T5: Tahoe 5 Peaks Challenge - Participant Walk Through

In this episode, I break down the Tahoe Five Peaks Challenge — five summits, fifty miles, and a full day moving through the high country around Lake Tahoe. I walk through each peak, the terrain, the pacing, and the mental shifts that happen as the miles stack up. This is a clear, first‑hand account of what the challenge demands and what it gives back. If you’re curious about the T5 or you’re drawn to big mountain days, this episode delivers a straightforward, epic look at one of Tahoe’s most iconic endurance routes.

If you have signed up for the Challenge or the Casula version - this is essential listening.

If you haven't -what are you waiting for:

www.tahoe5peaks.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

This is Off You Pop, the podcast for hikers and adventurers who want to be epic in just one day. Today is a very special episode of Off You Pop. Today I'm gonna walk you through the Tahoe Five Peaks. Now, whether you are taking this on as a challenger or just doing it the casual way, this is your essential guide to successful completion of the Tahoe Five Peaks. We'll walk you through each of the five peaks, and then for those taking on the challenge, we'll give you some tips and tricks on getting it done. Now let's get on the pop. First of all, let me say congratulations for signing up to take on this epic adventure. This is one for the books. This one will push you to your limits. So we're gonna talk you through how to get it done successfully. And so let's first talk about the two different types of challenges. One is the challenger, the 24-hour suffer fest. This one you need to get done with 24 hours of total elapsed time. That means you start at midnight, you end at midnight. You have to get all of the peaks done and all the driving in between. This one's gonna push you to your very limit. No mistakes, the perfect loop is the only way to get it done. Then there's the casual, or not so casual as the case may be. In this version, take on the peaks whenever you like. Just make sure you do it in a single calendar year. And you have to complete it within 24 hours of total walking time. Still a real challenge, still tough, but without the pressure of the 24 hour clock. So, those are the two versions. You're either gonna get it done in a 24-hour period or with 24 hours of total elapsed walking time. Now we've created this excellent website, www.taho, the number fivepeaks.com. If you signed up for this challenge, you're probably already familiar with it. I just wanted to make sure you didn't miss anything on the website that's gonna be helpful in you completing this challenge. So there is a podcast episode on there that you can just click on on the website. They'll give you a walkthrough of each of the peaks. And there's also a participant guide. It's a 40-page guide, gives you everything you need to know to get it done. So make sure you check those out before you take on the challenge. There's a few things you're going to need to know as you take on this epic adventure, and I highly recommend you go prepared. We also created GPX files for each of the routes. So if you're not familiar with a GPX file, it's a file that you can download onto your phone and use with a navigation app. And so we trace the route of the actual official trails that you can then have on you when you go up on the mountain with your favorite navigation device. So I like to use Gaia. You can also use all trails. Now, all trails has preloaded trails, and some of them are not quite the T5, but they can still be very useful. You can also check out on the website, I explain how you download the GPX file and then use it on your phone. So let's walk you through the art of the journey. Now I'm gonna walk you through as if you're doing the challenger. If you're doing the challenger, this one is the official order. If you're doing the casual, you can do the peaks in any order you like. So for the challenge, you start at midnight and you start Mount Rose. This one's the opener. It's gonna be dark the whole time, so make sure you got a headlamp. The next one is Granite Chief over in Olympic Village. This one's the longest one of the lot. Now, not too steep, not too challenging, except it's long and it's a grind. You'll start out in the blue zone, maybe even in the dark. The first bit in the lower valley you'll be in the dark, but soon it'll lighten up and you'll be able to see the way. The next is Talak. Mount Talak. This one has the most elevation gain. It's not the tallest, but it does have the highest elevation gain. And this one's the midpoint. This one's real challenging because it's super, super rocky. Next, Thrill. This one is the tallest of all of the peaks, and it's the most challenging to get to. You have to drive out of the basin and around the back to get to the trailhead in Horseface Meadow. And then finally you finish at Genoa, just outside of South Lake, across the border into Nevada. This one's the finisher. Gives you a beautiful view of the Carson Valley. Now, if you're doing it the Challenger way, dark's gonna be creeping in again. You'll probably be finishing this one in the dark. So that's the arc of the journey. Those are the five peaks. Now I'm gonna walk you through each of the peaks, the statistics, and then my experience walking each of the peaks. And this one's great for both the casual and the challenger. I'll give you a few tips and tricks along the way of how not to get lost and some of the important timing windows. Now I did each of these peaks as if I was doing the challenge version. So I will say I'm moving fast. I'm gonna be giving people tips on how to make up time as we go through each of the peaks. So let's start with Mount Rose. So on the challenge version, it's gonna be midnight when you start this. So you want to arrive around 11.30, 11.45, just to give yourself a few minutes to prepare. And Mount Rose is the highest trailhead. It's on the far north of Lake Taha. And there's a nice big parking lot there. There certainly will be very few people when you start the trail. There may be a few cars in there. I think there's some folks out there enjoying the nighttime hiking. I think a few folks try and hike up to catch the sunrise. You will not be seeing the sunrise, at least not if you're moving quickly. So the trailhead actually begins behind a bathroom block. Now that bathroom block should be open, so if you have last-minute nerves, this is one of the few places where you can enjoy some real amenities. So do take that opportunity if you need it. You go up behind the toilet block, and the trail leads up into the mountain. There's a slight incline, and almost immediately you have a decision point. Carry on down the trail, it says bikes, mountain bikes this way, or there's a set of stone steps just to your right. You want to go up the stone steps, and it's a very short set of steps. And when you get there, you're going to be starting the climb proper almost immediately. Now, if you're not acclimatized, you are over 8,000 feet, so you're going to start feeling the effects of the altitude almost immediately. So I recommend you take this first little section slowly just to get your legs warmed up, get your lungs warmed up, uh, used to breathing the thinner air. It's a very straight, gentle ascent up into the trail. And as you're climbing up, you're going to start to see Lake Tahoe just to your south. And on the night that we did it, it was a clear full moon night. And so we were able to see the full moon reflecting off of Lake Tahoe. It's very, very spectacular. I also recommend trying to time this with a full moon or a nearly full moon. It'll really help with this first section. And when you get up to the top of this little incline, it's going to start to level off a little bit. And you're going to dip into the forest. And almost immediately, when you dip into the forest, you're going to get to a crossroads. There is no sign that says Mount Rose this way. There's some signs for other trails. My tip of the day: this is the first place you can get lost. Just go straight. Don't go left or don't go right, just go straight. And so you're weaving through the forest. On your left is another mountain, and that's Tamarak. And that'll be on your left the whole way. And so to your right are some drop-offs. They're not sheer drop-offs, but they're steep enough. So just be mindful you're moving in the dark, and on the right hand side is a bit of a drop-off. So the trail here is largely flat, and in fact, it's dipping ever so slightly downwards. So you can start to pick up the pace here a little bit. You're probably still going to be a little bit wended from the altitude and getting your lungs used to it. But you can certainly walk a little bit faster, jog a little bit if you want. And about two miles in, a little over two miles, you're going to hit a waterfall. Now, if it's dark, you're not going to see the waterfall, but you will hear the waterfall. And this is the first place where you need to start climbing up Mount Rose. And this is where the Mount Rose trail starts proper. And there's a bit of a decision point here. There is a trail that goes off to the left up beside the waterfall. Don't take that, that's the wrong