Wow! Was Barkley an adventure this year! 2007 Barkley was my first experience with the toughest race on Earth. I finished the entire loop in 17 hr 23 minutes, which is 4 hours, 3 minutes over the allowable time. I did not have a clue. If not for sticking with Pete Ireland from the Garden Spot to the Testicle Spectacle, and then my friend Stuart Gleman from there on in I would not have known how to go 50 feet on my own. For 2008 I was going to be as prepared as possible. In January I made the trek to Frozen Head and checked out the North Boundary Trail over to Bald Knob. On a trip two weeks later I eventually found my way from Bald Knob to the Garden Spot. On the third trip I found the book on the first of the three Stallion Mountain Peaks, and made my way to Fykes Peak, where the fog sit in so thick that I had to abandon and retrace my steps to camp. I drove down to Highway 116 and checked out the New River area before returning home. For training I ran Swamp Stomper 50k in Memphis in January, followed by Rocky Raccoon 100 miler (24:43) Feb 2, then Louisville's Lovin' the Hills 50k Feb 16. I routinely set the treadmill on elevation 15 and walked that angle as much as I could stand. I arrived at camp around 12:30 Friday and picked up my directions and bib # 36. This year's computer prediction for Steve Durbin was that I'd start talking to myself, get into an argument and be kicked out of the race. Sounded logical. I carefully traced the course onto my map, paying careful attention to the change for 08… the reintroduction of The Hump. Also noteworthy was the fact that 11 books were being used compared to the ten in 07. I laminated the map and directions, and double checked my supplies. This year I had my Camelbak stocked with 70 ounces water in the bladder, 2 one-liter bottles of HEED, one half liter of Red Bull, several trail bars, two turkey cheese wraps, Advil, electrolytes, a rain suit, an extra long sleeve shirt, two flashlights, a headlight, several extra batteries, a copy of my drivers license (in case I stumbled into Brushy Mountain State Prison), $40 (in case I needed to coax some local into driving my broken body back to camp… although I imagined that presenting $40 would only yield my broken body having $40 less dollars on it), a whistle, and a back up compass. I would have the other compass around my neck, and in my shirt pockets the map, directions, and the zip lock bag for my treasured book pages. I also had a small bottle of water treatment. This stuff is really cool. "hold it like a pencil and dispense 9 drops into a liter of water. Before drinking, wait 2 minutes for tap water, 15 minutes for raw water, and 30 minutes for water contaminated with animal waste". Hmmm… I could practically get water from any source as long as I didn't croak from thirst in less than 30 minutes. On my wrist was my latest ebay purchase. A Lance Armstrong Nike watch complete with compass and altimeter (among other things). GPS is illegal during the Barkley, so an altimeter is crucial. My friend and extreme adventurist Bob Haugh made the trip to Frozen Head to observe. His position on the waiting list all but assured he would not be joining us. Bob set up the camp… a sweet Taj Mahal looking North Face tent complete with command table in the center. Secure in this baby we would scoff at anything the weather threw at us. I got into my sleeping bag around 8pm and couldn't sleep at all… the rain started around midnight and was relentless until I finally got up around 6:30. The fear is always that you'll miss the conch shell blast signaling one hour until the start. Around 7:15 a car alarm went off… was this the new signal? What happened to the conch? Had someone taken the conch? Ten minutes later another car alarm. That does it… the conch is history. Further investigation revealed that the alarms meant nothing in the scheme of things. At 7:41 we heard the blast! What a sound! One hour til the start. Double checked everything and headed up for the start, arriving two minutes before Gary's lighting of the starting cigarette. This year's plan was to stay with Stuart through loop one since I still didn't know the south east boundary area, the area south of Highway 116, or the Zip Line area. Loop two I would be on my own depending upon how Stu felt. We let the others go and positioned ourselves near the back. I followed Marianne up Bird Mountain, with Stu a half switch back behind. Going down we were joined by Leonard Martin (of the famous Leonard's butt slide… a featured slide in previous Barkleys). Leonard, Stu, Marianne and I all arrived at the Phillips Creek book 1 location in a time of 1hr 7 minutes. All was well. Heading up Jury Ridge