Last weekend the Seattle-based trio of Apex Racing teammates Travis Biechele, Jason Connell, and Chris Ragsdale rode bikes from Seattle to Paradise via Longmire, climbed to the summit Mt. Rainier via the standard/Disappointment Cleaver route (with Bill Booth joining them as a 4th on the rope team), then cycled back to Seattle. Although they didn’t achieve their 24 hour objective, the did complete the epic, which as far as I can determine is a first.
Brief descriptions of previous similar previous attempts are at the bottom of this post.
Here is their debrief:
The online tracker stopped at ~78 miles, but the ride to Paradise looked uneventful. Was it?
Nothing much to report other than the fact we didn’t see our SAG between Elbe and the park entrance. Our SAG drove ahead to pay our park entry fee and was given bad information from the Rangers at the entrance gate. They were told that climber’s registration closed at 5pm at Longmire and earlier at Paradise. Since it was already 4PM they drove ahead to Longmire to register us. Lindsey stayed at the park entrance with food and water for us. A couple miles into the park the SAG was coming down and confirmed to us that we could register at Paradise until 6:30PM. Good news indeed!
Jason’s Strava for the ride from the Space Needle to Paradise
How did the transition go at Paradise?
We arrived at 6:15PM and were able to rush into the visitor’s center and get registered without issue. Where we did run into a problem was finding the car the Muir support crew left for us at Paradise. It turned out to be parked in the lower lot, it took 20 or so minutes to find it. We started hiking a couple minutes before 7:00PM.
How did the climb to Camp Muir go?
The hike to Muir was great! Perfect weather, great views, and the slushy snow was easy to make good progress in. The first red flag came when we radioed the Muir team from below Pebble Creek and found out they hadn’t even reached Muir yet. For various reasons they were delayed in leaving for Muir and there was a gap in the speed of the team. At the end of the day we passed one of the support crew prior to reaching Muir and arrived at Muir shortly after the others. This caused a long delay while we had to prep climbing gear and boil water in the dark. After a short search we realized that my Muir bag had been left at Paradise. I was without a headlamp, crampons, sunscreen, phone charger, etc… Nothing was really critical except to crampons (I was able to borrow a headlamp). After a short discussion Travis very selflessly gave up his crampons and chance to summit so I could. We didn’t leave for the summit till midnight.
How did the climb to the summit go?
Rolling out at midnight put us right in the middle of all the other groups leaving for the summit. Throughout the night there was a backlog of climbers on the route sometimes 30 climbers long. While this certainly slowed us up a bit I don’t think it was a significant amount of time. By the top of the Cleaver (12,500’) we had lost some spunk and weren’t moving any faster than most the other teams. Overall the route was in fine shape with only a half dozen or so snow bridges or crevasses to jump. The wind that we expected did in fact materialize. The last 90 minutes before reaching the summit it was really blowing, we estimated 50mph on the summit (as forecasted).
The descent turned out to be an issue. Bill (Booth) was really feeling the effects of the altitude and began moving at a snail’s pace. He did show some serious grit pushing though, but it was slow going for several hours. By the time we reached the Ingraham flats he was right as rain and we continued back to Muir in good form.
I saw that the crew who was supposed to meet you in the morning was in a serious car wreck en route. What happened?
Peter Senter hit a horse in the road with the van somewhere outside the park. His van was damaged badly, including the brakes and electronics. He did get it up to Paradise because he wanted to assist us if he could. After a few hours he ended up going back knowing that the van was in to bad of shape to use for support.
How did the return trip to Paradise go?
Since it was already 11:00AM by the time we reached Muir (but thought it was later) we weren’t sure about the return bike trip. Uncertainty ended as soon as Travis told us we were going to finish this thing off and he’d pull us the whole way if necessary. After a quick snack and a gear reshuffle we were off to Paradise. The descent was uneventful, we arrived around 1:00PM.
Once at Paradise priority #1 was contacting loved ones to let them know we were alright. We were an hour overdue at this point and everyone waiting for us at the Space Needle was concerned. Since we had no phone service we had to buy a calling card at the gift shop so we could make a call from the payphone. After making our calls we started the process of changing back into cyclists.
How was the return trip to Seattle?
Fast! After descending out of the park Travis switched over to his Time Trial bike and “it was on”! We averaged 25mph for the first three hours. Chris and Travis had a fun game going. Travis holds what seemed like 500 Watts for mile after mile until we hit a false flat, then Ragsdale pulls through and hammers it, Jason spent this time holding on for dear life! Once we reached Sumner we rode around in circles a little bit looking for the Interurban trail. By this point we started losing steam in the afternoon heat and incessant headwind. After missing what seemed like every stop light between Tukwila and the Space Needle we finally arrived at 8:08PM.
Jason’s Strava for the return trip from Paradise to the Space Needle.
This was an bold undertaking. What lessons did you learn?
Too many to list. A few big ones though would be: Starting in Leschi would be a big time saver, getting out of and back into downtown was a mess. The Muir support crew should arrive much earlier, perhaps even the day before. All transition bags need to be very well marked and pre-sorted.
When are you going to make the next attempt?
June/July 2015!
We would like to express a MAJOR thank you to our support crew! Only three of us attempted the challenge but it took three times that many crew members to make it a reality.