way. Here, before the waterfall, you want to turn right and you're going to go across a meadow. So you're going to find yourself in a lot of brush and bush. And you're going to go across the meadow. There may even be some water running through the trail, a couple of creeks transecting the trail. That means you're going the right way. It's again fairly flat here, but it's a little rockier. You're sort of going through bushes that are even above your head in places, depending on the time of year that you're doing this. And slowly as you go across the meadow, it's going to start climbing. Not dramatically, just gently, slowly up beside the mountain behind you. And the mountain behind you is actually Mount Houghton. You're not going up there. There is another trail about a quarter of a mile across the meadow that goes up into the mountains. Don't take that one either. Just keep going across the meadow. And what you're doing is you're heading, as you go across the meadow, you're actually heading straight at Mount Rose. And when you cross the meadow, you're going to take a sharp left and you're going to go up this canyon. And I've heard the locals call this desperation canyon. In the day can trap the heat, and it just feels like the first part of the grind. And it is really the first part of the grind. The very first bit of going up the canyon, you've got very steep drop-offs to your right. So be very mindful here. This is one of the most dangerous parts of this trail, just because of how steep those drop-offs are. And it's super steep real early on. And so maybe for like 400 yards, slower down, it's going to be really steep. And then as you get up into the canyon, the drop-offs will disappear. And you're actually going to cross a creek over to the other side of the canyon. But you're going to be going straight up the whole way. And towards the top of the canyon, it gets steep again. So you have to back it off a little bit. And soon, though, you're ridging out on a saddle. This is a saddle between Houghton and Rose. It'd be a big flat, empty plateau. And when you walk across the saddle, you're going to see a signpost. This is the one that takes you up to Mount Rose. If you keep going, you're going to end up in the wilderness and rail loss. So make sure you don't miss this turn-off. It's to the right, up onto a ridge that leads you all the way up to Mount Rose. So you will start gently climbing, and it'll start getting a little steeper and a little rockier. Fairly direct. Just be mindful of your footing here. There are some little bits of rock sticking out that can trip you up. But you will start climbing, you'll start feeling yourself pulling out of the tree line and really starting to feel like you're in alpine territory. There'll be some switchbacks that you go into, fairly general switchbacks. Not doesn't, they're not very long, but soon, after like three or four of these switchbacks, you're going to start heading west, sort of back behind Mount Rose. And suddenly you'll pop out of the tree line and you'll be on the exposed talus field on the south side of Rose. And this is probably, if you've got any weather going on, this is where it's going to first hit you. If it's a little bit windy windy and brisky up there, you're going to feel it right now. And you're going to feel the wind all the way up from this point. It gets kind of rocky, and you start heading back up, sort of, I think northeast up the flank of Mount Rose. It'll be pretty rocky, but never too steep. A little steep towards the top. And as you get up to the top and you sort of summit out, you're going to think you've made it to the summit. That's not the summit, that's a forced summit. You need to go over that. It dips down a little, goes back up, and then you'll reach the summit. And you'll know you're at the summit because there'll be a little stone shelter there. And you'll be able to see the city lights of Reno and the Carson Valley below you. And you've made it to the summit of Mount Rose. Now you want to make it to that waterfall in about 40-45 minutes. And you probably want to make it to the top of the Rose in under two hours if you're going to get the challenge done. If you're doing the casual two hours, maybe between two and two and a half hours, you want to be locked anywhere between three and a half to four hours for this one. If you're going in a little bit of over four hours, then you're probably going to be in a little bit of trouble if you're doing this as a challenge. Even a 24 hour, this one should be a relatively short one, four, four and a half hours. For each of these mountains, if you are going to do the casual, your average time on foot on each of the trails is 4.8 hours. Don't know why I did it in decimals, but just a little bit shy of five hours for each of these peaks. If you're going to do the challenger though, four hours is your absolute maximum limit on this, because you have three hours of driving in between. So 24 hours total hiking time for the casual. I recommend aiming for 20 hours if you're going to do the challenge. So you've hit the first peak, turn back. You have to go a little bit uphill just to summit over that force summit. And then you start going downhill. It's a little bit steep to begin with and rocky as you come back down off the saddle. But as you round down, back into the tree line, now this is a good time to pick up some pace. The trail, the greater the trail, sort of eases off a little bit, and you can really pick up the pace going back down those switchbacks and back along the ridge, back to the saddle. Be a bit mindful as you're getting towards the bottom of the ridge. It gets a little bit rockier. To the left, there are some drop-offs, but you shouldn't really have any trouble with them. They're a little bit set back from the trail. And you'll quickly find yourself back on that saddle. Turn left. Don't turn right because you're going to end up in the wilderness. Turn left, back down that canyon, that little gully. Top bit's going to be super steep. You'll have to take your time a little bit with it. But then in the middle section is a little bit flatter. You can pick up the pace through there, cross the creek. Then as you're coming down to the bottom of the gully, just remember on your left is a really steep drop-off. The trail is really steep, usually dusty, so you want to take your time just getting back down into the meadow. And then when you're in the meadow, the meadow is fairly rocky, that trail, a little bit wet, and you're back in the foliage. You can certainly make good times. Probably not super runnable, but uh you can certainly get across the meadow fairly quickly. And then you hit the waterfall. And remember from this point, you've got 40, 45 minutes. Now back from the waterfall, it's slightly uphill. Now you can run it, but you're probably going to exhaust yourself on it. It's not super steep. The first bit is probably the steepest bit coming out from the waterfall. And then it levels off a little bit. But if you try and run that first section, you're going to certainly going to burn a lot of calories that you might not want to if you're doing the challenger piece. But it'll start easing out, and you can certainly pick up the hiking pace, maybe a little gentle jog. Uh, just remember as you're getting further away from the waterfall, you've got those drop-offs on the left again. Just be mindful of that. And soon you'll pop out of the forest and you'll see Tahoe on the right, and you're back on the final descent. That place where you started. Now, this is beautiful. This piece is like soft sand, a nice gentle grade. This is super runnable. Now, it's not very long, but you can certainly pick up a few minutes here if you're doing the challenger, doing a little jog back to the parking lot. Remember the stone steps. You're going to come down the stone steps. Don't go right. That's going to take you away from the parking lot. You need to switch back to the left and you'll find yourself back behind the toilet block. Now, you need to get in your car and get going if you're doing the challenger version pretty quickly. You've got a 40-minute drive over to Olympic Valley. So you're going to head down into Incline Village, skirt around the lake, and then you're going to drive back out to the Olympic Valley. And when you get into the Olympic Valley, you're going to want to park in front of the Olympic Valley Event Center. As you're driving into the Olympic Valley, it's sort of on the right hand side of the valley. Don't get up into the left-hand side, all the stores and the shops and the places to stay. And park in front of the event center. There's some parking spots off to the right where the trail is, but those are for employees only. And once you park there, you can get up into the Granite Chief Trailhead proper. Now, on all trails, if you're going to use all trails and you're looking for the Granite Chief Trail, the Granite Chief Trailhead actually terminates up in a neighborhood and there's no parking. So don't try and do that. Park in front of the event center and then go into one of those little employee parking lots that will be on your right-hand side, and you'll find some use trails that will climb up onto the ridge and you hit Granite Chief proper. So