From: "Stephen Pero" To: "Ultra Mail" Subject: Barkley Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 15:25:48 -0400 Sender: owner-ultra@LISTSERV.DARTMOUTH.EDU Hi All... The following is my recollection...or the best that I can conjure up from= my fogged memory, of my experience this past weekend at the Barkley Mara= thons at Frozen Head SP in Wartberg, Tn. I know it is a bit long, but I just don't know how to make a 60 mile 40 h= our run story any shorter. I'll skip most of the pre race stuff to try and keep this as short as pos= sible. I wasn't going to write at all but the 'please write your story so= on' people outnumbered the 'please don't waste our bandwidth' people. After this I am not planning on participating on the list much anymore as= I find that no matter what you write here, there are some who just barra= ge you with hate mail. At the end of this message is a link to the photos I took....Please feel = free to download any that you would like to have. I can't leave out the night before as most of the runners had arrived by = then and we were hanging aorund eating and drinking and waiting for the '= Barkley Chicken' to be served by Gary. I was a little nervous about this = as I had heard stories of bloody uncooked chicken causing all sorts of st= omach distress in the past. I wandered up and asked Gary if it was ready = and as I looked at the grill, the chicken was in various stages of being = cooked, from bloody raw in the front to burnt black in the rear. Rich Lim= acher and I didn't take any chances and went for the burnt, which was act= ually quite delicious and well cooked inside. Andrew Thompson was sitting= there eating a bloody piece... I slept well that night, except for a generator noise that I heard all ni= ght...it sounded almost like someone beating a drum all night. I had visi= ons of Gary dancing around his campfire drumming and dancing to the weath= er gods, sort of like a rain dance. Day 1 After crawling out of the tent at 5:30, I knew I had plenty of time, so I= went down and took a shower as I hoped that it would be my last until ea= rly Monday morning, after finishing the fun run, which was all I was plan= ning on attempting. About 7:55, Gary trumpeted out the wake up and the signal that it was one= hour from the start. You never know when the start is going to be until = one hour before...some were afraid that because he called a meeting at 10= the night before that he was going to start at midnight...glad he didn't= because I was sleeping when he called the meeting... Around 8:45 or so we all gathered at the yellow gate and waited for Gary = to light his cigarette, which is the official start signal. Soon we were = heading up the road at a blistering walk, except for Matt Mahoney, who de= cided to sprint ahead of the lead group...this didn't last long, soon I s= aw Matt standing on the side of the trail letting us all go by. =20 The first loop was interesting as most of the field of 35 stayed together= until just before the halfway point at Leonard's Butt Slide. I stopped t= o take some pics along the way and just wanted to enjoy myself because it= was only going to get harder as each mile passed under foot. =20 The section from the start to maybe Coffin Spring was incredibly difficul= t not because of the trail itself, but because of all the blowdowns. Ever= y ten feet or so, you had to stop to either climb over or crawl under hug= e logs that had fallen across the trail...and if you could do neither, yo= u had to get up the steep slope to get around them. Then there was Son of= a Bitch Ditch! A ten foot wide by ten foot deep ditch that stopped you i= n your tracks...luckily some trees had fallen into the ditch and were lea= ning on the side so that we could climb up and out of it. After that we reached the water drop at Coffin Springs and then continued= on down to Leonard's Butt Slide via a good road to run...but we walked m= ost of it anyway. I got to enjoy this stretch with David Horton, Sue John= ston and Hans Put and soon there was the slide. =20 David decribed to me the best way to get down it. "Just keep going becaus= e there are many of us coming right behind you"...I tried this and someho= w ended up with my left foot under my butt, sliding off to the right of t= he trail into a ditch. I heard something pop in my knee and hoped it wasn= 't too serious. It hurt and I limped, but had to keep up with everyone le= st I get lost in these spooky woods. I followed Craig Wilson and Tom Possert down the non trail thorugh the de= ep leaves to who knows where..I just followed and ended up at New River. After stopping at the New River to take a picture of Blake Wood at the sp= ot that stopped him last year, I got to climb Little Hell with him and wa= tch a master at work when we reached the briars. I stood there trying to = figure out how to get through the tangled mess and as he passed I took an= other shot of him pushing his way through, which I then followed his path= ....never to see him again until later on the next day as he and David we= nt out on their third loop as we came in on our second. Next up was Rat Jaw, after getting the page from book 6 at the guard hous= e...I had now settled in with Andrew Thompson and Randy Isler and as we s= tarted up, I stopped and took a pic of Andrew, as Randy powered up and ou= t of sight. Rat Jaw is one tough climb...it's steep and also has these ol= d saw briars that just want to wrap around your ankles and trip you so th= at you'll fall face