[ahughjass]

I climbed Kaleetan Peak on July 19, 2019. It rained in the early morning and the trails were wet. I proceeded cautiously to do this 11 mile route with 5600 feet of *total* elevation gain. It is actually more like 12 miles because the Denny Creek TH is closed, and I parked at the Franklin Falls TH. On my return I ran into Kaytlyn Gerbin twice. Once near peak 5700 I saw this woman really haulin' the mail. I yelled "You go girl", and she yelled back that she was trying for the record time for Kaleetan. I ran into her a second time about 1/2 mile below Melakwa Lake. As she passed I told her, "You're my 2nd favorite hero, right behind Courtney Dauwalter". I later learned that Kaytlyn finished in 2nd place (F) behind 1st place (F) finisher Courtney in the Western States 100 (2018). That was a weird coincidence. I filmed her for a brief time as she was burning up the trail. You can see her at 1:53 in this video. Her round-trip record-setting time was 3h 6m 17s. That's impressive. I finished in 3 hours and 421 minutes. But since we were the only two to summit Kaleetan this day, I prefer to view it as I finished in 2nd place behind an ultrarunning superstar

[Kim Brown]

[geyer]

saw that she and alex b were running the infinity loop down on rainier today and their social media post implied that they would try to break the FKT. Insane

[Bob2005]

What are the lakes at 00:01:30 and 00:01:34: Kaleetan and Gem? Great video, and I like the soundtrack a lot too.

[Matt Lemke]

Shows how out of the loop I am as I haven't heard of either of them. That is really awesome though!

[ahughjass]

[Brushbuffalo]

This isn't a running forum but Kaytlyn and her husband Ely hike and climb a lot, so your chance encounter while hiking Kaleetan is entirely appropriate. Kaytlyn is an amazing athlete with fourth, second and sixth at the granddaddy of all 100 mile races in the world and arguably the most prestigious and competitive, the Western States 100. This year she was overtaken in the final meters by the fifth place woman...by two seconds after running 100 miles in the Sierras! You might see her whoosh by you, always smiling, on Tiger or other local hills at any time of year as she trains out of home base in Issaquah. The Infinity Loop is described here. Basically, the challenge is to climb Rainier, descend a different route approximately on the other side, do the Wonderland back to your start, climb Rainier again and descend, then finish by doing the other half of the Wonderland. I'm tired just describing it! Edit: here is tracking for Kaytlyn's attempt in progress. I will delete this edit in a timely manner. Edit: Complete!

[Kascadia]

https://patch.com/washington/sammamish/infinity-war-how-two-women-beat-mt-rainiers-toughest-challenge

[pcg]