Stuart instructed me to go on ahead. Okay, no biggie. Within a few minutes I couldn't see Stu behind us. I haven't seen Stuart since… (Plan A was out). Over Jury Ridge and up toward Bald Knob we (Marianne and I) trekked on the newly improved trails. (Frozen Head shows this trail on its map and rates it as "most difficult"… on Gary's directions it is rated as Candyass). Marianne informed me she was taking a couple of ibuprofen, and to go own. I was officially on my own for the first time in my Barkley career, but feeling okay about it. Bald Knob is where the Barkley becomes the Barkley as soon as you cross the Trail Closed sign. Upturned leaves and the occasional slide marks in the mud due to the previous night's heavy rains made it easier to track the 30 or so who were in front of me. I suffered through some serious blow downs containing even more serious sawbriars. Soon the trail ended… Just ended. I backtracked and found an area where some "racers" had gone up, so I tried that. I was in another quandary, stuck in briars over my head when I spotted the orange cap (we were required to wear orange due to reported turkey hunters being out) of David Hughes. He confirmed that I should bushwack up the 20' or so to the actual trail. David was moving too fast for me, but I was able to follow the switchbacks down, across Rayder Creek, and over to Son of a Bitch Ditch. SOB ditch was tougher to cross this year because everything was so wet, but I made it okay and remembered from last year to pick up the trail a bit higher. I found out later that many folks went lower and paid the price. I soon reached the Coal Ponds and scurried around to the climb up to the Garden Spot. Here I ran into Joe and Rebecca, victims of going down instead of up at SOBD. We ascended to the Garden Spot and secured book #2. We refilled at the water drop and proceeded to book 3, atop the first of the three peaks of Stallion Mountain. Rebecca is married to alum Jim Nelson and knew this section fairly well, so we followed her lead. When we arrived at Fykes Peak there were three guys, including Frozen Ed, complaining about not being able to find the book. They were in the correct spot, but claimed the book there was from a previous year. Several pages were missing. Page 35-36 was there though, so I stuffed it in my ZL bag, and followed after Rebecca, with Joe in tow. Down, down we went, through briars, over blow downs and rocks, to the New River. We were a bit upstream, but all in all, a great job of navigating. We stopped at Highway 116 so Joe could change his wet socks. About this time Matt Mahoney came running down 116. He must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. He said hello, then took off towards the little waterfall that marked our next bearing. We grabbed book 5 from the base of the Testicle Spectacle and started to ascend. TS is a lot tougher than I remembered. The briars weren't quite as bad this year, but man is it steep! So steep in one muddy section that Rebecca slid back down twice. I finally put my hand up to stop her shoe from sliding. Using this procedure 3 or 4 times worked as she made it up to better footing. Mahoney was totally out of sight when we reached the top and started our descent down the other side. Rebecca ran on this portion so I did also. This was the last place I saw Joe. Into the woods and along the creeks we went, where we found book 6. Stuart had warned me several times that in this section NOT to go to a white house if we came upon one. It is apparently filled with super rednecks, Dobermans, Pit Bulls, Vipers, and God knows what else. We ascended and lo and behold… the white house. I kinda tipped the heck over to the East and took that route up to Danger Dave's climbing wall. Last year I struggled mightly but could not make it up the practically vertical "wall". Because of the heavy rains we were given the option to go around Danger Dave's to only Cautious Carlos climb I guess. (actually Gary's directions referred to the option way in a much more desultory description… can't repeat it here). It was steep, but we made it to the Highway again. Now for the ascent up to the coal roads. Traversing up Testicle, then Pig Head, then to the coal roads all in a short period of time was taking a toll on me. I struggled up as Rebecca left me behind. I briefly overtook her though when she stopped to take a drink of water and dropped her water bottle…. Down a 20' hill. I think she would have left it if she had another. The coal road takes you past some really cool old mines and down to the guard shack at the base of Rat Jaw. Rat Jaw is a steep trip up under power lines. The path is cut, but not cleared, so you walk on