Montana Top 50, FKT

In the spring of 2020, my goal race for the year, the Bigfoot 200, was canceled. I wanted to design a solo, self-supported challenge to test my fitness in a comprehensive way. I settled on climbing the 50 highest peaks in Montana, located in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness—a remote expanse of nearly a million acres. Earlier in May, I had completed a traverse of the Bob Marshall Wilderness with a coach of mine, John Fitzgerald. That trip involved snowshoes, river crossings, and testing gear like collapsible flasks, which helped me calibrate my effort for multi-week pacing rather than standard ultramarathon racing.

I had a five-week incubation period to plan while balancing a busy work travel schedule. I prepared for up to 30 days of effort, gathering 125,000 calories. A week before starting, I hiked 85 miles with 15,000 feet of elevation gain just to set my four caches. I used black spray-painted 5-gallon buckets and hid them in sturdy trees at least 10 feet off the ground, below the 9,500-foot treeline, to keep them safe from black bears and grizzlies. Each cache held about 25,000 calories—mostly jerky, candy, trail mix, a one-pound jar of peanut butter, and powdered milk for my morning granola. I also stashed basic medical supplies, a 20,000-milliamp power bank, and backup charging cables.

I started at the Wyoming-Montana border, moving generally clockwise. I carried an Ultimate Direction 35-liter fastpack and used aluminum telescoping ski poles because carbon fiber breaks too easily. I wore one pair of running shoes and didn't bring a rope, climbing harness, water filter, or stove. My sleep system and clothing were prepared to withstand a blizzard, as the Beartooths can experience severe weather at any time. For hydration, I drank directly from streams, snowmelt, and glacial runoff in the moderately glaciated terrain. Some mornings, I would wake up freezing, check my phone to assess my fatigue and food, and hope to find water. On dry days, I occasionally resorted to digging small pools in the dirt where water was seeping just to fill my flasks. During the day, I relied heavily on drinking Ultragen recovery powder to efficiently take in calories.

The route took 17 days and covered roughly 195 miles with 104,000 feet of elevation gain. Only about 10 of those miles were on an actual trail. Sixteen of the peaks had no route information available online. I relied on topographic maps and offline satellite imagery. Before the trip, I prepared by going to my local crag at Mount Helena, stripping off my climbing gear, and free-soloing 50-foot cliffs in running shoes to simulate the conditions. Still, the reality was stark. Every day required exposed class 4 and low class 5 scrambling on loose rock. On day two, while descending a moraine, I rolled some boulders and my leg became fully entrapped. It was a sobering reminder that I had to slow down and make every step methodical. I sat down, reassessed, and realized I couldn't afford any mistakes.

The physical toll mounted quickly. By day six, during a 400-foot direct vertical ascent of the north face of Sky Pilot, my fingertips began bleeding from the constant climbing on abrasive rock. I had cut the tips off a pair of Carhartt gloves for dexterity, but eventually had to wrap all my fingertips in duct tape. I adapted my climbing style to stem with my arms and use my palms for friction. Then, about 100 miles in, ironically on one of the only flat trail sections, I reached for a granola bar, misstepped, and sprained my ankle. The swelling was immediate. I restructured my movement to drag my bad leg as an anchor and put all the climbing risk on my strong leg. To manage the swelling, I put snow in my water reservoir to use as an ice pack at night. The ankle slowly improved over the next several days. During the middle third of the route, wildfire smoke from California rolled in, blinding me to incoming weather systems and making it difficult to scout lines from a distance.

By the time I reached the final ten peaks, the cumulative physical and mental fatigue was overwhelming. I was worn down by the daily exposure and the absolute stakes of the solitary environment. I began avoiding even non-technical exposed ridgelines. On Peak 43, Mount Hague, I descended the East Ridge on a 40- to 60-degree slope of compact dirt, loose gravel, and unpredictable ice lenses. I was so depleted that it became one of the most stressful descents of the trip. The only people I saw on summits were a guided group near Granite Peak, where I ended up climbing the West Granite traverse—a 5.7-rated downclimb on loose rock—with one of the off-duty guides. Aside from that, the final week was spent in pure isolation.

I finished on August 29. The project forced me to confront my own limitations and required a level of focus I hadn’t experienced before. A week after returning, I received an email offering a deferral for the Bigfoot 200 race to a future year. I realized then that organized racing was no longer the path I wanted to take. The experience shifted my perspective entirely, leaving me with a desire to pursue long-duration, self-reliant adventure in wild places rather than structured events.