Che Cavolo Vuoi - An Unexpected Adventure

aka, Curious Ramiro's Grand Day Out

Ramiro making his own detour - Detour de Ramiro.

This being my fifth Skyline-to-Sea 50k, and the third fatass, and with perfect mid-December weather, I did not expect any surprises. But that's the thing about surprises - they come when you least expect them.

The run was organized in honor of a visiting Swiss so that we could run some trails together. I met Sarah at Trail Vernier St. Bernard over the summer. She was one of the very few Americans, Swiss-American it turns out, that passed me on that run. Lest you think I ran super fast, I did not. I totally bonked and all but a few marmots passed me. I needed redemption and the super "easy" Skyline-to-Sea 50k fit the bill.

The first and last time I would see a trail map

Dumb and dumber and dumberer and dumbererer and ...

It's a challenging run to put together. Unlike most fatass runs where people just show up or not, this is a one-way trail with an hour's drive in between each way. Arranging transportion for this herd of cats isn't easy. But with 4 uphill runners showing up in the last week, life was going to be grand day out for the 8 to 10 downhiller's.

Mid-trail traffic jam as the uphill group collides with the downhill group

The uphill group, Andy, Cynthia, Tom and Itao drove our cars to Waddell Beach while we drove their car to Castle Rock on the summit. The downhill group consisted of Sarah, Ramiro, Stephen, Samir, Chuck, James and myself. Coach Kevin brought two youngsters to run the marathon from Saratoga Gap. I was the only Asian in the non-Asian group, securing my status as a banana, yellow on the outside and white on the inside, a little soft but very appealing.

Banana on the outside - all slug on the inside

The start was beautiful. Our first sunny day after a lot of rain, the forest was green, sparkling with the previous nights rain on the trees with a few low clouds in the valleys below. Our Swiss friend I'm sure was amazed that our "technical" section was over so soon and what uphills we had didn't even amount to a hill of beans. Speaking of which, she's going to Boston next; if she thinks our trail was flat…

One of our boring flat sections

By mid-way, our small group of seven started to separate a bit with a couple of old farts in the back but we regrouped periodically taking just a few minutes each time. Chuck must have thought this was Western States and was trying to finish DFL. Last time we did S2S fatass, we stayed as a group until we hit mile 18, Big Basin campground, and went our separate speeds down the direct path alongside the river to the beach. We were definitely stopping at the campground to buy some burritos though. After months of not running more than 80 minutes, this banana really needed a burrito.

Then something unexpected happened. I met the front group to be asked, "where's Ramiro?" Apparently he'd double backed up the trail but missed us completely because we'd taken a different route inside the campground. We waited nearly an hour for him and ultimately decided to split up. James and I (and this point I'm sorry that I'm a banana and not a peach) stayed behind for an extra 15 minutes while the other 4 went ahead. Word from passing hikers seemed to point to Ramiro having gone ahead to Waddell before us. How many stocky Hispanic runners could there be? Apparently a lot because we got bad intel. Hiker brain.

James and I made good time, his a bit better than mine, and caught up with the front group. No sign of Ramiro. James took the high road, the bypass trail, 2 miles from the end, joined us at the Waddell ranger station and ne c'est pas Ramiro. The six of us ran together the final quarter mile to the beach hoping Ramiro was already at his van and cooking burgers. But nope, hark, anon, 'twas merely Kevin and his boys shivering in the cold. Oh Ramiro, oh Ramiro, wherefore art thou my Ramiro?

Turns out our wannabe scout double backed 1.5 to 2 miles instead of just a few minutes. Based on GPS data, we missed each other by no more than a minute. There aren't a lot of diversionary trails leading to the campground, but there are at the campground, so we crossed paths without actually crossing paths. Sigh.

After allowing ourselves a few minutes of shock and panic, three of us hiked back to the ranger station while the boys warmed up in Stephen's truck. Fearing the worst, 30 minutes after we finished, we started to file a missing hiker report when I finally heard from our adventurer. He was "1.5 miles out" and "on the bypass trail". Chuck and I were just about to head up the bypass trail when Ramiro came barreling down the fire road instead. Second near disaster averted! Geesh, it's guys like that that make other ultra-idiots look smart. Next time, we put him on a leash like a three year old at the mall.

Put him on a leash!

The run, search and rescue took so long, I grew a beard.

Some warm food and a long drive back up to summit and back, our 14 hour day, only half of it actually running, finally came to an end. Hope Sarah really enjoyed our little adventure and thanks for the chocolates! You're welcome to run with us anytime, chocolate or not. Many thanks to Andy for helping our logistics, hope all y'all's run was a little less adventurous than ours. And thanks to Ramiro and Stephen for driving, Ramiro for acting chef even after his extra unnecessary training run.