a matted bed of saw briars…. Surely they are left there to torture poor fools who make their way here. If you go down from Rat Jaw you'll come out at Brushy Mountain State Prison. (By now you must know the story of MLK Jr's assassin, James Earl Ray, who escaped from Brushy only to be found a couple of days later waving a white flag. It was this escape and inability to negotiate Frozen Head State Park that spawned the idea for The Barkley Marathons). Book 7 was hidden under a rock formation on the second level going up RJ. Marianne was no longer in sight so I took a little rest. Downed my Red Bull, ate some turkey and cheese, and proceeded up. Progress was measured in just trying to go 15, 20 steps at a time, yielding a reward of 15 – 20 seconds rest. Each step took me 8-10" higher. At the top of Rat Jaw is the Fire Tower. Here waits the second water drop. I made my way around to the Fire Tower, and right into a group of kids camping. There I checked the map and contemplated taking the South Old Mac Trail back to camp (this is an easy trail back, requiring only a two hour hike). I was alone and not sure about how to negotiate any of the rest of the course. There is a cushy (it's all relative here) jeep trail coming off from the Tower area. A ranger driving back asked me if I wanted a ride to camp. I didn't deliberate long before responding with a negative. How embarrassing would that be? I debated (and even remembered my computer prediction) what to do all the way down to the trail head to either Chimney Top (the Barkley way) or South Old Mac, and actually started down SOMT for about 150 yards. I projected my arrival at camp at 19:00. Then I realized that I just couldn't do that. I turned around and headed for The Hump. Soon I passed another trail that would lead back to camp. No, don't do it… Of course I walked right past the stone "standing in the trail with MF engraved in it" marking the route up to Mart Field affectionately known as The Hump, and the site of book 8. Perhaps 5-10 minutes later I realized that there was a large hump to my right. I turned around and started checking for an MF stone, even made up a little tune about it, and after many, many imposters I found the stone… and scurried up the ridge and had no problem finding the book. No problem finding the next one at Indian Knob either. Now I had the first 9 books, but darkness was coming…. I don't remember the sun being out at all this day so I knew it was going to get dark early. No sun and starting the run 35 minutes later than 07 meant I was doomed to descend Zip Line Trail in the dark again. Zip Line is a nasty trip down a boulder strewn area infested with briars. Footing is dangerous and several times my leg broke through and I fell down to my knee. The objective is to descend down between two creeks and at the confluence, cross over and up to book 10, which then sets you up for the way up Big Hell. I made my way down Zip Line and actually pulled my flashlight out around the same area as we did last year. My mistake was thinking that I was at the confluence and I crossed over a bit too soon. I found a trail and looked all over in vain for the tree. I started to give up but refused to do so. According to my altimeter and the contour map I had to be very close. Darkness kept me from seeing the confluence. The terrain was such that I couldn't just walk over to it either. At one spot I found a large tree with a hollowed out bottom; but no book. I started up the trail and after ten minutes or so I decided that after the trouble on Fyke's Peak with that book perhaps this book was missing. Trouble was I kinda needed it as my starting reference up Big Hell. So I headed back down the trail and scouted the area. According to the map I needed to be around 1520' or so, and I confirmed I was near there with my Lance Armstrong altimeter watch. (I wondered what the 7 time TdF champ was doing at the time… surely he would love something like this). After at least an hour of going back and forth I decided to ascend N up Big Hell. Big Hell is a 1600' climb in ¾ mile. I've run many marathons that don't have 1600' of total climb. The rain started very heavily at around 2100' and I stopped to put on my rain jacket, and make sure my lights were in order. I think it was then that I thought of the old joke about the guy on his rooftop during a flood and a boat comes by and tells the guy to get in but he refuses stating that "God will provide", then a helicopter offers him a lift out as the water rises and he again insists that "God will provide"… soon he drowns and is at the Pearly Gates. He asks St. Peter why God didn't intervene and St. Pete tells him that first God sent a