you're going to go left, heading up, up into the mountain. And sort of what you're going to be doing is you're going to be skirting up the left side of the valley and then traversing across behind the ski area up to Granite Chief. So that's sort of in your mind. Think about that. I'm standing on the right-hand side, then I'm going to swing behind. And it'll be in the blue zone when you start, if you're making good time, on the challenge section. So the first little bit, probably the first half an hour or so, is going to be in the dark, slowly getting lighter. And when you get up into this first piece of Granite Chief, it's relatively flat, starts climbing a little bit, and there are a lot of stone steps, but it can be a bit confusing in the dark. So just be a bit mindful of where you're going and what your navigation is. Now your navigation point is on the left-hand side. As you're climbing up, there's a there's a creek. And so if you keep the creek to the left, you can't get it too wrong. But maybe about half a mile in, there is a uh a trail off to the left that will lead down into the Shirley Canyon Trail. Now, don't take that one to the left, stay to the right when you see that that signpost. And you'll start going up these steps and it'll feel a little bit steep. Not too bad, but it'll level off a little bit. Now, the good thing about this granite chief trail is that it's never really too steep until you get to the very summit. So you can make pretty good hiking time, not runable time, but pretty good hiking time as you're going up through the trail. And so you'll be in the forest to begin with, and you'll start climbing pretty gently upwards, and the daylight will start to come up, and you'll start to be able to see the forest and where you're going. You'll see the mountains terminating at the back of the Olympic Valley, and everything to your left is sort of ski resort, so you can see on the other side of the valley some of the skis, a lot of these ski lifts that are coming up from the valley. But it's a really pleasant, gentle hike, slowly ascending up into the mountain. You'll be in the forest, and then suddenly you're gonna pop out into this big open area. Now, when we did it, there were a lot of these mule-ear plants and this beautiful beautiful flowering field in front of you. And in front of you is a mountain face, a peak face. And the trail is gonna go across this valley, gonna dip down a little bit, across a small creek, and then you're gonna be abutting against this big, huge outcrop. And this bit of the trail is kind of rocky. There's some really steep sort of steps to get out the trail. But you're gonna be hugging that rock outcrop. You'll be heading left, sort of back. This is where you start going up behind the skiers or back up towards Granite Chief. It'll be a little section that feels a little rugged, and then you're gonna pop out into this rock escarpment. It's a big flat piece of rock, no foliage, no obvious signposts of where the trail are. People have put some rocks there to try and guide you to show you where the trail is, but it can be a little bit confusing. Basically, you want to stick to the right hand side of that huge sort of rock plateau. That's where the trail goes, following up the right hand side. And you'll get up it pretty quick and across it pretty quick, and then you'll go back into the sort of the ruggedness of the mountain. There'll be a little creek on the other side. Of the the rock escarpment, and the trail will then get a little bit more rugged up through the rocks, and you'll you'll be climbing up into the alpine forest again. This feels very different to the lower forest. It's certainly that high Sierra evergreen forest that you might be used to. There are a few switchbacks early on, but it also it gets a little gentle. Gennel underfoot, no rocks underfoot. You've got sort of the the pine needles that are those conifers underneath you, and you keep climbing up, and eventually you transect uh the Pacific Crest Trail. So you come to this little junction, and you want to go left here, so almost just keep going in the direction you're going. And you'll be on the Pacific Crest Trail. This one flattens out a fair amount. There's some ups and there's some downs, but nothing too dramatic. You're gonna keep going a little way and you'll come down a little section that will lead you into a campground. And when we were there, there were four or five people camping up there. Keep going through the campground, it's gonna dip down across a little creek, and then you're gonna come to this little lake. When you come to the lake on the other side of the lake, looking up, that's Granite Chief. That's what you're gonna be climbing. And to the left, you're gonna see a black ski lift. Not working at this time of the morning, this this time of the year. But what you're basically gonna be doing is heading underneath and up towards the ski lift. So it'll start getting a little bit steeper here as you come out of the lake and switch back each. This bit's a bit of a slower section. And you switch back underneath the black ski lift, and if you come underneath the ski lift, you're gonna be at the base of this sort of sandy ascent that goes up to the ski lift. There'll be this fence line that you'll come across. Don't go up the sandy bank. That's what we did. The sandy bank takes you up to the ski lift. That's not the way up to Granite Chief. You just need to go just the other side of that fence line on the trail and then turn right. That's the ascent up to Granite Chief. So it starts a little bit flat, but then it just gets super, super steep to get to the top of Granite Chief. Now it's not long, but it is very steep. It's a little bit loose and sandy, but it feels like a grind to get to the top. But keep plugging away at it, you'll get to the top, and then you get these beautiful views of the lake and all the mountains around the lake. You can see them all from there. And just take a little rest because uh that little short ascent really punches you in the gut. And then time to get off the mountain. So take your time getting off the off the little peak. Remember to keep the fence line to your to your left. It's uh pretty loose coming down there. Not not rocky, but a little bit loose because it's kind of sandy and gritty. And when you hit the uh Pacific Crest Trail, turn left here. Don't turn right like somebody in my party did and get lost for half an hour. Go left back the way you came. You'll you'll know you're going the right way because you're cross back underneath the ski lift. There'll be some little switchbacks, you'll come back around the lake, and you've got a bit of a climb up to the campground. It's a little flat across the campground, a little bit of a climb to get out of the other side of the campground. But then after that, it should be pretty much downhill all the way. So on the PCT, you can pick up a good pace. You can really make some time going down the PCT. The tricky part is you have to remember that junction back on the granite jeep trail. And it's super easy to miss if you're not paying attention, if you're feeling a little bit tired already. It's not obviously signposted. There is a sign there right at the junction, but it's broken. So it's it's been snapped off and there's no sign there whatsoever. And I was hiking with somebody uh coming back down and we missed it. And we went probably a mile down the PCT before I checked my map, just looking for where the turn off was, and we had passed it, which wasn't great because it was ascending, so we had to hike back up to the junction point, which burnt a lot of calories. I think it cost us a mile and a half to two miles of of distance and certainly additional innovation. It probably cost us 20 minutes, 20, 30 minutes, and a whole bunch of energy burn that we didn't. One of the indicators of that trailhead is one, paying attention. But two, there is a little PCT sign just past the junction, and it's attached to a tree. If you see that PCT sign, you've gone too far. But anyway, get back into the granite chief trail. Now, this bit becomes really where you can make up a lot of time. It's fairly soft and gentle down here. You can jog it, you can fast pack it back through that alpine forest, and then you get back to that rock plateau. I also made a little bit of a navigation area here. Coming back just before that plateau, I sort of some rock canyons and gullies, and I went off trail down a little canyon, down to a big drop-off. And so I realized I'd made a mistake and had to backtrack. Cost me another five, ten minutes. But you'll know you're going the right way when you hit that big open rock plateau. Going back down, stick to the left. Just try and stick to the to the mountainside that's on your left-hand side, and you'll make quick time across that. It's not steep, it's pretty open and flat. And then you'll be back into the tricky bit of the rocks here, where it's kind of these big step-offs. So take your time through there. Then you'll be back across the mule, flower, open fill, and back into the forest proper. Now you can make some really good time in the forest. It's not too steep, it's nice and soft and gentle. And you can make your way back down to the Olympic Valley. And here's