First speed work in 2 years

Permanence

Slab with dad

Arf arf

Poot's a Hoot

Mile for mile, this was the most difficult long outing I’ve ever done. There were certainly sections on Nolan’s and Niwot’s where it was more mentally taxing to keep pushing, but the constant scrub oak infested, log littered terrain was unrelenting and really wore me down throughout the day. It’s a beautiful beast.

I started the day pissed – pissed at the American political and healthcare systems. Becoming more civilized and not spending all my time deep in the mountains has introduced many great things into my life, but it is much more difficult to not care about what’s happening in the world and the impact those systems have on me is much greater now that I’m not a hermit. The first three climbs of the day, I paid very little attention to what I was doing or where I was because I just needed to process the state of the world. The only thing that really broke my fuming train of thought – besides a dead crow near one of the overlooks – was the geologic cascade caused by me setting loose a rock on Sex Dungeon; I knocked a microwave size block, which fell and broke loose a fridge sized block that continued to tumble and almost hit the road…

By the time I made my way to the backside, I was finally starting to calm down. I put on Singletrack’s podcast with John Kelly and learned about the state of the Barkley marathons as I ripped down the nearly 2000 foot scree run that is The Fork. I wondered how going up and down the various ridges on this mountain compared to that fabled event and chuckled at the fact that the Gauntlet has the same amount of vert per ‘loop’ and really is only 20 miles. Upon reaching the bottom, I traversed the 0.1 miles to the next climb and started up the Byway, one of the few ridges I hadn’t scouted much in the past three months. 

When I step outside my house in Taos, Gallina is the closest and most obvious peak I can see. Though not particularly high at under 11,000 feet, it has been clear of snow nearly since I arrived at the start of the year. This is certainly due in part to the atrocious snow year (the ski hill didn’t hit 100” of snowfall until April), but is also due in part to the copious south and west facing ridges leading to the summit. Since the skiing has been so mediocre, I’ve spent a great deal of time over the last three months hiking around these ridges and acquainting myself with the hill in the back yard. Somewhere along the way, I thought linking all of the ridges in a single day would be ‘fun’ and so the Gauntlet was born. 

As I made my way up the Byway and the next climb, TORTDHAN, getting absolutely shredded by scrub-oak and trying not to lose too much progress going up the 35+ degree scree slopes all while being blasted by the sun, the word that came to mind wasn’t ‘fun,’ but it did share the first two letters. Upon reaching the top of TORT, I then headed to the actual summit. Getting to the summit and all the way back down is by far the flattest section of the entire day, and it was on that stretch that I was able finally lower my HR below 160 and have the mental space to actually enjoy being out. 

I found myself in a headspace I haven’t had since Niwot’s nearly 2 years ago, the headspace that I really love about doing this kind of effort. Ultra endurance events are life distilled down to the primal level. The goal is to just keep going, experiencing the journey until it’s over. Sometimes it’s hard; sometimes it’s easy; sometimes you’ll feel happy, sad, angry, tired, or euphoric – you’ll feel all of the emotions. Challenges will present themselves and when they do, you do what you can to deal and to keep moving forward. That’s exactly what the life of a human is. The only difference is the challenges of a long walk are such basic human actions – the need to drink, eat, push on, rest - that they force a state of mind focused on the present. With that present focus, it’s impossible not to notice what is happening around you in space and realize that you are just a small part of the vast universe. Feeling that smallness and the resulting awe make the problems of everyday life feel not so important in the grand scheme, and that understanding was fantastic to have given how I started the day. 

Following this introspection (and the only time my HR stayed below 150 for over an hour all day), I was feeling fantastic going in t the last two climbs. I cranked up Shree Shity and down Scree Scity, met Solace for some different snacks, and then headed up The Notch, my favourite climb of them all. When I first conceived this idea, I knew I’d be doing this climb on tired legs. The Notch has a mandatory 5.6+ section, as well as many other very consequential sections, and so I made it a point to have it dialed before this outing. I was a bit apprehensive in spots since all of my balance muscles had been blown to smithereens, but I managed to cruise the technical stuff and then slog my way to the top. I enjoyed the sunset atop The Highway, before cruising down to the road and walking the last mile with Solace. 

This thing kicked my ass. Turns out 15k’ of off trail travel with an average slope angle of 30 degree is really not the easiest thing one can decide to do. I’m stoked I was able to pull it off, not only because it was really ‘fun,’ but because it started to rebuild my confidence as a mountain person that I lost when I got OTS two years ago. I’m excited to see how this summer plays out with this as the start. And now, on to the FRange!

Top Sports

Justin Swantek

The Gallina Gauntlet

10 Photos

Sign up to see the comments.

Splits

Sign up to view more activities from Justin Swantek

First speed work in 2 years

Permanence

Slab with dad

Arf arf

Poot's a Hoot

Want to see more?

The #1 app for runners and cyclists

Sign Up for Free. Track your progress and reach goals. Join 100 million active people on Strava.

See More from Justin