Nancy East and Chris Ford on GSMNP900 FKT attempt starting Sept 4

Here we go again, from https://fastestknowntime.com/route/g...park-900-nc-tn :

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On September 4, 2020, Nancy East and Chris Ford will attempt an FKT of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park 900, which entails hiking all the open trails in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This will be a supported attempt. We intended to attempt this FKT in April 2020, but the park's closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic delayed our attempt.
We are attempting to raise $60,000 for a Preventative Search and Rescue (PSAR) Program in the park and are collaborating with Friends of the Smokies for the fundraiser. Nancy is a search and rescue team member on the North Carolina side of the park in Haywood County. The tragic search operation for Susan Clements in 2018 inspired us to combine an FKT attempt with a fundraiser. Details about the fundraiser can be found here.
We will be tracking through Gaia GPS and taking time-stamped photos of trail signs at each junction within the park. Daily posts about our progress will be made on Nancy’s Facebook and Instagram pages (see links below).
Facebook
Instagram
Gaia Tracking
* Of note, Chris Ford's trail name is "Pacer" but he is not the same Pacer who commented in this thread on 7/2/19.

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Five days in:

Total time:	4d, 10h, 9m
Staged time:	2d, 19h, 27m
Total miles:	175
New miles:	144.4
Projected total miles at finish:	965.5
Projected total time at finish:	24d, 9h, 38m
Projected finish date:	9/28/2020
Projected staged time at finish:	15d, 12h, 7m

Here's a graph showing how Nancy and Chris are doing against Jeff's progress to this point:

Attachment 46759

Thanks for that update! I wondered how they were progressing. Her Facebook posts made it hard to figure out.

Ten days in:

Total time:	9d, 12h, 8m
Staged time:	5d, 11h, 49m
Total miles:	336.1
New miles:	284.7
Projected total miles at finish:	940.5
Projected total time at finish:	26d, 14h, 22m
Projected finish date:	10/1/2020
Projected staged time at finish:	15d, 8h, 51m

An updated graph showing how Nancy and Chris are doing compared to Jeff's progress to this point:
Attachment 46764
No more tortoise vs. hare leap-frogging after day 7 as Nancy and Chris definitively pull ahead. The gap widens where Jeff became injured and took a couple days off. Nancy and Chris were forced to bypass Hazel Cr and planned campsite #82 due to trail closure. A bear was euthanized after being found scavenging human remains at the same campsite just a day earlier.

Through day 17:

Total time:	16d, 12h, 40m
Staged time:	9d, 5h, 4m
Total miles:	557.9
New miles:	463.9
Projected total miles at finish:	958.1
Projected total time at finish:	28d, 9h, 12m
Projected finish date:	10/2/2020
Projected staged time at finish:	15d, 19h, 40m

Graph:
Attachment 46768

The Hazel Creek closure brings up a question.

I suppose Jeff had to skip Porter's Creek because of that closure as will Nancy and Chris.

So I wonder how long Hazel Creek will remain closed?

And if they have completed everything except Hazel Creek will that be considered a completion?

Kind of nitpicky I suppose.

Thank you for the update!

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Originally Posted by rmitchell

The Hazel Creek closure brings up a question.

I suppose Jeff had to skip Porter's Creek because of that closure as will Nancy and Chris.

So I wonder how long Hazel Creek will remain closed?

And if they have completed everything except Hazel Creek will that be considered a completion?

Kind of nitpicky I suppose.

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Jeff was done before it happened. I spoke to Benny, and a closure happened on one of his FKTs in the Smokies, if you complete all open trails before a closed trail re-opens, then you get a completion. If the Hazel Creek re-opens before they finish the other trails, they have to go back and complete it.

That is an interesting question. Any idea when either Porter's or Hazel might reopen? As for the latter, I haven't seen a substantive follow-up on the incident with the bear and deceased hiker (ie cause of death)...

Autopsies and related necropsies take a while to conduct. Both the victim and the bear need to be examined, which probably will take upwards of 4-weeks or more once the process starts. To stay inside the realm of the speed hiking topic, there are no FKTs for these forensic processes of science that may require re-inspection of the site for evidentiary needs, which requires the closure to remain in place until this can be determined.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Traveler

Autopsies and related necropsies take a while to conduct. Both the victim and the bear need to be examined, which probably will take upwards of 4-weeks or more once the process starts. To stay inside the realm of the speed hiking topic, there are no FKTs for these forensic processes of science that may require re-inspection of the site for evidentiary needs, which requires the closure to remain in place until this can be determined.

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Good point. This can't be rushed. JC13 is right too, Nancy and Chris get the FKT completion if the trails remain closed. Besides, if their lead stays at 48+ hours, less than a dozen miles wouldn't change the outcome. Graph:
Attachment 46785
What hits closer to home is if they also pull off a lowest mileage map completion. Technically, they'd get that too. Nancy told me that their logistics guru was eyeing Benny's 924.3. I don't see them hitting that number even with the closures unless they start getting more efficient with their routes. But my formula could very well be overestimating their total miles at finish: 796.7/(SUM(new miles)/SUM(total miles))

Quote:

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Any idea when either Porter's or Hazel might reopen?

