Italy, day nine

Despite my inability to take care of it, my body showed surprising resilience to my demands of supporting Beat all night followed by hiking all day. But on Friday morning, that all came to a crashing halt, and I woke up feeling like someone injected liquid lead into my bloodstream during the night. I wasn't entirely surprised, given that I had climbed anywhere from 5,000 to 11,000 feet every day but one for the past eight days, endured hundreds of kilometers of stressful driving, slept an average of three hours a night, and fueled myself with a sporadic diet that contained about 90 percent simple carbohydrates. Still, I can't overemphasize how crappy I felt when Beat dialed in his daily dawn update to tell me he was starting up the final pass of the Tor des Geants. I mumbled that I would likely not get out of bed for the rest of the day. Of course, thanks to my extended bout of jet lag insomnia I couldn't sleep anyway, so I got up and cleaned the apartment, organized Beat's gear, and packed up so he wouldn't have to worry about anything after he finished. Beat called again from the top of Col de Malatra and asked me if I wanted to meet him for the final stretch. I hadn't planned to, given this was his moment to shine, but I did appreciate an opportunity to share what I imagined was the extremely satisfying experience for him.

I dragged quite a lot on the way out of town, but picked up energy again on the steep climb to Refugio Bertoni. I caught Beat running along the flat traverse a couple of miles later. He said running felt better on his painful feet, but caused a number of other problems that he was only occasionally willing to deal with. I wasn't faring too well myself with a still-sore twisted knee and deep fatigue, and whenever Beat ran I actually struggled to hold his pace. As we started down the final steep descent, he mentioned possibly leaving Italy that night for Switzerland, a four-hour drive to his brother's house near Zurich. In a twist of Beat's borderline-masochistic sense of humor, we were both signed up for a half-marathon the following day: The Internationaler Greifenseelauf, a massive event with more than 15,000 participants. The reasoning behind this crazy plan was to: A, allow Beat to spend time with his brother, who was registered for the race; B, continue one of Beat's regular traditions; C, be a unique first road race experience for me; and D, secure bragging rights for Beat ("My warmup run was only 200 miles. Do you think that's enough?")

However, over the course of the arduous week, I had come to believe that the half marathon could not possibly be a serious plan. Even less fathomable was driving four hours that night when Beat wouldn't finish the race until 6 p.m. and hadn't even given himself a single minute to recover. "You can't possibly still be thinking about that stupid race," I snapped back. My comment was mostly directed and convincing Beat that I was exhausted and had no business driving that night, but it was the wrong way of saying it, and the words "stupid race" really irritated him. I instantly felt bad about it given the last thing I wanted to do was steal his thunder, which is why I hadn't planned to meet him on the trail in the first place. I tried to dial it back and apologize, but we were both up against a raw edge. When we reached the pavement of town, Beat broke into a celebratory sprint and I let him go. Because of this, I actually missed seeing him finish. I arrived several minutes later to find Beat sprawled out in a folding chair with a huge smile on his face. All was forgotten and forgiven.

Beat's finishing time was 128 hours, 13 minutes and 55 seconds, for a position of 111th male and 117th overall among 473 starters and 300 finishers. He was happy with his time given how many struggles he experienced in the last half of the race, and very happy to have finished the whole thing not just once but twice — an admirable display of mental fortitude. We celebrated with individual gigantic pizzas at the pizzeria across from the TDG tent, cheering as dozens of other smiling racers sprinted, ran, walked, and limped into the finish.

I'm incredibly proud of Beat and grateful to have shared in a small part of his experience. The little support I offered him was really for my own satisfaction; he didn't really need my back massages, dessert deliveries and commiseration, although I like to think that maybe I contributed a small part to the mental fortitude that led to his success. And of course supporting Beat meant traveling with him to Europe, which has been such a great experience for me. Some have asked if my first venture outside North America has been strange for me, and in some ways — the terrible soda options and the driving — it has. But here in these beautiful mountains, among people who love mountains, is in other ways as close as I ever feel to home.

Italy, day eight

The days were all starting to blur together, as were the names of the TDG life bases. I'd forgotten the name of this one within minutes after I arrived around 11 p.m. Like the other checkpoints, it was stashed in a quaint mountain town at the end of a long and winding canyon road. The white tent was wedged in a small plaza between several hotels, where street lights flickered in dull streaks of orange amid the race's overwhelming flood lights. I parked the car under the artificial midnight sun, read my Kindle, and eventually dozed off only to be awoken by Beat tapping on the window at 1:30 a.m.