boat, then a copter, what more did he need to do. I harkened back to a few hours prior when I had refused the Ranger in the truck, then refused to take the easy trail back to camp… there is lots time to think while you're lost on a mountainside at 10pm in the pouring rain at The Barkley. I remember thinking that if I couldn't make it to the top for some reason that it might be a while before someone would find me since I wasn't on the 'beaten path'. I wasn't ready to answer to St. Pete just yet. I kept a constant vigil on my compass and my altimeter. Each 100' of ascension was treasured. Big Hell is so steep that you spend about 15% of the time on all fours. There are very few areas where you can just stand and survey the situation, especially when visibility was limited to about how far you can pee. Oftentimes I would walk or crawl into a briar thicket. It's not like you plan to do it, all of a sudden you're just in it. What was the name of that rabbit that couldn't move? (except I think that was tar, wasn't it?) anyway, it was impossible to just "bull through" the briar thickets, and difficult to back out and try again 100' east or west. Although I officially timed out on Big Hell (10pm and I wasn't back at camp yet) I did make it to the Chimney Top capstones and suddenly realized that maybe I could find book 11. It had to be nearby… I searched east and west for another 30 minutes but again came up empty and decided to tally forth. Just beyond the capstones and the crest lo and behold I stepped onto the Chimney Top Trail. From here it was simple… just follow the marked trail back to camp… who cares if it was alternating between pouring rain or pea soup fog. I instinctively turned left (west), but decided to check the compass. It indicated to go the other direction. I double-checked against my watch and turned around (heck, I'd spent the past 3+ hours going the wrong directions, so I thought it was the norm). Thanked God for helping me spot my mistake… sure didn't need to go the wrong way here… It took longer than I remembered to get to the designated downhill and switchbacks, but I figured that was because I didn't come up and hit the trail at exactly the right place. It was weird that I stayed between 2800 and 3100' for a long time. When the rain eased, the fog worsened. I sweated profusely going up hill and froze going down. I was lovin' it. Periodically I'd check the compass and sometimes it was reassuring and other times it didn't make sense, but I was comforted in the fact that if I fell out on the trail then Flyin' Brian Robinson would find me and report it to Gary. After all he was surely about to lap me. Over an hour later I stopped and looked at a sign for…. Mart's Field campground. OMG! I had gone all the way back to the center of the park. I had been within 100' of here 4 hours earlier. I checked the map and debated whether to take an alternate route back, but the quickest seemed to just turn around and retrace my steps back to Chimney Top. Funny, but I seemed to cover the distance back to the point behind big Hell in half the time. This time I found the downhill, the switchbacks, and had no trouble going up and down the mountains getting back to camp. I walked in at 19hrs 7 minutes, much to the chagrin of Marianne, who had arrived 9 minutes earlier and had been quite pleased that she was the last one in from one loop who had actually traversed the entire loop. Several, including Rebecca and Joe, had taken the easy trail in from the Fire Tower. After Gary was amused at my brief account (especially trying to find the book at Zip Line since he, Stu, and I put it there) as he scribbled some notes in his official The Barkley Marathons notebook. Then he picked up The Bugle and blew me out of the race with his rendition of Taps. I ate some really, really burned chicken, and laughed with Marianne, Gary, and Frozen Ed about my misfortunes. Discovered from Ed that he had made the same mistake before and wound up at the same sign in the middle of the park where I had been. HA. Even the veterans make mistakes. Are they really misfortunes? Or will they serve as memories treasured? Memories treasured long after taking part in such an adventure becomes a possibility only in the deepest regions of one's wildest imagination. Already thinking about next year. This year was an incredible learning experience. You can't go to The Barkley and figure it out on the fly. It helps to have a real understanding of the park, its roads and trails, and you have to be out there and in it. You can't rely on someone else. You have to prepare. Next year I'll scout more… I'll train properly… I'll lose 15 pounds… I'll….. Frozen Head calls me…