What a great day! On Saturday's agenda was a 32 mile run from Robinson Flat back to the campsite at Foresthill. This is the most difficult section of the course as it traverses 3 canyons (steep downhill in, then a steep uphill out) including the two most difficult climbs of the entire race: Devil's Thumb and Michigan Bluff.
The first 13 miles are generally downhill, but after that it gets interesting! Elevation Profiles for the next 20 miles (through the canyons) are below (note that the mileage on the horizontal axis are short for some reason):
It was tough, but certainly doable. Even lollygagging about taking pictures and jumping into all three rivers at the bottom of the canyons (very cool and refreshing!) I completed the section in just over 7 hours, which is faster than a 24 hour finish for all 100 miles. Felt great! I even ran about 6 miles with ultra legend Tim Twietmeyer - until he lost me on the climb up Devil's Thumb! He gave me a ton of useful advice for June.
We arrived at Robinson courtesy of yellow school buses:
There was snow at the top! Wish we could have taken some with us - would have come in handy down in the 90+ degree canyons!
Fires went through this area several years back; as such, this area of the trail was exposed to the direct sun:
This is the actual "Devil's Thumb" rock formation - several of us hiked a bonus 1/2 mile to get this picture!
I'll be sleeping well tonight under the stars and looking forward to the next 20 mile section of the course tomorrow!
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