So last week I was at Steens High Altitude Running Camp. For those who don't know western United States geography (because, honestly, who doesn't), the Steens Mountains are in southeast Oregon. From the top of the mountain (about 10,000 feet, if I remember correctly) you can see Idaho and Nevada. Oh, and if you aren't in the mountains, you're in the high desert. And the high desert is flat. As. Hell.

 

I hate flat. But I also hate hills. Y'know, runner problems.

 

This was my second year at the camp, and it was much hotter than last year. The town of Frenchglen at the base of the mountain reached almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit. But I still had my long underwear on at night. It got pretty chilly.

 

Anyway, I suppose I can take this day by day...trust me, Thursday was pretty awesome.

 

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Sunday

 

I rode a bus for eight hours. It overheated multiple times, reaching temperatures of OVER 100 degrees inside. It sucked.

 

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Monday

Today was "acclimatizing" day, AKA "Let's show Garrett how out-of-shape he is." And out of shape, I am. I did get to go for a swim, though. Perks of not being a first-year camper.

 

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Tuesday - The Big Day

 

The Big Day is infamous at Steens. It begins by waking up at 5:00AM, then a bus ride to the 9,500 foot high sign (almost the top of the mountain), then a ~13 mile hike down into one of the canyons. I almost fell a couple of times.

 

After the hike, they give you about twenty minutes to fill up your water and prepare yourself for the second half of the day. After you're done telling your loved ones goodbye, you have a few more miles to hike before choosing a group and beginning the 60/60's.

 

60/60's are where you walk for one minute, then run for one minute. You do this for about seven miles down a tiny trail, through rivers, etc.

 

There are four groups to pick from. Group 4 is for walkers and injured people and generally gets home at about 9:00PM. Group 3 is pretty easy and walks quite often. Group 2 is the closest you can get to true 60/60's (this was the group I chose). Group 1 basically sprints the entire thing.

 

On average, forty people start Group 1. On average, less than eight finish.

 

After the 60/60's, you get a short break, then it's a 1.5 mile hike climb out of the mountain. It isn't uncommon for this part of the day to take almost an hour to complete.

 

When you get to the top, the camp founder is there with a guestbook to sign and a lemon drop candy. That lemon drop is the greatest thing I have ever tasted. Words cannot describe how amazing sugar tastes right then.

 

And then they make you run seven miles back to camp.

 

All in all, it ends up being about a 28-mile day for most people up and down hills, cliffs, and canyons. But everyone survived!

 

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Wednesday - Gate Guess Gallop

 

Today was the first Olympic game at Steens, and the first day that we realized we probably wouldn't win.

 

There was one guy in our tent -- let's call him Derrick, since his name actually is Derrick. Derrick was a first-year camper. He was also a graduated senior, so this was the only year he could come to Steens as a camper. Derrick came from a team who had won the Steens Olympics for four years in a row.

 

Derrick and his team were also in my tent. Needless to say, I was pretty happy about our odds.

 

Anyway, here's how GGG works: you start from the edge of the camp, running up the windy and hilly road to the spot where the camp's driveway meets the main road (which is exactly one mile). Then you run back down. Easy, right?

 

Once you get to the bottom and get your time (our first run took 16:50), you are given a couple of minutes to rest, then you have to go again. Only this time you don't get any watches or time-keeping devices, and you have to get as close to your guesstimated time as possible.

 

Now, on our first "dry" run, Derrick quit about 600m in. I was up front with our human metronome Mitchell, while most of the rest of our tent was back encouraging Derrick to continue. I still believe that their falling behind to try and pick him up was what gave us a slow first time.

 

When we finished the first two miles, Mitchell guessed that we would run it again at 16:00. We ended up running it in 15:40. In my opinion, Derrick slowing us down caused us to get fifth out of six in this event.

 

Now, before I'm attacked, you didn't know Derrick. He was very much a "I'm slightly uncomfortable so I'm going to quit" kind of guy. He had less than no confidence in himself, even though we spent hours trying to prove him otherwise. He had an excuse for EVERYTHING. And if there is one type of person that I can possibly hate, it is the person who makes excuses.

 

So we weren't off to a great start, but I would take the results of GGG over what happened the next day.

