Teton Crest Trail FKT

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Back in May, I started to write out a list of summer adventure ideas. This list remains pinned – by a brilliantly colored unicorn pin – to a small corkboard by my bed. Most of the ideas on this list were mountain ranges I wanted to visit or peaks I wanted to run. But with races all cancelled, a few of these ideas were for hard, race-like efforts in the mountains. I’ve stared at that scrap of paper with the words “Teton Crest Trail FKT” for months now. Seven years ago, I backpacked the Teton Crest Trail while living in Ashton, ID spending a summer doing trout research. The trail stretches from Teton Pass 40 miles north to the base of Paintbrush Canyon in Grand Teton National Park. From my walk a few years back, I have fond memories of fields of wildflowers, sweeping views, and gorgeous singletrack. The Teton Crest Trail is such a stunning trail, I wanted to see how efficiently I could move along it. With that, at 6:30am on Thursday, July 30th, I started running from the Phillips Pass Trailhead.

The morning was quiet, but the subalpine forests felt alive with excitement as my run began. The trail climbed and descended through patches of wildflowers, aspen groves, and pines as it climbed to Phillips Pass. Occasionally the trail was overgrown with shoulder high flowers, other times it sliced across slopes sprinkled with lupine. The first 15 miles ticked off quickly. My legs took me from one basin to another, a series of 500-1000’ climbs as the trail hopped over small passes. I found it hard to maintain a constant effort on the diverse trail. One minute it was loose and rocky, the next it was packed dirt. A punchy climb would lead into a long descent, and vice versa. To amuse myself, I began to think of my run as more of a dance. I had to match the music. I hopped, skipped, and tapped my way down technical rocky sections then opened up on the fast, firm singletrack. Running has always felt a bit like dance to me. On this day, it felt like a performance. I danced hard, with a huge smile on my face the whole time.

Through all this dancing, I was also peeing quite a lot. Every 20 minutes, really. It seemed that anything I drank I immediately peed out. So, I stopped drinking. But oh baby did I keep eating my snacks. After about two hours, I think I finally became dehydrated and no longer needed to pee every second. This was a nice reset, and from there on I was able to freely drink and address my hydration. I pulled water from the springs and snowmelt that abound on the Crest Trail. I chose my water sources wisely, as I had no water filter. Per usual, fingers crossed I don’t get giardia! 

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With each new basin I dropped in to, I came upon a new camping area in Grand Teton National Park. Which meant backpackers. Which was super amusing. I ran by people’s camps as they stumbled out of their tents or stood there peeing. I got a lot of excellent stares. I said “good morning, enjoy!” to dozens of folks. I got the sense that no one quite understood how I came to be out there, many miles from a trailhead in the wilderness with nothing but a little running pack. Despite all the people I was seeing, I was very alone. Running in such a remote place is wildly invigorating. I felt empowered by the independence. I put the gas on up each climb and rolled each descent, my muscles matching the demands of the terrain. This was a dance, after all.

The morning flew by as I moved north. The trail was swift and runnable along the remote Death Canyon Shelf. Going over Mount Meek Pass brought me to the switchbacking, rocky, Sheep Steps that dropped me into Alaska Basin. I ran miles through the basin before topping out on the wide-open grassy plateau of Hurricane Pass. The Grand Teton dominated the views, a massif of granite inconceivably large on the other side of South Fork Cascade Canyon. The trail meandered down the east side of the pass along the active Schoolroom Glacier, packed dirt and chunky rocks leading the way to the junction with North Cascade Canyon. After a day spent seeing relatively few people, the irony was not lost on me that the trail to Lake Solitude was the busiest trail I’d been on. The dozens of people scattered about the shore of Lake Solitude made it easy to run past this beautiful spot without much pause. At this point, I wanted to remain alone. I was on the biggest climb of the day, the 2,500’ haul up to Lake Solitude and beyond to Paintbrush Divide. It was hot, and I was tired. The trail was filled with baby-head sized rocks – big enough they warranted putting a whole foot on, but not big enough that they wouldn’t move with every footstep. I was dehydrated and refused to walk, grunting up the hot, exposed climb. Thankfully I found snowmelt to top off my bottle with and choke down a Clif Bar that tasted like dry sand. 

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The top of Paintbrush Divide was absolutely stunning. The Grand still dominated the views to the south, but jagged ridges and peaks surrounded the pass to the west and north. I came upon the infamous Paintbrush Divide snowfield, maybe one hundred yards long and a few hundred feet tall. For a moment, I debated crossing the bootpack cut into the top of the field. There were warnings online that it still required crampons and ice axe to safely cross. At the last minute, I opted for a loose, faint path through scree/talus on a steep slope to the west. Lucky me, I later learned this was the actual trail. Upon reaching the bottom of the snowfield, I came upon several search and rescue personnel and a non-moving man in a backpack. I passed them slowly to avoid triggering rockfall onto them, and spoke with a member of the team when I was safely past them. A helicopter was on its way. From the looks of it, this person had fallen down the extremely steep snowfield towering above us. I almost went across that. That could have been me. My mood was a bit somber as I began running the final descent. I was acutely aware of the importance of not tripping, falling, or otherwise hurting myself. I found myself being eternally grateful for another safe day in the mountains.

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My final miles were spent dodging crowds of day hikers, the mask I pulled over my face a bit stifling in the mid-day heat. It felt like a zoo around Leigh Lake and String Lake compared to the remoteness of the high country. I always find it a bit amusing to run by crowds of day hikers after a long, hard, intense run through the mountains. The dichotomy between the first six hours and the final fifteen minutes was startlingly intense. I rounded a corner to see friends Kelly Halpin and Madison Botzet waiting at the trailhead sign. I finished my run at the Leigh Lake/String Lake Trailhead 6hrs 32min 40sec after starting. Kelly took a few photos in which I apparently look like I hadn’t run a step. In actuality, I felt a bit woozy from not drinking in a long time and really wanted to sit down. I sipped some warm seltzer and sat in the sun thinking about the day. It felt a dream moving through such a tremendous landscape in a long morning. The impact the Tetons had on me remains heightened. Running hard in places like that imprints them in your psyche in a way I’ve never encountered while backpacking, hiking, or doing a training run. There is an intensity to the experience that stays with you, even weeks later as I write this now. I could not have asked for a better day to attempt this FKT. It was a fabulous day for a long dance in the mountains.

 

COVID Precautions

·      Pulled a mask over my face when passing people on the more crowded trails at the end

·      Always wore a mask when inside during my travels to/from the route

·      Tried to give ample room when passing people on trail

·      Did not visit with friends while in Jackson – minimized interactions with other people

·      Avoided downtown Jackson

Gear

Worn:

·      rabbit fkt shorts

·      rabbit shirt

·      Balega socks

·      Altra Lone Peak 4.5

·      Hat

·      Sunglasses

·      Buff (as face covering)

Carried:

·      Ultimate Direction AK Vest

·      Bear spray

·      Wind shirt

·      Small first aid kit, ID, credit card, $10

·      Small body glide tube

·      iPhone

·      Hydropack 18oz softflask

Nutrition:

·      9 gels

·      1 caffeinated gel

·      Pack of Honey Stinger Performance Chews

·      ½ clif bar

·      1 serving Tailwind

Thanks to Gabe Joyes, Kelly Halpin, and Hannes Gehring for graciously sharing route information. You guys are all awesome. Thanks Madison for spending many hours in a car with me, shuttling me, and Doing when I had oodles of post-run sloshie. And thanks to the Lowry’s for impromptu hosting and feeding Madison and I!!!