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Badwater Report 2001 Report-The Summit(CA): Matt Palocsay

i needed the summit.

that first 135 is a tough sonamagun.  if that was all there was, i would
have been satisfied.  but i knew there was a mountain looming over my
shoulder and i had to get up it.  we took about 30 minutes to regroup and
load the summit packs and off we went.  it was about 10pm and i was heading
up a 14,500ft. summit in the dark with only a little sleep in 40 hours.

it was pretty sketchy going up, especially when there was a thin trail that
had nothing but a 1000 foot drop off to one side.  i had to pull a few
ballerina steps to stay on trail and alive.  my legs were strong and even
with the caffeine, my mind was a little weary, but not hallucinating.  we
did, however, forget to reload on water at our last chance.  by the time we
got to about 1 mile from the summit, we had no water left and had not been
eating.  it was getting colder and we were getting more and more tired.  we
could either press on and summit and hope to find water soon enough on the
way down or pack it in and bail.  we decided to press on and ended up
finding snow.  mona had brought a camp stove, so we were able to melt the
snow.  it took about 45 minutes to fill the bottles and bladders and by the
end of that time, i was shaking heavily and pretty wrecked.  only 1 mile
from the summit, i almost bailed, but i got a burst of energy (hydration?)
and made the last push to the summit.  47:48 and change from the time we
left badwater.  third fastest a.m. summit (behind course guru marshall
ulrich and super-stud eric clifton).  we had a little bit of an emotional
outpouring.  it had gotten a little scary up there and it was a long way to
have come.  we couldn't celebrate too much because we still had to make it
down and we were still not in the best shape.

the trip down was hell.  i started hallucinating vividly and stopped eating
and drinking about half of the way down.  i wasn't sure i would make it.  55
hours after leaving badwater, i reached the portals again, and that was when
the real emotions came out.  i had completed the 18 month journey and was
still in one piece.  to steal from jerry garcia, what a long strange trip
it's been. . .

i recovered quickly and was running around the parking lot the next day (we
have it on video tape).  i think a few beers that night after the run helped
speed up the recovery curve.  we went to the post-race meetings to see how
everyone else had done and my friends had all run great races.

my crew and i will reconvene in las vegas in september to do the real
celebration and trade pictures and stuff.  it will be my last big "thank
you" to them for taking such goods care of me.  it is hard to stress how
important crew is for this run, and they really made it happen.

and i'm pretty proud.  youngest finisher/buckle/summit, 10th place, 1st to
summit, 3rd fastest am summit time, buckled the summit.  yeah, i'm pretty
lucky.

if you have the chance to do the badwater to mt. whitney run, do it.  do
your homework first but do it.  i hope your experience is as wondeful as
mine has been.

matt