where we made a big mistake. One of our party had gotten a couple of hundred yards off the pace, and we thought it was pretty simple to get to the trail there. We were like a mile and a half from the trailhead, and he went missing basically. But when you get towards the base of the valley, you can see the Olympic event center, and there are some trails leading off into the Olympic event center. I came up the one by the ropes course, but there are a couple of other trails that will take you down into the parking lot, so don't worry too much, don't stress about that too much. Any one of those little trails will take you down to the event center and you can get back to your car. Now, our buddy got lost for an hour wandering aimlessly around Olympic Valley, the Olympic Valley village there, and we had almost called search and rescue, but that killed an hour, that really killed our challenge, to be honest. At that point, we'd already lost probably uh nearly an hour, 45 minutes, and some of our navigational issues. But for you, the next one you're off to is Tlac, and this one's a bit of a drive, it's closer to an hour drive. So you're gonna get in your car, get out of Olympic Valley, and head back down towards the lake, and you're basically gonna be driving all the way up down to the southern, the southwestern corner of the lake. And when you get to Tillac, one of the challenges you have here is the traffic. You're gonna go through a few small little towns, and depending on the day you do it, the traffic can be murderously slow. Don't don't speed through the towns. You you've got enough time. We're really discouraging you to speed around the lake. There's plenty of police that will keep you straight and honest too, and that will also ruin your challenge if you get stopped by the police. We had a bunch of road works which killed another half hour of extra time. So that really put pay to our challenge with our navigational errors and then with the uh the traffic and the road works that were going on. Now, when you get to Tallac, this is the real, this is real problematic at Talc because it's really, really popular. There is an area where you go around the Emerald Valley Lake, and there's a a waterfall there, and there are lots of cars, lots of people, lots of traffic. This is maybe about five miles before the Tilac turn-off, but the traffic around there can be problematic to say the least. But you will arrive at the Tillac Trailhead. There is a signpost there that takes you up to Tillac. Don't miss it, or you'll end up in South Lake, or as I did once in the Fallen Lake Campground. You do not want to be in the Fallen Lake Campground, you've gone too far. And you'll drive up off the road, up into the start of the trailhead. Now you'll know you're in the right place because there's a big signpost at the end of this little road that says Mount Mount Tillac. The road is sort of single track and then it comes up to a little roundabout turnaround area. The problem with this is it's super popular and there's not a lot of parking. So you could get styming it a little bit here, trying to find parking. We were fortunate enough to find a little bit of parking when we got there and were able to start the trail pretty quickly now. We bought a lot of energy on Granite Chief, unfortunately, and we already knew we were a couple hours behind when we started. But when we got there, it was around lunchtime. I want to say it was around one o'clock when we got to the trailhead. For you, you want to be at Granite Chief by five o'clock, and you want to be at Talc around 10 a.m. So you can see we're already a couple hours behind on the challenge. So if you're there around 10, 10.30, you're making good time. Now, Tillac is the midpoint, and Tilac is a whole different mountain altogether. Talc is extremely rocky, and it has the most elevation gain. It's not the longest, but it does have the most elevation gain. And I think you go over 3,000, 200 feet, depending on how you do it. So you start back at the trailhead, it's pretty obvious. Now on your left, you're not going to see it. And when you start out is Fallen Leaf Lake. You're going to go up into a little forest, starts fairly general, and then it starts slowly climbing. And you're going to climb up onto a ridgeline that overlooks Fallen Leaf Lake. And you're going to be on this sort of exposed ridgeline. And it's probably going to start heating up depending on the time of year you're there. Certainly if you're in the summer months, it's going to feel super, super hot, especially at the trailhead. It's going to suck the life out of you. Hopefully, you can catch a breeze when you hit that first ridgeline. You'll feel it. You'll be uh open and exposed. You'll be able to see Tahoe behind you, and you'll start catching glimpses of Fallen Leaf Lake to your left. And the ridgeline itself, the path is very rocky. So watch your footing. And you'll slowly go into a forest and get a little bit of shade and you'll dip down into another, another lake. This is Floating Island Lake, as far as I recall. Stick to the left. You're gonna go on the the foot. The floating island lake should be to your right. So you'll be following that up and you'll start climbing. And the signature of this is just the amount of rocks they're on on this trail. It's super rocky. So watch your watch your footing. You'll go up behind Floating Island Lake, do a little bit of a climb into the forest, sort of undulates a little bit, a little up, a little down, but you are definitely climbing. You can start to feel it. And then you'll hit another little lake, a little round lake. That's cathedral lake. I stopped here to try and cool down. I was super hot. I could not get my temperature down. It was very, it was a very still day. It was probably in the high 80s, but it was really sucking the life out of me. The heat, I just wanted every little breeze was like a relief. And got some water from the lake and just like tried to, you know, put it on the back of my head to cool down. And then the climbing really starts to begin. You start to go up through these big gray boulders and start to it starts to get a little bit steeper. And there's some potential to get lost. There were it's an older couple up there who were definitely off trail trying to figure out where they were going. I don't think it was that complicated. I don't know how they got to where they got, but I guided them back onto the trail. And eventually you're gonna climb out into this huge talus field, and you're gonna see it immediately. It's this massive talus field. This is really the crux of the whole climb now. You're gonna have to switch back up to the ridge, and you're going through these giant boulders. What it'll do is it'll start out not too bad. It'll be kind of gravelly underfoot, and you'll switch back across this open plain, but then you get into this huge boulder field, massive boulders, and you have to follow the trail. And what it'll do is it'll switch back and sort of out towards Lake Tahoe, and then it'll switch immediately back, back up the ridgeline. It's sort of one big switchback, maybe three switchbacks. And I remember at the very top when you're getting to the ridge, and there's another little switchback. But these are huge boulders with big gaps in between them. You could really twist an ankle or do some damage if you're not careful. So just be careful, pick your way through these boulders. You're going to be sort of leaping over gaps and stuff. It is fairly well defined, although um just after the first switchback, it appears that there was a different trail. And I saw quite a few people, including one of our party, got off trail here and up into the boulders and the talus and kind of lost and had to work their way back to the trail. So just be mindful of where the trail goes. It is fairly direct and straight. So if you find yourself going straight up the boulder field, you're going the wrong way. It's fairly, it's fairly well graded the trail, just kind of tricky to follow. And so you'll ridge out above the uh talus field, and you're sort of back into the mountain. So you're on more of the west side, away from Lake Tahoe when you ridge out, and then you're gonna start climbing up to Tilak. And this is really exposed. There's not really any tree line after here, and you'll keep going along the ridge and up the mountain, and it's it's pretty steep, it's pretty relentless, it's pretty rocky. There are areas where it's not rocky, and then there are areas where there's sort of screen runs you have to go through, sort of little switchbacks that'll take you up up the mountain, and then it'll crest out again. You get this big open open field, it's fairly flat. Just go straight across that, sort of climbs it a little bit, and you'll start to see the very peak of Tilak. And it's this it's a very jagged peak that you can see up to your right-hand side, and you'll climb up to it, and then you'll get to the base of it, and there'll be a sign for Tilak. Uh, when you get to that sign, go right and follow the trail around, and then you'll be on a very exposed, very, very steep drop off. You'll see Lake Tahoe below you, Fallen Leaf Lake off to the right. You get a spectacular view right the way up the lake. You want to keep going