Mr Trail Safety Speaks!

Beef chili in Saltillo ware, with wine-on-ice in stainless. Prompted by remembering the long camera-takes of Lee Van Cleef in "Good, Bad & Ugly". "A man alone with his thoughts lives in a crowded house" —Don Juan Castaneda, "Conversations With Maestro Sevende Sandia" There is no cell reception in the San Gabriels. I was unwired for three days. $36, cost of a campsite at Chilao. But I'll charge hipsters $450 ea for the weekend, then taser them when they try to Instagram. And all greasy stains at the picnic tables are really bitter tears from the butt-hurt.  The Three Dimensions of Shade The Three Dimensions Of Shade The San Gabriel sun is merciless. You've either found shade, or made your own. I've opted for making it. I have a love-affair with 1" EMT pipe canopies . They beat crappy pop-ups cold. But you won't know this until your pop-up gets gusted into a gully, breaks its back, and you're left with ...

Bialetti Sexto, Saltillo ware, flatware in vintage Swiss Army tool-roll. Chilao Campground, July 4 2014 The best way to preview the Angeles Crest 100 course is the Three-Day 100. It would break out as a notional 40/35/25. This is the best way to get a real sense of what the course is. Its formidable, unrelenting, and demands your complete attention. I’d done it back in ’96, and it gave me a realistic view of what was needed on Race Day.   Of course, Geoff fucking killed it. Now I'm busy writing my self-congratulatory memoirs with the aid of gin and bitters to take the bad taste out of my mouth. But I'm getting ahead of myself. THE SET UP We began putting together the Hyena Three Day 100 an d invited a short list of friends. The short list is to maximize your effort, minimize drag, avoid chickenshit when other people's agendas start clogging up your day. The base camp would be at the Chilao Campgrounds up in the San Gabriels to minimize driving chores. “If ...

Your race reality should be so clear. Hanta ho, truthseekers!   From The Endurance Suburb Of The World®™, the 24th AC100! All the putatively anointed pre-race favorites saw their races end prematurely. Jorge Pacheco and Keira Henniger were done by Chantry. I suspect Jorge's exit was accelerated by prancing around at Badwater 2 weeks earlier, when he should've been tapering. Don't know what happened to Keira, can't comment or speculate, which cripples another life on TV. Mine, not hers. From the top of Baden-Powell, I had less than 20min to myself before Jorge Pacheco hove into view. More on that in a bit. I'd spent a restless night camped out at the base, complete with phantom memories of pre-race nerves. Quarter moon, stars, utterly delicious. It wasn't even my race, but 20 years of direct connection to the AC100 beast has left a deep imprint. Jorge was first over the top around 0800. I had just settled in 15min prior, after a sleepless night down in ...