It's an intriguing environment, these events where people from a multitude of different nationalities come and go in the night, but all share the common and often debilitating condition of being human. In places such as this I get the sense that there is no nationalism, no language barriers, only fragile biological beings trying to endure something quite difficult and painful. They have their individual reasons for being here, their personal goals and backgrounds, but they all have the same drooping look in their eyes, the same drunken stagger in their steps, the same ashen faces, hunched postures and quaking hands as they clutch lukewarm plates of pasta. Sitting with Beat inside the white tent, I would often forget where I was until I mentioned something to a nearby racer, who would then regard me with a blank stare and mumble something back in French or German or Italian. We didn't need language to communicate, though; their eyes said so much more than words — I am tired. My mind is liquid. I have forgotten my name. But I feel so alive. I do not know why.

My own mind was starting to slip away. Despite GPS's flawless directions, I lost my way driving down the canyon road and made a few circles around the deserted streets of a stone village before finding my way back to the highway and home at 4:30 a.m. Beat called at first light, about 6 a.m., absolutely elated about the scenery he was looking at — a dramatic emotional upswing that he wanted to share. I was unable to doze back off after that, so I spent the morning attempting some work and blogging in Courmayeur before recruiting Martina to join me on my next life base trip that evening.

We arrived at Ollomont early enough to hike up Col Brison before I expected Beat to arrive at his final life base, about fifty kilometers from the finish. It wasn't quite early enough to make it to the Col and back before dark, so after the first two thousand feet of climbing, I amped up my pace to near-max. For me, few things are more physically and emotionally satisfying than a hard climb in a mountainous landscape. I love the feel of sweat streaming from my cheeks onto the rocks, of hot blood searing my calves, of biceps flexing as I dig my poles into the dirt. In the midst of a good climb, I can transition from being completely exhausted to overflowing with energy and life within minutes — no sleep, no food, no problem. Of course, I don't expect to feel this way indefinitely, but for one steep Col in the Italian Alps, even my overtired body feels like it can take on the whole world.

And, in the midst of this elation, I think about whether I could take on a race like the Tor des Geants. Like the Tour Divide, it's a race that fits many of my interests and strengths. The sheer length, steepness and technicality of the course forces even the fastest competitors into trekking mode — it's a hiking race, not a trail run. I am a clumsy and slow runner, but I'm a good hiker — indeed, I'm often faster when I'm in hiking mode versus trying to shuffle up these steep slopes. I also do a lot less damage to my own body when I don't try to run — my tender feet can feel pretty trashed after a six-hour 50K, but all of the hiking I did this week had no effect on my feet, and only a little on my legs. To a certain extent I can operate okay on heavy sleep deprivation as long as I keep the calories coming in. And as long as I don't trash my feet (admittedly, this is quite unlikely over that much distance) and eat enough, I think I could thrive in the environment of the Tor des Geants. And of course, I could just hike the whole Alta Via della Valle d'Aosta without the structure of a race. I would love this, but at the same time, there is a side of me that relishes in the extreme challenge offered by the TDG, made possible by the support of the race organization and the simple drive to complete the course in a time that might otherwise be impossible. Racing is motivation to push beyond suffering and personal limits, and in its own way, suffering becomes a meaningful and rewarding experience in itself. It's why, if I ever go back to the Tour Divide, I don't think I would be satisfied to tour the GDMBR at a leisurely pace, even though I love bicycle touring. No, the GDMBR carries a different meaning for me, and I'm not sure I could return without the drive to complete the course faster and better than I did the first time. 

Different experiences, racing and touring. Both good, but undeniably different. Indeed, I loved my tour up Col Brison. I arrived at the pass right at sunset in a wash of magical light, feeling good, with no requirement to hike down the Col, up another Col, down that Col, and up on a seemingly endless loop. I could just sit on the crest, bundle in all of my warm and still-dry layers as cold wind whisked along the ridge, spend long minutes watching the orange light fade from the horizon and turn to pink Alpenglow on distant glaciers, smile, stand up, and hike down the way I came. And indeed, even in my best element I can still make mistakes, still be clumsy. I had become accustomed to hiking with poles, which improve my balance and allow to me move downhill at a faster speed than I otherwise would. Without poles, I took a couple of bad steps and once wrenched my right knee violently, causing a burst of pain. For a few seconds, I fretted that I had done something bad enough to prevent me from continuing down the trail, but eventually the pain subsided and I was able to walk without limping — although my twisted knee did hurt, and forced me to take deliberately slow steps. I stopped at a refugio located right at treeline to watch the moon rise over the mountains and wait for Beat, who called to let me know he was about an hour away. Martina caught up to me and we waited together, eventually chatting with the race volunteer at the refugio using Martina's limited French and my subtle sign language.

