Wyoming Range 100

Back in August I ran Wyoming Range 100. Here's the very late report.

 I ran Hardrock in July. I did very little for a week but then got back into it. The second weekend I ran Catherine's Fatass 50K. It's fairly runnable as far as the Massanuttens go, so I didn't hate life, but I wasn't particularly fast--it took me nearly 8 hours. My friend Heather told the RD that I enjoy being teased about being slow, so there was a lot of that.I found a bunch of chanterelle mushrooms, which were delicious later.

Another halfway decent week of training and then tapering, and then in the first week of August Wyoming Range was upon us. I flew to Salt Lake on Wednesday after work. My flight was delayed in departure by four hours but the departure gate was nice enough to not have hostile architecture (seats without armrests) so I laid down and slept. I didn't get to my friends until 1AM, but having slept at the airport it didn't feel awful. I got a ride with a fellow runner from Salt Lake to Wyoming. We stopped at a brewery, and I picked up an in-case-of-dusty-high elevation emergency inhaler from a grocery store pharmacy. 

The race logistics are a bit complicated, but we made them a little more so unnecessarily. Everyone had to go to the finish to drop off their drop bags. There we met friend #2, and he drove us to the start where we camped. This made for a long day of driving, but it was all we were doing that day, so I still go to sleep early and felt rested.

Start

 

Aside from a 30-second wrong turn within the first quarter mile of the race, the start was excellent. The air quality was not amazing, but it was more a visual disappointment than lung misery like Hardrock.We immediately climbed up a long ridge to the 11,378 high point of the climb. The ridge was one of two or three fantastic open ridges, and this early in the morning, there wasn't a cloud in the sky (just unfortunate haze). The descent to the first aid station was on a lovely set of switchbacks. 

What a first climb!

First Climb Complete

 They turned out to be the only switchbacks on the course, and pretty much the only maintained trail. The second climb was already hot and exposed, but started along a nice cold creek so there was an opportunity to dunk my head, hat, and arm sleeves. The top was another very nice ridge with excellent views.

The descent to Roaring Fork aid station at mile 32 was low, on a gravel road, with a much longer than expected out and back. I knew I was not going to relish the return leg of it, as it was hot and exposed, and I'm slower than average on any type of road in a trail race.  

Can this be avoided? Please help.

 

Another climb to another lovely open pass, but by this point my feet were trashed--totally macerated from multiple creek crossings. I stopped to change my socks for perhaps the second time. From the pass was the slippery rocky descent to Menace Falls aid station.  

 

 

 

McDougal Gap 53 aid station at night. I spent a long time here trying to recover, but it wasn't really going so well. I think leaving this aid station there were significant creek crossings/trail-is-the-creek that I did my best to avoid, and I trudged on through the night and got to Blind Bull aid station at first light at 66 miles. Friend #2 caught up to me there but dropped. Finally my feet started to dry out (maybe lubing them up helped too, but I managed to keep them dry) and feel a little better. 

Of course drier is hotter, to so the climb up to Deadman watch tower was hot and I was wishing there was water--the only stream was too small to really dunk my hat or arm sleeves. The views were nice, and I saw a badger, but the descent was very steep and in a narrow rocky rut that was painful on sore feet. Finally it came out onto a road with a strong creek running next to it. Unfortunately I had developed a large blister on the pad of of my foot, and in a hot section I felt the blister move, and I was worried my whole foot was about to slough off. In some perverse way I was fearing (hoping?) that the entire pad of my foot was going to slough off--nobody could blame me if I quit when that happened. But the blister wasn't anywhere near that large so I got it taped at the next aid station and kept going.

Deadman Tower

 

The next section was a HOT, busy gravel road run to Grizzly Basin around mile 83. It was only a few miles but the fast dusty trailer-towing trucks were really not pleasant to be around. The aid station was right where we left the road and began a long climb. A storm threatened but never materialized. On this climb it really sank in that the trails in this race are not maintained. The race director does what he can, but he's only one man, and he focuses (appropriately) on blowdowns. Tread, brushing, and even switchbacks, are simply not a thing. One section of the climb near the pass made me wonder when Wyoming made switchbacks illegal. At least I had company in misery with a father daughter duo from the South, and a pretty second sunset.

 

The descent was much longer than expected to Strawberry Creek. As dusk was setting in I kept thinking I was seeing jeeps or RVs at the trailhead, which was just down the way. Nope, rocks. Rocks and trees. No trailhead, no maintained roads, just a white rock off in the distance. Finally around mile 95 I got to Strawberry Creek aid station, complained that every single segment in the entire race was significantly undermeasured, and began the final climb. 

I kept expecting a mile long stretch of trail to be IN the creek, since I had been told that back at Grizzly Basin aid station but the climb was actually on nicer trail--the first wide tread since early on day one. There was even a switchback or two near the top. Of course the final descent had some of the most miserably rocky BS of the entire race. Just super loose baby head ankle breaker landslide motocross what the fuck bullshit. At lower ground one final confusing turn in a creek, more miles than expected, and finally I finished, with a time of 43 hours, 29 minutes. My watch read 111 miles and 24,000 feet of climbing. 

What passes for a finish line--expect no frills at this race

This race was brutal. There were no switchbacks; trails were brushy and not maintained. One man can only do so much. Aid stations were decent. Race flagging could be better. 

I hobbled around, set up my tent and slept for a few hours, then drove back to SLC the next day. As we passed through Kemmerer, Wyoming we stopped at Fossil Fuel Coffee Company for lunch and saw mountain bikers. My friend (a biker) immediately noticed that their bikes were unusually clean. Turns out, they were just about to head out on a ride of the Wyoming Range trail, which is the National Recreation Trail we had just run on for a large portion of the race. In my sleep-deprived state I mumbled "Wow, I didn't see any bike riders out there" and they said "yeah nobody rides this trail". They were in for some hike-a-bike hell, but I'm pretty sure they expected it. I wonder how it went.

On the trip I listed to Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. It's vampires among the Blackfeet Indians in early American West, and I was totally into it, but then the last third had a more modern setting from the perspective of a rather annoying weak woke helpless millennial academic that I found truly annoying. 

Would I recommend this race? It's definitely not Type I fun. It might not even be Type II. More like 2.5. I think with more flagging and a way to get off the Grizzly Basin gravel road section, it could be pure Type II, but it will definitely be a few years before I head back.