With no regrets and with the full support of his team, Bill has decided that at least for THIS attempt "Once is Enough."
His goal now is to achieve Whitney Portal today, take a day of rest, and scale the mountain on Friday. He will not attempt the return to Badwater THIS time, but he says he's having the time of his life -- even if his body isn't being entirely cooperative!
Bill got into the Comfort Inn in Lone Pine at a little before 6:00 this morning. His feet were pretty beaten up at this point, and he has some kind of sun-induced skin blistering that looks really nasty, but apparently wasn't bothering him. Rhonda worked on his feet again for quite a while last night, and he iced them down this morning. His back is holding up very well. He is in very good spirits, if just a little bit on the tired side! (Ha!)
This morning after we left Bill to get a bit more rest, we finished
discussing logistics out by the hotel pool, and a gigantic moth dropped
out of the sky. We thought it had probably been injured by a bird, and
we put it gently into the shade. About a half an hour later, as we
were organizing the vehicles, an identical moth flew by, touched down on
the top of the truck, and then flew off. I think the animal kingdom is
trying to lend its support!
For those of you who have done any kind of extreme ultraendurance event, you will understand and possibly even identify with the "interesting" night Bill had last night (according to Rhonda and Bernhard):
As he came across Owens Valley to Lone Pine, he was followed for some time by a fox ("Freddie"), and he was also briefly visited by an owl. He thought he was being visited by aliens as well, but it turned out to be Bernhard explaining a concept to Rhonda using his laser pointer. Oh, and they were also visited by Ben Jones last night.
When Bill achieves the Portal tonight, he will have completed the official Badwater 135 course - something only a very small number of people in the world have achieved. The team will assemble to celebrate his substantial accomplishment.
Yay, Bill!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to be in Pasadena next week. You may not be able to avoid me this time :-)
An awesome achievement, and to be surrounded by your wife and friends is even better.You have achieved something that only few achieve and the round trip is possible another day, as it is really about the journey not the destination.
ReplyDeletehappy running my friend.
Rochelle