Beat was in a lot of pain when he reached the refugio. His feet were hamburger, he told us, a wrap of blisters that burned like fire and muscle sensitivity that made every step feel like a plunge into a bowl of thumb tacks. After spending the evening almost believing that I could take on the Tor des Geants, looking at Beat's near-bloody feet was another dose of reality about just how difficult this race really is. A long mountain bike race is one thing, and can hurt, but not in nearly the same way. In a foot race, the body experiences all of the impact, and when something goes wrong, there's nothing to fall back on — no shocks, no coasting, no wheels. My feet are my own weak link, and in my experiences, there's really no pain quite as agonizing during a physical effort as hurty feet.

We traveled together down to Ollomont, where Beat decided to sleep for two hours before having the race medics tape his feet. Martina was sweet and waited with me until Beat woke up so I could see him off and take his bag, given this was the last major checkpoint. Beat limped away from Ollomont at about 1:30 a.m., into another long night.

Italy, day seven

After my ten-hour strenuous hike, having finally crawled into bed at 11 p.m., I was back up at 2 a.m. to begin the two-hour drive out to Gressoney. Timing Beat's checkpoint arrivals was a mystery wrapped in an enigma of guesswork. I at least had last year's splits to go on, and he was generally running similar times about three to six hours ahead of his 2010 pace. But timing Beat's exact arrival required exhausting margins. If I estimated he would arrive around 6 a.m., I really had to be at the checkpoint by 4, and not be terribly surprised when he didn't show up until 8. The Tor des Geants life bases were not exactly welcoming of crew members. We weren't even allowed inside the buildings unless our racers were physically there and a kind volunteer let us slip through the controls. I learned to get comfortable in my little rented Volkswagon compact, snacking on jam sandwiches and occasionally getting out of the car to jog a few blocks to stay warm, because gas is expensive in Europe.

Beat was tired and quietly cranky when he checked out of Gressoney at 9:30 a.m. I followed him along the first five kilometers out of the base along a rushing glacial river. We moved along at a pace that can only be described as painfully slow, about 2 mph on a flat river path, as Beat tried to put his game face back on. Accompanying us was a Russian runner who had become so tired on the second night that he walked right off the trail into a head-over-feet tumble down a scree slope, smashing his face and badly spraining his nose. He was wrapped in gauze and sniffing loudly through his swollen purple nose, ranting about the lack of Neosporin at the life bases. "They have everything to fix feet and no Neosporin," he repeated incessantly while Beat argued with him about the merits of the antiseptic ointment. I probably would have found this all hilarious if I wasn't grappling with my own sour stomach from sleep deprivation and an admittedly poor diet.

Pacing is prohibited in the Tor des Geants, although short periods of accompaniment are viewed as okay. So I couldn't hike with Beat, but I had driven all the way out here and wanted to explore, so I broke away and headed up the steep trail on my own. Like every pass on this wide loop, the trail was rocky and relentless. The trail signs listing elevations in meters consistently fooled me into underestimating the effort. A climb from 1,200 meters to 2,700 meters doesn't seem so bad, until you realize that the relatively small number converts to nearly 5,000 feet. But the horizontal distances are relatively short, and if you're willing to expend a gallon of sweat, these climbs can go by surprisingly fast. Despite his slow plod along the river, Beat consistently shadowed me about a quarter mile back, and admitted he used my bright green hat in the distance as a rabbit of sorts to pick up his pace.

Beat's camera battery died sometime during the night, so I waited at the pass to take his obligatory self portrait at the Col. I guess technically it's not a self portrait if someone else shoots it, but he managed to get one of these on every pass on the course but one.

From Col Pinter, I noticed yellow trail markers continuing up the shale toward a high peak, and figured I might as well go for broke. Keep in mind that I hiked ten hours the day before, hadn't slept, hadn't really eaten much, hadn't brought all that much water for my "short" morning walk, and still felt like roadkill. But comparing myself to Beat, I felt no justification to slack off or complain.

