With great conditions up high in the park stretching into mid-September and beyond, I’ve been making a point of getting high while conditions last. I finally climbed Mt Owen last weekend (the last major summit in the park for me) and this past weekend threw down on a hard race pace effort on the Grand. I was aiming for sub 5 hours round trip, based on trip reports from the late Steve Romeo as well as Brian Harder. I got a casual 10:30am start from the trailhead and had great weather, and was able to stay just warm enough without having to put on a shell or gloves on the upper mountain. The day ended up being more fun and less suffering than I was expecting. I pushed hard but could probably cut a little time (10min?) next time, but doing so is low on the adventure list. Having climbed the OS a few weeks prior and having the routefinding fresh in my head was huge for moving relatively quickly (yet still slow enough to be safe) on the upper mountain.
 |
| summit in 2:55. hard to believe both andy anderson and kilian jornet can go car to car faster than i can summit |
Splits: 60min meadows, 1:55 lower saddle, 2:55 summit, 3:25 lower saddle, 3:56 meadows, 4:40 trailhead
Stats: about 14.5mi and 7200vert in 4:40 round trip
Rose: breaking the 5 hour mark on this local testpiece on a beautiful fall day
Thorn: feeling like a dick yelling and bullying people off the trail so I could pass
Bud: next time I’ll be up the grand will be with skis
