Sierra Challenge 2014 finish - Success?

The 2014 Sierra Challenge is over. It ended with a wimper for me in that I was wimpering. The last day proved especially painful with a bout of gut wrenching vomiting and weakness about 12 miles out from the trailhead. I sure was glad for the Leki treking poles that helped me keep moving and also make great support when puking. In some ways it was a success though as I did manage to summit the challenge peaks all 10 days as well as 6 bonus peaks (and a bonus 1/2 point for the "bat pinnacle"). Unfortunately some others were also felled or pained by stomach issues. I ended up tied for third in the polka dot "king of the mountain" race and was in a distant fourth for the yellow jersey (I was one of only 4 that did all 10 challenge peaks, but my time was much longer than the others). Eric dominated easily winning the yellow, white, and polka dot jerseys - impressive. I felt pretty lousy on days 1,2, and 10. The other days I was tired, but didn't feel so lousy too. As usual we visited some spectacular country and covered a lot of ground and a lot of vertical. I'll make a trip report at some point, but I wanted to get this up in a relatively timely manner. For more details see the links on the previous blog posts about this...

Thanks Bob for organizing this and I am sorry you were unable to make the last day.

also here is a link to an article in the San Jose Mercury News

http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_26373988/silicon-valley-peak-bagger-leads-pursuit-sierra-nevada

Mason on the summit of Langille - day 4

Mason on the slabs next to the waterfall coming out of Dusy Basin day 4

Mason, Luke, and Nick on Piute Pass - day 5 

people heading down from Striped S. I followed Eric along the ridge to Striped (day 6)

Jonathan heading up towards Courte-Echelle (day 7)

zoomed in on previous pic - Bob tries to shoulder stand on Eric to get to the summit

here I am on the top - maybe 5.6 up the side, but a whole lot of exposure

Matt, Nick, Jonathan, Eric, and I on top of Anna Mills - day 10

I am not feeling so good - day 10