With MattVH on his Millwood 100 project:
I was meeting Matt at 2:40 am up Millcreek Canyon so I could run with him the first 10 miles of his Millwood 100 project. I got two hours of sleep and we dropped my car at Church Fork and then drove to Neff's Canyon where we would start. Millwood was the creation of Jared Campbell and is 100 miles and over 40,000 feet of climbing in Millcreek and the Cottonwood canyons. This route is a total beast with over 15K more vert than the Wasatch 100. With temps going over 100 degrees in the valley I was really worried about Matt and I knew it was going to be a difficult challenge.
We did the first 9.5 miles from Neff's up 3k feet of vert to the top of Neff's Pass and then ran down to the Desolation trail in Millcreek Canyon. The trail up higher had a lot of roots, stumps and overgrown bush and I nearly ate it twice and tweaked both of my ankles. The lower few miles are on great trail and we really picked up the pace. When I left Matt on the Pipeline trail he was in very good spirits and ready to tackle the beast.
I met back up with him at mile 27 to bring him some food and Coke and it was so hot and he was getting depleted. He pushed through two full days of that heat and completed the project early Sunday morning. Incredible! Congrats to Matt on being only the 3rd person to complete this route. |