up, you'll turn left, and then you'll go through this very broken, jagged rock that will take you up to the peak. You know you're you're at the peak because there'll be a big metal sign there that says tilak. And you can just take a little breezer up there, um, ready for the descent now. You're gonna be hurting if you're doing the challenge at this point. This is the midpoint, and you have just slogged your way up the mountain. I know I felt super tired up there. I took a little bit of a break, took on a bit of fuel for the descent. But even the descent itself, it's it's fairly straightforward to get back once you once you know the way up there. The first pit's really exposed, so just watch out for thunderstorms. If the storms are rolling and you want to get your butt off that mountain, you've got quite a way to get off the mountain before you're back in the forest. And it's fairly steep and loose and rocky, and you can feel the rocks under feet. They're just pounding your feet. This is where your feet take a real punishment to come in off of this mountain. It's a little loose in places. There are some scree run areas. Before you get to that big talus field, there is like just before there, there's sort of a turn-off like a single track that takes you off across plateau. Don't take that single track. The trail goes through the scree runs and the boulder fields. So make sure you are in those scree runs and boulder fields, and then you'll come back to that ridge and down that across that huge boulder field. You can see it all laid out from the top, looking down at the ridge line. Just watch out on that ridge. You do have to walk down the ridge a little bit to switch back into the Talos field. If you try and go in too early, you're going to get in a world of pain. So just be mindful of where the trail enters into that big boulder field. And then you've got to pick your way back down through the boulders. It's kind of slow going, but you do want to take it slow. You don't want to twist an ankle here. And then once you're out of the boulder field, you've got the little switchbacks, and then you're going back through the boulders and the granite again. And then eventually you make it back into the forest, uh, into Cathedral Lake. And now it's just uh a little bit of a slog through the forest back to the trailhead, and it's going to be warming up again. So this is really sort of the the death march back to the back to the parking lot. Hopefully, when you do it, there'll be a nice breeze and it'll be a bit cooler, but it did feel kind of kind of miserable. And I made it to the trailhead in a little over five hours and 20 minutes, which I know was slow. I started that trail super, super slow. I was just having a hard time with the heat. And my two hiking buddies with me, it took them another hour. They were six hours and 20 minutes off that mountain. There's not really a great deal of places where you can make up a lot of time. I did bump into a few hikers on the trail who were trying to get it done in under five hours, which actually seemed pretty reasonable. If you're not suffering from the heat, you can get it done in under five hours. But this is probably one of the longer ones just because it's a little bit more technical. There's a lot of rock on the trail. And if you're doing the challenge, you're going to be starting to feel the fatigue. Remember, this is you're starting out over 20, having already done two mountains in 20 miles, and this one uh will take you up to 30 miles. So if you're coming out of this one, you've done a four-mountain day when you've when you finish this trail. Uh at the end of this trail, I'd done 33 miles, 9,000 feet of elevation gain, and been hiking for 12, 13 hours at this point without the driving in between. So this is really the crux of it. This is where you're gonna decide at this trail here, whether you can do it or not. We could not do it by the time they got back. We were about five hours behind time, just in these three mountains. And it's all the little things that add up that get you behind time, which I'll talk about at the end of this podcast episode for the challenges, how you've got to manage your time appropriately. And we figured out that if we continued on to the next two peaks, we'll be finishing at five or six in the morning. And I had to go to work the next day, so so we had to call it. But I came back about a week and a half later to finish off the challenge. So, from from here, if you're still making good time on the challenge, you're gonna drive into South Lake Tahoe, but just on the edge of South Lake Tahoe, you're gonna sort of head out of town. You're gonna be going across the Luther Pass to Frill Peak. This one's a bit tricky. Take Luther Pass and take it through some of the mountains, and you're gonna start to go down this really straight downhill, and the turn-off up to Horse Feast Meadows is not signposted off the road, it's kind of inconspicuous. There's a little stop sign there, but you could so easily miss the turn off. And when you get to the turn-off, you'll know you're there. There's a little bit of tarmac at the beginning of it, but then it goes immediately into a muddy dirt track. And this is kind of the trickiest part of the driving. As soon as you bump get into the dirt, the very first section, there's a little climb, and it is churned up something rotten. There's some deep holes in the trail that you have to navigate with your car. So if you're doing the challenge, I highly recommend you get four-wheel drive. You can make it, but it's uh it's a bit of a tricky navigation through there, especially if you're tired. You're trying to figure out how to get through these this bit of lumpy road. I had a Jeep with me, and I was like this was my second day on this, so I came at it fresh. I got there about uh five in the morning, so it was still dark, and I was aware that this piece of the road was there. But even I had trouble with the Jeep, I kind of got stuck spinning a little bit and had to put it in low four-wheel drive to get up and through it. Once you're through that a little bit, the rest of the road is okay. It's kind of rocky, but it's manageable. And it's about three, four-mile drive back into Horse Feast Meadows. And you'll know you're there because there's a sign that says Horse Feet Meadows. You actually go across a couple of bridges across some creeks, so just after the second bridge you cross, you're gonna get to Horse Feet Meadows. So just park up there, bit of a dirt, undefined parking lot, and you're gonna start the climb. Now, the climb starts in sort of in the bottom part of the trail, actually, right behind that horse thief meadow sign is where the trail starts. It kind of feels like you're going away from the mountain, and you are just to begin with. And so this one you start out fairly gentle. You're gonna go away from the mountain, but it will switch back into the mountain. It's not, it actually starts a little downhill, you'll cross a little wooden bridge, and then it's a fairly flat open plane. And so you'll make quick time here, and you'll start switchbacking gently up into the forest and up back towards the mountain. And the first real test here is Anderson Pass, and you'll notice it immediately, you'll start getting into a little bit of a ridge that you have to switch back up. You'll cross a couple of creeks. It's not that long, should only take you 10-15 minutes to get up it, but it'll remind you that you are you're going uphill. When you get to the top of Anderson Parsh, you're gonna be faced with another junction. And it's a little bit confusing because there's no sign that says this way to frill peak. When you're standing on that saddle, if you look up to the up to the right, you're gonna see a mountain. That is frill peak. That's the way you want to go. So when you get to that junction, turn right. There's a sign there for Star Lake. That's the way you want to go. Don't go straight across the crossroads because you're gonna end up down in the back down to Edinburghs Lake Tao. That's the wrong way to do it. Head right towards Star Peak. That's your first navigational challenge. And it's actually what you're doing is you are sort of side hilling along the edge of Frill Peak. You're not going straight at the peak. You're going to go way back behind Frill Peak and then you're going to come up behind it. And so for the most part, you're just heading along this ridge. It's fairly starts out fairly flat, goes downhill a little bit, which is a bit of a relief after Anderson Pass. But you can make pretty good time here just because it's not particularly steep. You sort of go uphill a little bit, downhill a little bit, uphill, downhill a little bit. But it starts to become a grind because slowly the grade starts to get a little bit steeper and those climbs start to get a little bit longer. So it starts wearing at you over time. Eventually you're going to hit the first switchback. And so you're going to take two or three switchbacks, but they're really long switchbacks and they're really fairly flat. So you can make real good time up here. And it's not like tilak. Frill is soft and sandy most of the way. There's not really a lot of rock on the trail. It's really nice underfoot. And you're