As "trail" 11A crested the summit ridge, it became increasingly more rugged and technical. I am normally extremely shy when it comes to exposed scrambling, especially when I am alone and there's no one around to spot my broken body on the rocks, but I admit I can be swept with summit fever. The marked route also fooled me into a false sense of security that landed me well outside my comfort zone, clinging to a precipice over what looked like, and literally was, a 7,000-foot tumble down to the Gressoney valley. All I can say is that if we were in the States, what passes for a hiking trail in the Alps could easily be labeled class four and even lower class five bouldering, incorporating crack climbing and all. At one point I just had to ditch my poles and was unwilling to relinquish my three-point contact, so I just propped them against the wall. It didn't seem necessary to fold them up and put them in my pack because I would be  back at this spot within minutes, and I hadn't seen a single other person since the Col.

On the final pitch, I had to press my back against the wall to allow another hiker to go by, a man who only grunted when I said "buon giorno" in a breathless whisper. I didn't think anything of it. He descended quickly and was already moving along the summit ridge while I made my final overcautiously slow ascent. I basically did little more than tag the top and start back down before vertigo really kicked in and involuntary crying commenced. (I didn't cry. I did come close.) I was angry at myself for pushing so far beyond my personal limits and blamed sleep deprivation for clouding my judgement.

I was nearly "safe" when I reached the place where my poles should have been, and they weren't there. I had laid them horizontally on a solid ledge, so the chance they fell off was extremely slim, and even so I scanned the surrounding area several times over. They were simply gone, and the best explanation I had was that this one hiker dude actually stole them, right out from under me. I was more sad than angry, as it was my fault for ditching them, and also because I really liked these lightweight carbon Black Diamond poles. I bought them in Anchorage right before the Susitna 100 and they essentially saved my race, and have been trusty hiking companions ever since. Not to mention they weren't cheap, but what made me even more sad was the fact I was now going to have to descend 7,000 feet of steep, rocky trail without poles. To the random hiker dude who didn't even say good morning back to me and then stole my poles: I hope they break and you fall on your face and sprain your nose.

I later learned the peak I climbed was Testa Grigia, a 3,315-meter (10,875-foot) peak that's famous for skiing and even has a bivy hut stationed just below the summit ridge (I saw it, but was too sad about my poles and mentally exhausted from vertigo to check it out.) Then it was just down, down, down, to wrap up a twelve-mile hike that took eight solid hours. Testa Grigia looked impressive from the valley, with its stark gray wall and crown of clouds. On the way back to town I met up with Angela from Canada and Anne from Anchorage, who were traveling together out of the Gressoney life base. I turned around to walk with them for a bit. We passed an Italian bakery and I mentioned off-hand that I was absolutely starving and would likely hit this place after I returned. Angela turned to Anne and said, "We're vacationing in Italy. I haven't even had a real Italian pastry yet. Let's go get something." We all went inside together and Angela treated everyone to apple pastries while I quietly stocked up on breadsticks, tuna and apples for sustenance for my next long life base wait.

 I was impressed with Angela's attitude. She seemed so laid back in the midst of this effort that was burying me in much smaller doses, and she appeared to be truly enjoying herself. Anne unfortunately was hurting, and during our bakery excursion decided she should drop from the race to avoid cementing a reoccurring case of plantar faciitis. I walked with her back to the base as she explained to all of the departing racers that she was dropping out and they all enthusiastically encouraged her to sleep on it first. Amazing attitudes, all of them. I also saw my friends Steve and Harry just before we reached the life base. They seemed extremely out of it and initially reacted like they didn't even recognize me.  I warned them about the rough climb ahead and Harry insisted that the trail to the first refugio "wasn't steep" because it didn't look that way on the elevation profile, even though I had just told him I was actually there two hours earlier and personally clocked it gaining 1,200 feet in three quarters of a mile. I didn't feel compelled to argue with him, because in a race like this, denial can be an effective strategy. I left my friends and began the long-way-around drive to the next life base and the long night ahead.

