OT: Ultralight Extreme on the JMT

Kind of unrelated, but I thought some of you might find this interesting.. some of us carry 27lbs of camera gear into the wild (ok, maybe more like 15-20), this poor guy carried 27lbs, all inclusive...

Brett Maune recently broke the unsupported speed record for the John Muir Trail: 3 days, 14 hours and 13 minutes from Whitney Portal to Yosemite. He posted a trip report that's a good read here: trip report. (near the bottom)

Excerpt: "This time, however, I noticed that crying elevated my pulse and was wasting my precious energy—The crying stopped."

On one extreme I can understand, appreciate, and envy the challenge, accomplishment, training, and mental toughness it took to accomplish this...my hat's off to him! On the other extreme, I can't understand the rush. I hiked it in 13 days a few years ago and had little time to truly enjoy it as I would have liked. That being said, I don't think there is enough time to enjoy it as I would like, so perhaps he has the right idea.

Call me old fashioned, but this just seems pointless to me. I'd rather break it up in small sections that can be enjoyed instead of treating it like a conquest.

What's the point? Where's the pleasure, or the experience?

Muir probably would have beat him. On his first ascent of Mt. Whitney he started out from Independence, traveled cross country, ascended the Lone Pine Creek drainage climbed the East face and summited at dawn the next day. All of this in 19th century attire. I think for people of this bent, it's not really the experience it's the challenge.

Yes, for most of us it seems silly, but so are marathons and lifting weights IMO, equally silly in fact. The point here was a physical and mental challenge, and for that, you have to hand it to him. I'd be willing to bet that he enjoyed that trail several times while preparing, and probably prior to that as well.

Thanks for the link, Floris. An amazing performance! His trip report was really interesting to read, specially the parts about how he was fighting sleep deprevation for most of the latter part of the journey.

What is also impressive is that he climbed to the top of Whitney in such a short time in absolute darkness - something that doesn't even count toward the JMT.

Wow, that's one crazy dude. I agree that for such people, it's about the challenge and not the experience, but what he achieved is impressive any way you look at it. The TR was a pretty engaging read, too.