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since i've lost my media contacts and all that---i'm not in that loop anymore but here's my thoughts...

porters wont open for a while i dont think...

it's been closed a good amount of this summer and doesnt seem like they are in a hurry to get it done...

one main reason is that the Rona is taking resources they could use to repair the trail and having to use them
elsewhere.....

the Park has been basically a mess---not only with trash---but with alot of other issues this summer....

Rona hasnt been good to the national parks..........

as for hazel creek---

i would see that opening up in the next week or two..

i doubt the autopsy or the necropy have been completed yet---nor the toxicology report......

but as for the trail----my guess is that they will monitor it for a couple of weeks after the incident to
see if other bears are coming in that area looking for humans....

my guess is that they will open that up before any of the paperwork for the bodies comes back...


again----these are just my guesses.....

the thing that is most important----and not for a FKT----but for the trails and what not, is the cause of death...

depending on what those results are, depends upon the course of action the park will take.....


im not sure if i am on good enough terms to call my old newsroom and ask them what they have been hearing about it...

lots of stuff can be learned off record----but that ship has pretty much sailed for me......

Through day 24:

Total time:	23d, 10h, 44m
Staged time:	12d, 16h, 32m
Total miles:	775.9
New miles:	644.7
Projected total miles at finish:	945.1
Projected total time at finish:	28d, 13h, 26m
Projected finish date:	10/3/2020
Projected staged time at finish:	15d, 10h, 57m

graph:
Attachment 46793
Now about 4 days ahead of Jeff, Nancy and Chris mention having 5 days left. No news about either trail closure as far as I know. All I got were hits on the 6/6/2015 bear attack further downstream along Hazel Creek and its subsequent reopening on 7/2/2015. Not sure, but it appears the park didn't officially announce the reopening until either the day of or day before. Still unlikely that Hazel will reopen before the end of this week so I've adjusted Nancy's and Chris's total new miles at finish to ~785.

Through day 28:

Total time:	27d, 13h, 35m
Staged time:	14d, 15h, 21m
Total miles:	895.9
New miles:	746.8
Projected total miles at finish:	951.3
Projected total time at finish:	29d, 6h, 29m
Projected finish date:	10/3/2020
Projected staged time at finish:	15d, 13h, 4m

Hazel Creek Trail reopened today, so Nancy and Chris are headed up to Clingmans tonight to hike it down to Fontana pushing their projected finish at Big Creek to Saturday morning. Currently about 4 days ahead of record.

Congrats to Nancy and Chris! They announced finishing and setting a new FKT of 29d10h today. I did my best to keep track of their progress, but might need to reconcile some of these numbers below. Nevertheless here are some stats...
Longest day: 39.1 miles
Shortest day: 21.5 miles
Average miles/day: 31.6
Average elapsed trail time/day: 12:23
Average pace while on trail: 2.6 mph
Attachment 46800

Day	Total miles	Total New	Elapsed Time	Staged time
1	39.1	35.6	0d, 14h, 34m	0d, 14h, 34m
2	75.5	62.4	1d, 16h, 48m	1d, 5h, 3m
3	111.2	97.2	2d, 19h, 48m	1d, 20h, 19m
4	147	123	3d, 20h, 32m	2d, 9h, 17m
5	175	144.4	4d, 18h, 26m	2d, 19h, 27m
6	208	175.1	5d, 19h, 13m	3d, 8h, 29m
7	242.2	205.8	6d, 17h, 1m	3d, 18h, 33m
8	272.8	232.5	7d, 18h, 8m	4d, 7h, 55m
9	306.2	265.6	8d, 21h, 39m	4d, 23h, 41m
10	336.1	284.7	9d, 21h, 31m	5d, 11h, 49m
11	366.9	311.2	10d, 21h, 13m	5d, 23h, 46m
12	402.3	342.7	11d, 23h, 48m	6d, 14h, 36m
13	430.9	367.1	12d, 23h, 10m	7d, 2h, 12m
14	464.7	388.1	14d, 1h, 9m	7d, 16h, 27m
15	494.9	410.5	15d, 1h, 9m	8d, 4h, 43m
16	524.4	433	16d, 0h, 36m	8d, 16h, 24m
17	557.9	463.9	17d, 1h, 1m	9d, 5h, 4m
18	585.1	481.3	17d, 22h, 25m	9d, 14h, 45m
19	618	507.2	18d, 23h, 28m	10d, 4h, 3m
20	650.9	538.2	19d, 23h, 40m	10d, 16h, 30m
21	683.9	568.1	20d, 23h, 30m	11d, 4h, 34m
22	713.3	587.6	21d, 22h, 44m	11d, 16h, 4m
23	747.2	620.9	23d, 0h, 13m	12d, 5h, 48m
24	775.9	644.7	23d, 22h, 42m	12d, 16h, 32m
25	805.2	672.1	24d, 21h, 21m	13d, 3h, 26m
26	830.2	689.2	25d, 19h, 14m	13d, 13h, 34m
27	861.1	715.9	26d, 19h, 9m	14d, 1h, 45m
28	895.9	746.8	27d, 20h, 29m	14d, 15h, 21m
29	917.4	754.9	28d, 16h, 19m	14d, 23h, 26m
30	948	779	29d, 16h, 8m	15d, 11h, 29m

(staged time doesn't include time camped in backcountry)

I hope they go on a podcast to talk about their experience! It was cool to hear about Jeff's experience on Adventure Jogger.