Italy, day six

On Tuesday I had a good block of daylight between my life base trips, so I decided to squeeze in my long hike for the week. I mapped a route following the Tor des Geants course backward to Col de Malatra, which is the last pass in the race, then crossing overland to complete a loop over two passes, for a total of three big climbs and a good chunk of distance. I slept late because, to be honest, sleep has been a rare commodity during this trip, as food has also been. The food is delicious when I can get it, but Italian culture is not conducive to an on-the-go lifestyle, with its mid-day store closures and complete lack of convenience stores and supermarkets. I often have a very difficult time acquiring food when I need it the most, and have taken to eating bread and jam sandwiches for more meals than I care to admit. At this point my stomach doesn't even really care about pizza and authentic pasta, it just wants calories. It's funny to come all the way to Italy and lose almost all interest in the quality of food in favor of quantity. My Americanism shines through.

But, yes, I at least got a more normal amount of sleep (read, more than four hours) and got going around 10 a.m. I passed the Tor des Geants course markers on my way out the Trail du Mont Blanc, preparing for the race finish. It was more than 48 hours into the 200-mile race and no one was even close to finishing. Ultimately the winner would come in at 6 p.m. Wednesday, a finishing time of 81 hours. Consider this against the 100-mile Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, which the top runners finish in just over 20 hours.

The climb to Col de Malatra was long, nearly 12 miles on a rolling traverse that included about 6,500 feet of climbing. But besides the TDG flags it was just me out there, lost in a massive Alpine moonscape.

The col itself was just a narrow notch in a veritable wall. At 2,925 meters, it's the third highest pass on the course.

Looking through the notch to the other side.

I saw mountain bike tracks on this trail. Six thousand feet of descending — must be a grunt to get the bikes up here but fully awesome to ride down. I was certainly jealous.

I left the trail and started my traverse, with two passes and lots more climbing still in front of me.

I crested Col Sapin at about 6 p.m., having walked nearly continuously for eight hours. I didn't make many stops because I didn't really have any food beyond a couple of jam sandwiches and some candy I scrounged out of Beat's rejected race food pile. I vowed to make a real effort to go grocery shopping the following day.

My legs were incredibly tired and feet sore on the final descent, which I spent contemplating the scale of the Tor des Geants, again. After all, I had only hiked three passes, and the second two were comparably small.

I finally tromped back to my apartment at 8 p.m. after 24 miles and 11,300 feet of climbing — a truly challenging and beautiful solo outing. It was too late to go to the now-closed grocery store and I was too tired and hungry to deal with the leisurely (read: drawn-out) waits and dainty portions of the local restaurants, so I scrounged some Barilla pasta and a can of crushed tomatoes for dinner. It was the most delicious dinner ever. As Beat has said about his own limited food choices in the Tor des Geants, there's no seasoning quite like hunger.

Italy, day five

My fifth day in Italy was a challenge of coordination, as Martina and I both wanted to meet our men at the second life base in the skiing town of Cogne and also do a bit of hiking ourselves. I made my second attempt at navigating the roads of northern Italy, which has only been remotely possible thanks to a GPS device that Beat purchased during his last race in France. If it wasn't for GPS, I'd probably be driving in circles down in Torino at this point. I'm still learning to read traffic signs, none of the roads are marked, and even if they were, and every street has a name at least sixteen syllables long, beginning with Strada and continuing on for several seconds in GPS's soothing female voice. The most amazing thing about driving here is the A5 highway, which is mostly routed directly through the mountains in a series of tunnels. The mountain roads are all incredibly winding and narrow and barely squeeze between centuries-old stone buildings. Even the driving here is treacherous, beautiful and exciting.

Martina and I hiked toward Col Loson, which at 3,200 meters is the highest pass on the course. I only made it five miles to 8,000 feet elevation before I caught up with Beat, who was coming down the pass two hours earlier than I expected. He was noticeably tired and limping a bit, and said that he felt more worked than he did after the 2009 Hardrock 100, just 100 kilometers into the Tor des Geants with 230 more to go.

But he did still look strong going down the steep trail toward Cogne. Col Loson looses more than 6,000 feet of pure elevation from the top of the pass to the valley. Although Col Loson has one of the more dramatic elevation changes, there are 24 similar passes in this race. Twenty four.

I was still able to catch Beat smiling on occasion.

Beat inside the life base, trying to fix his feet. My job at each of these life bases, which are generally spaced 35-50 kilometers apart, is to bring him things that he requests, massage his shoulders, fetch food, and nod sympathetically as he spews long stream-of-consciousness monologs about the why that last pass was the worst of the lot, so much worse than he remembered from last year.