first into the other briars...then there's the power = line that we used to pull up the real steep part, you just hoped that it = wasn't still connected to the tower because we were in the midst of a lig= htening storm that hit as we crested Little Hell.. We reached the top or what I thought was the top and it was so foggy that= I couldn't see or hear Andrew, so I called out his name. I almost went s= traight off the side of the mountain, missing the left turn to continue u= p the upper section of Rat Jaw. Andrew yelled back and I soon caught up t= o him and we crested the real summit of Frozen Head Mountain and to the s= econd water drop where Randy was waiting for us... We now had to do a new section that Gary had added to get us off of the g= irly Chimney Top trail. We ran down the jeep road off of Frozen Head and = went down a portion of the Chimney Top trail and had trouble finding how = to get up the incredibly steep slope to book 7. So We followed Andrew's l= ead and wandered around the top for a good 30 minutes looking for the boo= k, finally found it and then tried to find our way back down. It was so c= old, rainy and foggy now that we just wanted to get back to get into dry = clothes. Andrew was leading and we soon came upon a red pile behind a tre= e. It turned out to be David White, who had injured his knee earlier and = then got turned aorund and lost in the dark and fog, so had been sleeping= for about 2 hours and was just going to stay there until daybreak so tha= t he could then find his way down...hopefully. Let me just say that David= is THE most experienced person on this course and trains on it every wee= kend. Just to give you an example of how you can easily get lost out ther= e in those Barkley Woods. After getting off of here we jetted down a road, went through a eye of a = needle hole in a large cap stone and headed down to ZipLine, which is a r= ocky and leafy descent where one could easily post hole and break a leg, = so we were very careful here and followed David down the best route to be= taken. At the bottom of Zipline and the trail at the bottom, you cross a= stream and get a page from book 8 before heading up Big Hell, a long, lo= ng, very long climb up, much like little Hell, but not quite as steep (me= aning you didn't need to be on all fours to get up it). After reaching th= e top, which is Chimney Top, after what seemed like hours, We got our pag= e from book 9 and flew down the switchbacks back to camp. Now let me tell you that I just mixed loops one and two together, but the= y were basically the same. Only real difference was that Andrew and I sta= rted out on loop two together and as we decended the back side of Bald Kn= ob and Jury Ridge in the night, we heard a yell to our left and saw a lig= ht way off course. We yelled back and waited for Randy Isler to rejoin us= . Randy had wandered off course and had backtracked and was heading in th= e wrong direction...needless to say we three spent the night together on = the trail. On to Loop three and day 2... After flying into camp off of the top of Chimney Top to give himself a li= ttle more time, We had lost David and Randy. We lost Randy as he was havi= ng a little trouble hiking up Big hell after having a bad cold the week b= efore and David couldn't run down the switchbacks as fast as us because o= f his knee. I checked into camp and touched the gate under the 24 hour li= mit to continue for the 100. Gary said to me in his best Tenn. drawl "You= only have three loops left". I looked at him and held up one finger...no= , not the middle one, but one to say that I am doing only one more today.= He muttered something about my manhood and I went into the Dobies/Pero c= ampsite for a little TLC by Sue Thompson, Mike Dobies wife. After changin= g just my shirts and shoes and socks, I reloaded my pack. I was now weari= ng my full back pack, Andrew and I decided to do this for security and co= mfort for the second two loops so that we'd have ALL of our clothes with = us and plenty of food. Anyway after being back in camp for about 15 minutes, I headed back out. = Gary noted this and I told Andrew that I'd wait for him up on top in the = sunshine to keep from getting too cold. I got about halfway up the trail = and found a nice sunny spot and waited for him. He soon reached me and we= then saw Randy coming, so we waited for him also. As we began to climb the switchbacks up, I noticed I was pulling away. I = was feeling real good here and just kept pushing up and decided to go up,= try and find the book and wait for them there. I went around the capston= e and couldn't find the book...So I went back to hook up with Randy and A= ndrew and they were gone! How could that be???? =20 They had decided to take the trail to the right that goes directly to the= book, while I just followed all the footsteps to the top and while doing= this they had gone by...now panic was setting in. I yelled and yelled th= eir names, but because of the howling wind, they couldn't here me. I coul= d see the trail I had to take down Big Hell to the next book, but I had t= o find this book to continue or else be DQ'd when I return. After realizi= ng that I just wasn't going to find the well hidden book, I started to re= alize that I might just be the final third looper and be doomed to contin= ue on and be DQ'd for missing the first book...I had one hope. That David= White had decided to continue on, so I started back down the trail towar= ds camp to see if I could see him coming