going to appreciate it. Trust me, if you're on peak four, you're going to appreciate this sort of Genoa sand and the soft, sort of sandy grit underneath foot. And so you'll switch do these long switchbacks, and you can see you're starting to come up to the top of the mountain. You're starting to come out of the forest. Uh, you're starting to come out to a saddle. And eventually you will come to a saddle. And when you come to a saddle, you're going to know it because you're going to see Lake Tahoe. That'll be the first time you'll see Lake Tarko proper uh spreading out before you. And be mindful here, the trail will continue onward. You don't want to continue onward. There'll be a sign there for Frill Peak, and it'll sort of switch back on you. That's the way you want to go. Otherwise, you're going to end up in the heavenly ski resort and regretting your day. Now you have to be a little bit careful here. Here's where the real climb begins. It's only a mile to the top of Frill Peak from here. I think I got up there in about an hour and 15 to that saddle, and just knew that the climb was coming. So you're going to be mindful because on your left-hand side where that saddle is, there's some big drop-offs, big rocky outcrops. And that defines sort of the first part of this climb. You're going to start, it'll start out a little bit flat, but then you're going to get caught up in all these little switchbacks up through these boulder fields. And what you're doing is switchbacking up through this really steep outcrop piece. And you're going to find yourself on this really steep precipice to your left-hand side. So just be really careful. It's really easy to get confused here. There's a lot of you know shortcutting and chopping that people have done over time through through these rocks and then this these low trees that are clinging for dear life to the edge of the mountain. Just try not to go too far left. If you find yourself heading too far left, you're going to be find yourself standing on one of these steep precipices. You have to be so careful here, especially if you're fatigued and tired. So try to keep a little bit to the right-hand side and just be very mindful of those drop-offs. But eventually you'll get into this really loose, gritty rock that feels like you know you're sinking into it. And this will pop this will take you out of the sort of the little scrubby trees, and you'll be on sort of the frill peak massive. And it's a big open, exposed plain that will take you up to Frill Peak. Now there are two peaks. There's one just to the right of you, and one to the left. One to the right is a no-name peak. The one to the left is is Frill. So you just you should be able to, once you're out of the trees, you should be able to see the trail pretty easy. And it's pretty much, as you imagine, it's straight up to the peak across this big, you know, stone escarpment field. And it's just a grind from here. It's just head down, grind your way up to the top of Frill Peak. I think it took me about 45 minutes from the saddle up to the peak. I think I got there about two hours, about two hours to the top there, maybe a little bit over two hours. And when you get to the top, you just get beautiful views of the whole Tahoe Basin. You can see Talak over in the opposite corner. And then when you look north, you can see Granite Chief and Rose and Genoa's almost right in front of you. So I mean, if you're doing the challenge, don't waste too much time up here. If you're doing the casual, enjoy the views. And the beautiful thing about Frill is the way down because it is never really too steep. This is totally joggable and runnable almost all the way back to the trail. If you've got it in your legs, you can make up some serious time. So when you come off of the summit, take your time. It's a little bit steeper here, but as you're coming across that sort of big open rock plain back towards the saddle, you can pick up some real time here. It's not too steep. It feels super steep when you're climbing up it, but coming down, it just feels nice. My little pro tip here is there's a lot of like loose gravel that can sort of carry your momentum down, and then there are sort of big rocks that are sticking in the trail. Solid rock, good. Loose gravel, good. Where you get into trouble is where there's gravel on top of a rock, because it just acts like marbles, and you can really hurt yourself and fall off of here. So do be mindful. Either try and step in the gravel or step on a rock that doesn't have any gravel on top of it. And uh when you get back to into the tree line, be super careful because remember you got those big drop-offs, but now they're to your right. Now I got a little bit off trail here. I was following the loose gravel trail and going down the scree, and I found myself in a bit of a scree runner. It felt like it was the trail. There were some built footprints in here, but I got off trail and just went straight down the ridgeline, not towards the saddle, and got into this real loose stuff that took me all the way back down to the trail. But I kind of shortcut the corner a little bit to the saddle. So but it was super tricky and super loose and super uh slick. If you can, if you're used to doing scree runs, what a joy. It was an awesome scree run. If you're not, you're gonna be, you're gonna be feeling like this is hell and whatever got myself into. So if you haven't got mountain confidence, don't take that scree run. And you probably shouldn't take that screen anyway. You should pick your way back through the boulders, back to the saddle, and then head back down the trail. And it's just beautifully graded all the way down. It's never too steep, never too rocky. You can really pick up the pace coming off this hill. You can jog the jog the downhills. Now, there's obviously a few little uphill bits and some downhill bits, they're sort of undulating. So walk the little uphills, jog the little downhills, but you can make some real quick time here. You shouldn't really be able to get lost once you're off the saddle. You will just be traversing that hill back to that crossroads, back down Anderson Pass. That's Anderson Pass is really the only place you could get lost again, but you should know to come straight off and straight down into Anderson Pass, back to the switchbacks, and uh made super quick time here and got back to the trailhead in about three hours, 23 minutes in total traveling time. As I'm coming back down, the first day's hikers are starting to come up, come up the trail. So I just took my time, packed up, got in my car, and then back off to the final peak to Genoa. And there are really two ways you can get to Genoa. You can head back into South Lake, go through South Lake Tahoe, and then take the Kingsbury Grade. And you want to take the Kingsbury Grade almost to the top of Kingsbury Grade, and then you'll see a sign, a big brown sign towards the top for Kingsbury North Trailhead. And you want to take that through a little neighborhood and it will take you to the parking lot. I'm actually changing my mind about the way to go here. When you come out of uh Frill and you get back through that nowly piece, instead of heading back towards South Lake, you can go left into the Carson Pass, head into the Carson Valley, up through Minden, and you can do the Kingsbury Grade from the Carson Valley. It's it's a fairly long drive up the up the Kingsbury Grade, but you know what? It totally avoids the traffic of South Lake. So if you're doing the challenge, I recommend you don't go back into South Lake. You sort of go around back into Carson Valley and up Kingsbury Grade from that from that side of the valley, just because you avoid all the traffic lights and all the traffic and all the people. So in height of tourist season, that can be a killer, all the all of that traffic. And actually, when I double check the directions, it's actually five minutes shorter to go outside of the valley and back up Kingsbury Grade. So when you get to the parking lot, there's a little parking lot. When I got there, it was about 10 in the morning, there were a whole bunch of people there. This was a Sunday. There was some ATV retailer there renting out ATVs. And this is where you this is where the trail is going to deviate. If you are doing the challenge, I want you to take the OHV trail. If you are doing the casual, you should probably take the Tahoe Rim Trail. And I'll tell you why in a minute. So for the casual, the Tahoe Rim Trail is gonna be about 11 miles, 12 miles round trip. And if you're gonna do the OHV, it's gonna be a nine-mile round trip. Now, here's the reason why we need to differentiate. If you're doing the challenge, you need to get it done in 24 hours, and you've got to do 50 miles, and you're gonna be tired, and it's gonna be dark. So rather than doing the Tahoe Rim Trail, we put you on the OHV trail just because it's shorter and much more direct, and it's a big, wide, open road. Remember, it's gonna be dark when you're doing it. So I wanted to make sure that you didn't get lost, basically, or didn't find yourself encountering any dangerous rock outcrops in the dark. And so we're gonna take the OHV. If you're doing the casual, and if you've got time on the clock, I recognize I'm pushing out a few