Update from Crestone Group

Mark Oveson arrived in Lake City last night and I shared a slice of pizza with him before we both drove up to get Homie at the Matterhorn Trailhead after his link of Uncompahgre and the Wetterhorn. We arrived up there a little after 9 p.m. At 9:30 p.m. it started to rain, hard. Then it started to hail. At 10 p.m. Homie's headlamp bobbed out of the words and he immediately got in the car. He had started great, but then faded a bit. He was tired and now a bit behind Cave Dog's time. He was still behind on calories and liquids, but also sleep and elected to sleep first. After getting down to the smooth dirt road we transferred Homie to his bed in the Land Cruiser. Mark was driving his FJ. We then drove 3 hours over to the San Luis trailhead, getting there around 1 a.m. Man, that is a long haul. Once you leave Slumgullion Pass it is 41 miles on narrow, dirt roads where it seems like you are on the edge of control at 30 mph.

Homie ate while we packed his Nathan running pack and he took off 1:27 a.m. in about 45 degree weather. The skies looked good and he stayed pretty dry this night. He made the top in 3h27m02s, which he was a bit disappointed about, but came down in well under two hours, doing the roundtrip in 5h21m11s. Mark and I were already up and the Cruiser was started before he hit the trailhead. Once again we had a long drive ahead of us, 30 miles on dirt. This gave Homie the opportunity for more sleep, albeit on windy, bumpy roads. Once we hit the pavement on highway 117/114, we amped up our speed to 85 mph. It was quite the change from the 3-4 mph on Cinnamon Pass.

At the Willow Creek Trailhead, I prepared Homie's pack while Mark got ready. They started up together at 9:35 a.m. I was able to communicate with Mark via texting. Homie was only carrying two small water bottles and once he heads up Challenger from Willow Lake he might not be able to restock with water until after coming down from Crestone Needle. That could put him in a pretty serious dehydration hole. I feel really good about Mark being with him. As they left Mark said to Homie, "My goal is to get 3000 calories in you before these peaks are done." That the perfect attitude for success on this project.

I met Jennifer and Gerry Roach in Crestone and Gerry will be driving Mark's FJ around to the South Colony Lakes Trailhead, where we'll pick up the boys, hopefully around 9 p.m. but it could be later. If they arrive by 8 p.m. there is a chance of getting Lindsey before the unmovable appointment to climb Culebra at 6 a.m. tomorrow (Sunday). I doubt this will happen, though. They will have to head directly to Culebra. On the plus side this should give Homie a solid 5-7 hours of sleep to make up for the huge deficit he is running. We'll see, though.

Gerry came down a day early to relieve me. I'm a little disappointed that I will now be superfluous and just take up valuable space. Hence, I'll head home tonight with Mark. Gerry was like the father in Breaking Away (an absolutely stellar coming-of-age movie). The father is at work at the used-car lot, but not working. He's listening to the bike race that his son is dominating on the radio from the front seat of his car. For complex reasons he "had to work" that day. He so excited by his son's performance that he can't stand it any longer. He closes his door and peels out, headed for the race, to watch his son succeed. Gerry was reading the blog and reading 14ers.com and he couldn't stand it any longer. He wanted, he needed, he HAD to be a part of it and not later, but now. He called me and we devised this plan with the vehicles, which was actually quite a hole in our original plan.

Anyway, Gerry and Jennifer and here to not only watch their "son", but to be a huge part of his success. Talking strategy with Gerry, I know he "gets it." Gerry is, of course, the man. He's done the seven summits - first guy to do all the real seven summits. He's done the top ten peaks in North America. He's run the Pikes Peak Ascent in his youth faster than either Homie or I. Much faster. Yet, he is completely humble. He never talks about that unless prompted and then he's a great storyteller, as anyone who has read his books knows. Gerry is just in awe of people like Homie as I am and he and Jennifer will be great support. This is payback, too, as Homie has paced Jennifer at Hard Rock 100 at least twice.

Yes, we've been having some SPOT issues. Thanks to the people that have called me with the news. We have a spare and if we switch. I'll send out the new SPOT link.

Hey, 7 News picked up the story and used my photo of Homie without permission:

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/31380709/detail.html

Bill