Tom Grundy's 2018 Sierra Challenge Page

Once again August rolled around and it was time for the annual 10 days of day hikes that is the Sierra Challenge. This semi-formalized event is semi-organized by Bob Burd, you can see the details for the 2018 Sierra Challenge
on his page. This isn't my first year, in fact I have done at least one day in 2011, 2012, 2013 (just one big day), 2014, 2015 (7 days), and 2017. I felt like I was in a little better shape than 2017 but that isn't saying a lot. My biggest worry as the Challenge approached was the smoke. There were a number of fires burning in California and the Owens Valley was filling up with smoke every night. The day I left to drive to the start was the worst yet with cars turning on their headlights at noon. Things cleared up a bit after that in Bishop but driving past Mammoth it was really bad again.

We got mostly lucky with the smoke and the weather this year and there was a pretty strong field with many people showing up for all of the days and 7 people completing all 10 Challenge peaks and 11 people doing 10 challenge peaks (some from different years) including two women. You can see all the stats from the links on Bob's page. Zack ended up with the yellow and white jerseys, Scott with the polka dot, and I got the green jersey (by being the only person 50 or over who completed all of the Challenge Peaks) (and I was 5th for the yellow and tied for 4th for the polka dot). Iris and Chris were tied for the Aqua jersey (for swimming) and I was tied with Sean for 2nd there (or 3rd because 1 and 2 were taken in the tie for first). The aqua jersey was a much more appealing prospect this year because it was mostly sunny and warm. I actually ended up in 2 more bodies of water, but because of the rules limiting the number that would count towards the jersey I ended up with less points. In general I did less bonus peaks and tended to return to the trailhead faster than I had in previous years - mostly because I was with other people who were going faster and because I was tired and didn't want to spend tons of time out hiking and then rush to get to the next trailhead in a sleep deprived state. As usual it was a great excuse to get out into some wonderful country with some like minded individuals plus get really really tired.

milky way the night before the start of the Sierra Challenge

This year I'll try to make a page for each day of the Challenge - that might make them short pages, but it also might help me to finish them up more quickly.

If the link doesn't work, I haven't finished (or even started) the page yet (* for finished pages)

some of the challenge participants assemble before the start "morituri te salutamus"

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