extra miles for the casual folks, but you'll probably be on fresh legs. Take the Tahoe Rim Trail. It's longer, there's more elevation, you're probably gonna be kicking out 52 to 54 miles total, and you're gonna add an extra thousand, fifteen hundred feet of elevation. So your elevation is gonna be closer to 15,000 feet. If you don't have time and you feel comfortable, take the OHV, I don't mind, but you're gonna have a much nicer time taking the Tahoe Rim Trail just because it's much more scenic and it's a much nicer walk. Now, if you take the OHV trail, I did it sort of late morning on a Sunday and it was miserable, and it was only miserable because of all the all the ATVs and people in their jeeps and trucks that were using the road. And they have the right of way, so you just be mindful when you're going up it. So I'm gonna describe it as the OHV trail because that's the way that I did it, because I was trying to experience the challenge to make sure that it was feasible and possible. And so the OHV trail is at the back of the parking lot, it's an extenuation of the tarmac road. It doesn't last very long, don't get your hopes up. The Tahoe Rim Trail is just to the west of the parking lot, a little bit behind the toilet block. You you can't miss it. There's a big sign that says Tahoe Rim Trail. You you're gonna take that one up into the forest up to Genoa. So OHV trail starts with a little bit of tarmac, very steep, very steep tarmac that you have to climb up, but then immediately it gets into the off-road dust, and it's big and wide and pretty difficult to get lost. So you're gonna be getting here about eight o'clock in the evening, maybe even nine o'clock in the evening. If you're at nine o'clock in the evening, you're probably not gonna make it. Eight o'clock, you've got a fighting chance. Before that, you're golden. It's nine miles, so you'll climb up a little dusty part, and the trail is very dusty, it's not very rocky, it's sort of made of this fine dust and sand, and it's big and wide, and there really aren't too many turnoffs. Once you've got up that initial climb, it'll switch back on itself and it'll level out. After that, the climbing isn't too bad. It tends to be fairly undulating and fairly flat. You'll go downhill a little bit, uphill a little bit, downhill a little bit, but in the dark, this is the way to go because you can't get super lost. You shouldn't get super lost, let's put it that way. And it's really easy to follow, and it feels nice and soft and gentle underfoot. So you're getting in the 40-plus mile zone now, and you've been going all day, you're gonna appreciate that it's not rocky and nasty and gnarly, and uh less chance of you tripping over stuff. So you're gonna follow this OHV trail, or should I say, road, for about three and a half miles. Don't turn off anywhere, about a mile in, mile and a half in, there is a turn off, but it'll switch right back on you. So you know it's not not the way. Just keep going straight. Bit of dead signal here, hard to get a cell phone signal for this first part of the trail. You can eventually pick up a signal as you get closer to Genoa, but for the first couple of miles, no signal. Don't panic, just keep following the OHV. You should not get lost on the OHV, even in the dark. As you get further into the trail, the inclines get a little bit steeper and a little bit longer. Feels a bit grueling. It's gonna feel really grueling on tired legs in the dark, but it's not as gruelling as any of the other trails. It's it's wide and navigable, navigable. There's a bit of banking on some of the corners just because the you know the folks driving along it have made some banks. There is a section at two miles where it feels like the trail splits apart. It doesn't, it's just two separate trails that come back together. And you'll go into this big broad area where there are wooden railings either side. It's nice and flat, feels like a big campground. Just go straight across that and keep going. Now, you're gonna go up what feels like a fairly long climb, about three and a half miles in, and it will start, the trail will start to go downhill. You're gonna feel it. You you you will just have been climbing for a fair bit, and then it'll crest out and go downhill. And in the dark, this is uh probably the most confusing part of the trail. So as you go downhill and it starts to flatten out, you're gonna come into this big sort of open area. There's some trees dotted around, and up to your right is Genoa. You can't see it because it's gonna be dark. You might see it, you might have made it early enough to see it, but up to your right is Genoa, and there's some ATV trails that sort of crisscross and intersect. When you get to that point, 3.5 miles, you're gonna turn right, take the ATV trail to the right. It'll keep going flat and you'll head out to the right. And then you're gonna come to a footpath that transects the ATV trail. It feels like it's terminating, but the flat bit is terminating. And there'll be a footpath there. Just trying to remember the name of it. Don't take the footpath, basically. You want to keep on the ATV trail. Now, this is the worst part of the whole climb. The ATV trail gets super steep and super rocky and sort of super churned up by all the ATVs that have gone up. This is the last slog. You're nearly there. This is the final ascent, but it feels steep and it feels long. It's not that long. You're probably a mile away from Genova Peak, but take your time. It's kind of rocky. You don't want to twist an ankle here right at the finish line. But it is it is steep. And you'll get you'll climb up, up through some trees, and you'll sort of ridge out, and you'll hit another ATV trail once you sort of get to the top. Go right here. Genoa is right there. You're like 400 feet from Genoa. So you get to the top of this other ATV trail, and there's like some sort of electrical substation up there, a little turnaround for the ATVs. Just to your right is Genoa, and on top of Genoa is a little shack with a bunch of radio equipment on it. You want to climb up there, just to the right of that little turnaround circle on the substation. It's really rocky here. Shouldn't cause you too much trouble. Just take your time, pick your way up, straight up to the uh to the radio tower. And you've made it. You've done it. You've ascended the final peak of the Tahoe 5 peaks. And you can you you may or may not be able to see, depending on daylight, but you can see everywhere you've been, like to your south is is Frill, sort of the sandy peak. And then over the other corner, you're gonna see that gnarly, gnarly to lac, up in the corner, granite chief, and then you look along the ridge line back up to Mount Rose. And it took me about an hour 45 to get up there. It felt longer, I can tell you that. Part of the challenge with taking the OHV trail, particularly at the weekends, is it's very popular. Lots of people are using the OHV trail. You'll see ATVs, there'll be jeeps, there'll be people in their trucks, and they kick up a bunch of dust. So as you're hiking along, you hear like the hum of an engine, you've got to get off to the off the road to the side and then wait for the ATV folks to come by and spit up all that dust in your face, like covering up the dust. So that's what kind of makes it miserable. And it's not as scenic as the as the Tahoe Rim Trail. Really, when I designed the the five peaks originally, it was with the Tahoe Rim Trail in mind. So that's the sort of the pure expression of the challenge is to take the Tahoe Rim Trail. It just pushes the limit out, just too far to get it done in 24 hours. So I had to make a little bit of a decision to shortcut it somewhat. So you'll come back off the off the peak. Make sure you don't miss the little OHV spur down that rocky, gnarly little canyon to your left. Remember, you're going through a lot of rock here. This is the rockiest part. It's going to be fairly steep. But uh you'll make it down in pretty short order back to the flat piece. Don't go down the little footpath. Turn turn right along the ATV trail. So you get to the confusing bit, turn left, and you'll be back on the main road, and you'll be making your way back to the trailhead. Now I will say it's there's a few more ups than I remember coming on the way up. So it's sort of up and down and up and down as you're making your way back along the OHV road, but it's wide and it's easy to follow. And you're gonna be, you know, 22, 23 hours into your day, and you're gonna be tired and it's gonna be dark. So and the ground underneath is soft and dusty. It's really the best way to finish. And there is one little piece where you can get uh lost on the way back. And remember, I said there was that sort of switch back in the trail. So a Jeep comes up to me pretty close to that, that turnoff, and says, How far is it to the tarmac? So I think it's about a mile and a half, maybe two miles. I don't know if I was right or not. I was just hoping at that point. And so he said thanks, and he drove off, and I'm following him. It's a bit of a downhill. I make a little bit of quick time and I see him go off the wrong way. Off to the left, up, it starts going off to the left and uphill. If you go off to the left and uphill, that's the wrong way. You