and sure enough there he was. We= made a pact to stay together and get through this final loop through the= night later on, I would help him negotiate things with his bad leg and h= e'd show me the way! This team worked well and David and I became good friends out on the trai= l...I sometimes had to urge him to keep moving or else we'd never get bac= k in time, but he assured me that we had plenty of time. I was still worr= ied because after doing all the panicking up on Chimney Top, I had forgot= ten to eat or drink and was now entering that other dimension we all know= well about....bonkland! We got our way around the course without much problem until we got to Lit= tle Hell, where David slipped and smashed his elbow on a slab of granite = that was on the trail. We then got to that book at the bottom of Little H= ell and rested a bit and then headed to Leonard's Butt Slide, but now we = had to get UP that slippery, slimy mess. David was now bonking bad and We= would take turns going ahead and finding the book while the other rested= a bit to get us through this. Now we were at Coffin Springs, each downed an Ensure to get us through th= e final several hours of blowdowns, which was not going to be easy for hi= m with his leg. He now couldn't bend it and was using his poles as a crut= ch. Whenever we had a weak moment when we wanted to rest we'd think of wh= at Blake and David were doing and that got us up and moving. There were t= imes when we would sit on the side of the trail and I would actually doze= off and not wake until I started to fall backwards, so we kept an eye on= each other and plowed on. I was starting to get a bit frustrated every t= ime we'd lose the trail because I knew it was going to be close.... Soon We got to the final climb and you could barely see the top because i= t was around midnight. We had to be back in camp and touch the gate by 12= :55...We pushed and pushed up that final climb and David made me promise = that when we reached the top, I would go for it so that at least one of u= s would have a shot at finishing and all of our effort wasn't wasted. I r= eally wanted to finish with him, but he wouldn't hear of it...Somehow he = knew that he was not going to be able to get down in time because of his = leg. It was so close that we both knew that we had to run hard down the 1= 4 switchbacks to camp... We reached the summit of Bird Mt. at 12:28am and I said seeya at the bott= om and best of luck and began running. I had so much pain in my feet and = legs I actually had to stop on occasion to walk to relieve the pain and t= hen again would think of Blake and David and would get going. Switchback = after switchback, there seemed to be no end in sight. I could see Gary's = campfire, but it wasn't getting any bigger... Could they see my light?? I= wondered...I soon reached the road and in my panic started to go left, u= p the hill...that didn't seem right so I turned aorund and headed down th= e hill and crossed a small bridge. I actually had no memory of ever cross= ing that bridge before, even though I had done so twice. After the bridge= I turned left and saw the gate in the distance...YES!!! I was afraid to = look at my watch, fearing I had gone over the time..I saw someone standin= g there with something near their face...was that the bugle? Was I about = to get tapped out after all of that???? Run, faster and faster, finally t= ouching the gate. There was nothing but a few claps and Frozen Ed Furtaw = with his hand outstretched to shake mine. I must have made it...but Gary = was just standing there looking at me. "Can I have your pages?" he said..= .I reached into my pocket as he wrote my time down...39:52...I made it! N= ow I hope I have all of my pages and didn't lose them out there while in = a confused state. I handed him my pages and he counted and then said " Th= ere's just one technicality" I said to him oh no, did I lose a page? He d= idn't answer, just put the bugle to his lips and played taps and then sai= d "I can't allow you to go on for the 100 and are tapped out of that" Phe= w! I didn't care...I just came down to complete the fun run and did it. He asked about David and I told him the sad news that he was injured and = would be a few minutes...and sure enough here he came limping down the tr= ail with his wife by his side...5 minutes over the allowed time. David sa= id to Gary "Don't you DARE play taps!" As soon as David got half way to h= is campsite, Gary put the bugle to his lips and played....the song that n= o one wants to hear. It was done....I finished the fun run as planned. I can now sit around an= d eat food and drink beer and wait for the two true heroes of this race t= o arrive...and before you know it, it is the next day and here they come,= running down the jeep road towards the gate. I have never felt so much e= motion welling up inside of me after watching any kind of footrace. Here = come the two greats of trail ultrarunning, side by side after almost 60 h= ours on the Barkley course. After the gate was touched and we were all standing around taking picture= s I went and congratulated Blake and then David, who had become my friend= and sometimes training partner this Spring. I watched David look up the = jeep road from where he had just come. I have this moment captured and is= in My and Deb's picture album...It is my favorite picture! Go to http://communities.msn.com/SteveerReno and check it out. It is the = third from the last picture... Steve Pero s_pero@msn.com