SMT) is the first to give me a disappointed look, ugh, that makes me feel worse! He knows I'm not going to be up with the front girls, but he also knows what I am capable of, here and on other hard rides, even he expected me to beef it up and do better. Unfortunately, I am sticking with my gut feeling, this was my last 100 entry, and sadly my last Wilderness 101:-(

If I'm going to destroy my feet, it's going to be checking out some new adventures & with some much smaller crowds as I want to be IN the forest, not skirting around it due to trail overuse concerns. When things get THAT big (over 300 people??), I really think there is a deeper issue that needs to be addressed than merely impounding IMBA trail standards. There is no reason that 300+ souls need to be trapsing along the same route on the same day for the glory of doing a 'hard race' against the fast peeps w some beer at the end. I have some ideas that could skirt this issue, but that's another post:-)

6HOP-ellicotville, ny

So, once again, off to do a short lap event that I've done several times already in past years, this is my 5th time doing the 6HOP (6 Hours of Power), and like a lot of things I have been repeating...I think probably my last. I need a little more unknown and a little less peeps in my business:-)

I've done this in the past as a Wmn Duo, Solo, and then this is the 3rd time Coed Duo with JP. The past 2 years, we managed to snag the overall Coed Title and we are certainly hoping to keep it this year! They say a Duo comes down to the strongest person being able to make up for the weaker link, so whoever has the strongest weakest team link will have a better chance. Both time before, I felt my weaker half was not so weak, hence we did great. I didn't leave much of ANY time for JP to need to make up, in fact last year I kept quite a few minutes lead on any other women in the Duo category, leaving JP with NO time to make up...so all his time was strictly gain for us. So was mine actually. So while a lot of people might think we held the title for two years solely based on JP effort can bite it....this year though came a little different story. I truly sank to being a weak link....and weaker than the competitions. I did lose time, lots of time, unknowingly more than I even thought. I left JP with a 7 min gap on the last lap and the comp was fast. We ended up 2nd by 2 or 3 minutes, and this year due to my own self. That is a bad feeling to cause your team to lose.

Overall, the 6HOP is fun or I wouldn't have been there 5 times. The course is long enough to be a challenge, yet not so long you need to carry a lot of stuff. There are a million different categories to enter, and every cat gets some sort of reward(!). The only thing I wish they would add is a list of confirmed/pre-reg teams. In general due to the low pay out a lot of fast people do not return to this race year after year. It is really geared towards the recreational level and to have fun, which is all good because there are not a lot of races like that around too much.

Glacier & Badlands Trip-getting over wilderness fears!!

Hiking Swiftwater Lake Loop, Many Glacier Valley-Glacier National Park

Where better to head next than GRIZ territory.
Right of the bat, I will ruin this story by saying I saw NO GRIZ:-(
Did get a handful of excitement by being up and personal with wild/natural encounters of:
bison
moose w/baby
mule deer w/baby
several black bears
wild horses
HUGE rabbits --they look like turkeys(!)
and via binoculars: big horn sheep & babies, and mountain goat & babies

Although there were several spottings of mountain lions on trails I was on, I actually did not have THAT encounter....not really complaining.

In general, I tested out my wildlife encounter coping skills by doing 3 road rides alone, 2 around Glacier and 1 through the North Dakota southern tract of the Badlands. I could not get up the nuts to hike or mtb in the Badlands alone...although the meydahhay was RIGHT friggin there calling my name!! What a loss.
And for 6 days I did a series of all day hiking throughout several sections of Glacier frontcountry....yup that is right, we were not up to the backcountry GRIZ encounter on this trip w/just the 2 of us chix out here alone. Also, we camped in the National Parks section...again pretty wimpy of us, but that alone was pretty wiggy as about only 10% of the campers there are actually in tents....the rest are safely snuggled in their RVs.

It turns out just as we thought, the holiday weekend had the frontcountry well jam packed. But for noise and safety this was ah-okay with us! It also allowed us to each hike some different paces and lengths when we wanted to do some different things as there were plenty of folks out to join up with (you know for that fakey 'safe in a group' feeling!) Lots of great hiking here as we traveled from West Glacier to East Glacier, into the 2 Medicine and Many Glacier valley areas.

2 Medicine is an awesome less traveled section, much quieter & just as scenic w some great hikes to either elevation or on lower level loops. Many Glacier is much more populated as 2 lodges are present, and in general trails string out in more directions as the valley is a little larger. West Glacier (MacDonald) didn't get much attention from us as most of the trails were layered still in feet of snow and at the time a few were also closed due to an aggressive big cat caught stalking some poor souls.



Teddy R. National Park 40mi scenic route, North Dakota (southern tract) Badlands

On the drive out I hit the badlands but in a tourist way, it was over 100 degrees and I just got some info/maps and hoped to hit it up more on the drive home. This was possible as it was only 85 on the way back through so I toured Medora(cute little fake western town w/lots of options for lodging, eating, and shopping), entered the scenic Teddy Roosevelt National Park 40 mile scenic drive through the southern tract which houses free range/wild horses, bison, cats, and of course the chattering praire dogs! This was a rather scary ride, twisty turny roads on which animals could be on, I certainly did not want to kareen around a bend and see a big bison...luckily only 2 bison were near the road and I was able to get by as traffic was going so worked out. The wild horses weren't to keen on the bike either but I figured few people get tramped by a horse so in those areas I just pedaled faster!!!
I was a little sad to see no big desert snakes other than a dead one:-(

So, all the encounters on this trip worked out just okeydokey & nothing wanted to attack me. One motto was pounded into my head the whole time: DO NOT APPROACH THE WILDLIFE.  lol....

So, this has helped a lot. I feel a lot better w/ getting some plans for more bikepack trips even if I have to go alone, although I do have to say I might be avoiding GRIZ territory;-)