want to go to the right and it'll go downhill. That's the way to get back to the trailhead. Then you make it back to the tarmac and you've done it. And hopefully, you've done it within 24 hours. If you're doing the casual, don't worry about it. Just the walking time has to be 24 hours. But if you're doing the challenge, you've got to be back there before midnight to get it done. And what a what a glorious challenge. I can tell you, I don't know if many people are going to be able to do it just because of the timing and the logistics. And so let's talk about the the challenge. For the casual folks, you might want to keep listening. For the challenge folks, you're going to want to hear this because this is what's going to make or break you. So remember, 20 hours of hiking, you got about three hours of driving. Now, the problem when you're doing this type of hiking is you're gradually going to get more and more fatigued. So this is all about timing and time management. So you want to set yourself up for success. So you don't want to be stopping at gas stations and picking up food and picking up water and stuff. You want to pack your car appropriately so you have everything you need ready to go in the car. In your car is really where you're going to be refueling properly. So what I did is I got five bags of food that I would be taking on the trail with me. So, you know, your gels and your chews and whatever. And so I had those set in my car so I could just grab them and put them in my pack ready for the trail. Probably want to take, you know, three, four hundred calories worth of each of the each of the peaks just to give you a little bit of quick glucose when you're on the trail. And add each one labeled for each of the peaks. And the reason I did that was for the later peaks, I wanted to get some more caffeine in there. So I got gels and chews that were caffeine infused just to give me a little pick up, pick me up as I'm getting more and more fatigued. Then I had four bags for eating and rehydrating and stuff while I'm on the road. And in there I put a little bit more solid foods, you know, banana, orange, a sandwich, you know, whatever, just to give me a little bit more sustained food. And remember, as you're getting more and more fatigued, you're not going to want solid food. So then I started putting things in, like, you know, fruit sauce and stuff like that, just to just to get me through the trail. And you want those readily available, clearly labeled, so you're not having to think and stop. Now I made the decision that uh in our little group of three, when we got to the car, we'd allot five minutes for us to sort of faff around, if you like. And if you think about that, five minutes over five peaks, that's 25 minutes you're killing in a parking lot. And I kind of regret setting that rule. So I'm going to tell you now, if you're doing the challenge, you don't have five minutes in the parking lot. You need to get off the trail, get your stuff off, get in the car and get going. Because those little micro brakes will add up on you during the day and push the challenge out of reach. You want to know the trails. You don't want to get caught up in navigation. Issues on the trail. So make sure you do your research on these peaks before you climb them. Read everything there is out there. Listen to this podcast. Figure out where you've got to go so you're not getting confused and lost on the trail. And it's beencome even more critical as the day goes on, as you get more and more tired. As you get more tired and more cognitively fatigued, you're going to make more and more mistakes. And you don't want to do that. I mean, you want to be pretty cocksure about where you're going, especially when you're doing them in the dark. And when you're out on the trail, you really got to keep moving. I get it. You've got to take a little break here and there. But don't be doing like I was, shooting video and taking pictures and stuff. You don't have that time. Do take a picture at each of the summits. How's that? That's your one thing. You get to the summit, you take a picture. That should take you, you know, 10 seconds. The rest of the time, just focus on the hiking. Don't worry about memorializing the event because each one of those little breaks, 30 seconds here, you know, one minute here, two minutes there, really starts to add up as you get throughout the day. So this is really about managing your time. So my total hiking time when I did effectively the casual, I was trying to sort of do it as a challenge, was 20 hours and 31 minutes on the trail from uh from trailhead to trailhead, which I think would have got it done if I hit the perfect amount of driving time in between. The perfect amount of driving time, according to the maps, you should be able to get all the driving done in three hours. So I should have been able to make the challenge theoretically. Now I broke it in two. I did three mountains, then two mountains. So my last two mountains were real quick because I was on fresh legs. It's not going to be the case for you. So it's going to be real tight and really difficult to manage. Now my total moving time on the trail was 19 hours and 33 minutes. So I killed an hour on all of the trails with my micro stops. You know, stop for a break, stop for a rest, stop at the peak, take a video. All of that added up to an hour throughout the day. So just think about that when you're on the trail. You don't want to be having too many of these little breaks now. Obviously, you're going to be tired and you're going to want to take a little break here and there. Just don't be sitting around for 20 minutes on the trail. You're going to kill the challenge. The other issue really was navigation. As you get more tired and more fatigued, it's going to be more challenging to navigate because your brain is sort of going to go into brain fog. So you have to be really mindful of those turn-off points I told you about. So just make sure that you've got them in your mind, you know, where you're going. Because getting lost is going to kill the challenge. It killed our challenge. We had one guy get lost for an hour. That was it, end of the day. Even then, I got lost sort of early up on the mountain, killed 20 minutes. That's probably going to kill the challenge. The other difficult piece is the driving. You can get lost on the driving too. Make sure you know where you're going and which trailhead you're going to. Because, you know, one wrong turn, you miss the trailhead, kill 10 minutes, kill 15 minutes. That's the end of your day, too. And just be mindful that you're going to get more and more fatigued throughout the day. And that fatigue is going to call cognitive overload. You're going to start to make mistakes. It's inevitable. You're going to start kicking rocks. You're going to start getting blisters. Your body's going to start breaking down. So you really want to take care of yourself throughout this day. Remember, it's pretty much like covering two marathons in 24 hours in a 24-hour period. So make sure you're using, you know, uh anti-chafing cream and lube and you're keeping hydrated. Hydration is super critical. You want to be drinking throughout. Now, my strategy is to take water on the trail, take about a liter and a half of water. You want to keep the weight down, but you want to take enough water with you and just be sipping throughout the trail. And then when I get to the car, like uh drink like 20 ounces of electrolytes just to replenish my sorts in my body. And so just if you're if you stop sipping and you stop eating on the trail and you stop eating in the car because you're tired and fatigued, that's going to cause you to bonk and you you're done at that point. Once you've crossed the tipping point where you're so super dehydrated and you don't have any energy left, you your challenge is finished. So I think the person the people that are going to pull off this challenge are going to have to pull off the perfect loop. They're going to have to maintain a fast, steady pace throughout the challenge. They're going to have to make no navigational errors. They're going to have to be driving it perfectly and not get lost and just keep going and keep going and keep going. That's why I think this challenge is going to be super difficult for anybody to achieve, because it can be done, but only in the perfect loop. You have to, all the conditions have to line up. All of the trail gods need to be behind you to make it happen in the perfect way. So really excited that you've decided to take this journey, whether you're doing it the casual way or you're going to do the challenge way. Both of them are really super difficult to do. I did them all, and I really had to, I really had to move the pace. So slow and steady up, but you've got to, you've got to have your mountain feet under you. You've got to get confidence. You've got to move with pace down the mountain. So I wish you the best of luck. I'm really excited to see the first person that's going to pull off the 24 hours. And I'm really excited to see everybody who even gets the casual done. Because I think secretly that's pretty challenging to do too. Because you've got to keep a fast pace on all these mountains. So best of luck. Now off you pop.