But even amid the pain and fatigue, he was anxious to move on. This I can understand. It's not just about beautiful scenery and challenge — if it was, Beat would just do what I'm doing, hiking when I feel like hiking and sipping espressos at cafes while I wait for racers to come through town. The suffering is an important part of the experience, a way to draw deeper meaning and understanding from the barrage of sensory input and reduced inhibitions. I can appreciate what Beat is trying to do even as I struggle to fathom it.

Italy, day four

On paper, the Tor des Geants is a 200-mile foot race with 80,000 feet of climbing. But on its rugged surface, this loop around the Aosta Valley is so much more than its insufficient numbers. It's miles of boulder fields and crumbling shale and 40-percent grades. It's calf-shredding climbing followed my quad-crushing descents. It's 4,000 vertical feet of trail so steep that your heels never touch the ground, cresting on narrow cols before plunging off seemingly impossible cliffs. Exposure, leaping steps and knee agony are just a small battles in the grand scheme of this unfathomable physical and mental war.

The race started at a merciful 10 a.m. Sunday morning. A large crowd had gathered in downtown Courmayeur as church bells range through the cool air. It was cloudy and humid but the excitement was electric.

Beat, Harry and Steve at the start. There were more than 500 racers lining up for the Tor des Geants. Because he's a 2010 finisher, Beat received a special race number with his finishing position, 98.

After cheering the guys on, I wrapped up a few chores and then headed out for a quick trip up to Col Arp, which is the first pass in the race. It rained intermittently and even though the race started just hours earlier, the trail was completely deserted. The sweepers had even cleaned up the course markings, leaving no sign of the 500 people who passed through here.

I had to hurry in order to meet Beat at the first life base, so I veered onto an adjacent fire road so I could run (the trails here are much too steep for someone like me to even attempt more than a determined hike, both up or down.) I climbed to 8,500 feet, again, before rushing back down to town as fast as my legs could carry me while the sky grew darker and the air colder. It says something about the scale of the mountains here that you can't even run from town to a minor pass without logging 5,000 feet of climbing on the ol' GPS. Both runners and mountain bikers who live here and recreate on a regular basis must be in amazing shape. The sky opened up to a spectacular downpour just as I reached my front door.

Despite the rain and cold, Beat seemed in good spirits at the first life base, with 50 kilometers of difficulty behind him. He arrived with Anne Ver Hoef and said they spent a good deal of the miles traveling together and discussing the Iditarod Trail Invitational, a 350-mile race in Alaska that both are registered for in 2012. Anne has competed in the ITI before and said the TDG is harder. Having seen small sections of the TDG, I have no doubt about this.

Italy, day three

I am falling far behind on my vacation picture posting. Between my travels between Tor des Geants checkpoints to support Beat and exploring trails myself, I've been on the move almost continuously since Sunday. I have a few hours here before I try to meet Beat and the last life base, about fifty kilometers from the race finish. He's battling foot pain and stomach issues, but it otherwise moving strong and is a few hours ahead of his 2010 pace. I'll post more about the race in the next few days.

On Saturday morning, Beat, Steve and Harry were entrenched in last-minute preparations ahead of the Sunday start, and wanted us out of their hair. Martina and I mapped out a loop following the Trail du Mont Blanc, looping around a higher ridge to Col Sapin and back to town on the other side of the bowl.

We were feeling a bit silly as we headed up the steep trail to the refugio, and joked with fan-girl gushing about "following Killian's footprints" on the UTMB. I packed a full "ultralight" overnight pack with a sleeping bag, mat, bivy, warm winter clothing, food, lights and three liters of water to test my Raidlight pack against steep hiking and running. It probably weighed somewhere in the range of twenty pounds, but I didn't even really notice the weight against the fantastic morning weather and beautiful scenery. I even ran about two miles along the ridge and back. The experiment boosted my confidence about the prospect of "fastpacking," or actually running while carrying full self-support gear.

Livestock is ubiquitous in these mountains. I think Alps cows are happy cows, which would explain why the yogurt and gelato is so much better here than it is in the States.

Heading down a minor peak to Col Sapin, at 8,500 feet elevation. We came back in time to join the boys for their pre-race meeting and pasta party, and met a contingent of North American friends including Anne Ver Hoef from Anchorage (who I know through winter racing) and Angela from Calgary, who I spent a week with during my Maah Dah Hey camping trip in May. It was a full reunion of ultra friends, and everyone was excited for Sunday morning.