Deadman Running

We ran the infamous Deadman's Pass run this morning. We haven't run it in a couple of years -- the first because a distant forest fire covered Mammoth in smoke and last year because, well, I didn't want to do it.

It's hard. (Some of the kids claim "it's not that bad." Fine. Try it at 180 pounds with 43 year old legs. Then we'll talk).

It starts at 9,100 feet of elevation and ends 2.5 miles later at 10,200+. Your lungs cry for mercy, your legs are begging for forgiveness. They figure they must have done something really bad to deserve the punishment they are going through.

But on both go, carrying the rest of the body up the hill, perhaps pulled by the sense of accomplishment and the spectacular view at the top. We look across a small valley to the Mammoth Mountain. To the west, across a large valley lie the Minarets, a saw-toothed range of granite, still pocked with snow despite the month of the year. To the east, across the caldera, lie the White Mountains.

The athletes rejoice at the top, perhaps because they know the pain is over, perhaps because they see, and know: I did it.

In the years we've run it of course, we take the obligatory -- even mandatory -- team photo at the top. Where the run up is hard, the smiles at up there are easy.

Back in 2006 we had three freshmen in Mammoth, three rooks just getting their start, and maybe wondering what they had gotten into with such an effort. I snapped a picture of them there that day, and thanks to Sean Lee's almost daily insistance this week that we must "adhere to tradition", he reminded me of that photo and demanded another. I was happy to oblige.

Here is Kelsi Tippets, Sean Lee and Danielle Fillmore; all three have made the Mammoth camp each of their four years in high school. They've grown -- the picture shows that -- and we've enjoyed their tremendous contributions to the excellence of our program over these last years.



Here we all are, rejoicing on the summit...


We take it easy on the way back down, giving some the chance to enjoy the beauty of the Sierras