 

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Thursday - Cross Canyon, AKA The Greatest XC Race Ever, AKA The Day Garrett Went to the Hospital

 

Funny story.

 

Thursday begins with 60/60's up the mountain. It is about seven miles and generally sucks. Again, Derrick tried to quit out multiple times because he was sore.

 

Before I get into this day anymore, I wanna point something out. Steens is not a running camp. It is not a fat camp. It is a camp to test your mettle, to see how far you can push yourself. And then you push more. You learn what your true limits are, then you learn how to break those.

 

Derrick poked his limits with a thirty-foot pole. Which sucks, as he was a nice guy (when he wasn't making excuses for everything).

 

Anyway, we finish our run and our hike and make it to the beginning of the race. And I wasn't lying when I said that Cross Canyon is the most intense cross-country race known to man because there is no path. All that stands between you and the finish line are roughly four miles of glaciers, rocks, potholes, loops of rusty barbed wire, fields of thick sagebrush, forest, canyons, creeks, and sudden drop-offs.

 

It is the best part of the week, by far.

 

At the beginning of the race, your team is given one minute to memorize a quote. After everyone returns to camp, one person from each tent is randomly selected to stand up in front of everyone and recite their quote. For every mistake they make, their team gains thirty seconds to their race time. Our quote was something like this: "We all have a little bad dog in us, but mostly good dog. Your challenge is to feed the good dog and starve the bad dog. Harland Yiarte" Yeah, they make you remember who said it, as well.

 

So the race begins and our expert four-year scout took us way out of our way. And I mean way out of the way. By the time we reached the final canyon before the buses, we could see every other team that had started behind us already halfway there.

 

Oh, and Derrick had held up half the team a mile back. I was up with our scout and about six other people, who decided to descend into the canyon.

 

That's when shit happened.

 

Towards the bottom, we came across a cliff overlooking the creek. The creek is basically the half-mile marker, so we knew we were close. The only way down the cliffs from where we were was this steep slope of loose dirt. I stepped on it and began sliding a bit. So I yelled back to my team, "Hey guys, we can slide down here to save time!" And I began sliding.

 

And lost control.

 

Bad.

 

I only noticed halfway down the slope that there wasn't the creek at the bottom. Rather, it was another cliff that then fell into the creek. So I panicked, reaching for a bush to grab onto. It slid out of my hand, but I managed to throw my body weight towards a boulder.

 

Big mistake.

 

Another rock suddenly stopped my descent, and my head whipped into the boulder. You know how people who get concussions say they see a flash of light upon impact? Yeah, I had that flash of light. The next two minutes are sort of a blur. All I really remember is yelling for which way to go and screaming "Oh God oh God I think I have a concussion." I would later find out that that was the least of my worries.

 

So the people I was with climb up the other side of the canyon and sprint for the finish. The problem with Cross Canyon is that you aren't allowed to finish without your whole team, so a couple people ran back to help.

 

That's when I looked down and saw this. Be warned, people who don't like blood.

 

 

 

 

Yeah, sometime during my fall I had manage to tear a chunk out of my leg. I also scrapped my entire forearm so bad it amounted to a first-degree burn. But I wouldn't go to the medical tent until my team finished.

 

Too bad we never did.

 

Twenty minutes later, the rest of my team comes limping up the canyon, carrying an unconscious Derrick. We would later find out that his diet throughout the week and his water/electrolyte levels were completely out of whack, leading to what happened.

 

Fast-forward to when we return to camp. Derrick has since came to, another boy has mild dehydration, and a first-year camper and I both have open wounds on our right thighs. Brady (the first-year) and I became the most popular warriors at camp. We were applauded for our dedication to our teams and to finishing the race. And then all four of us got carted to the hospital, an hour and a half away.

 

Once there, I got to get my first stitches ever -- seven, to be exact. It wasn't a pleasant experience, but the scar I'll get combined with earning the respect of most everyone in camp was more than worth it.

 

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Friday - The Steens Olympics

 

I had to sit out for everything today -- not that I'm complaining, of course. The only real highlight of the day was the fact that Mitchell the Metronome broke the camper record for the Uphill 5,000m run by eighteen seconds. He was just a few more seconds off of the all-time record, set by an actual Olympian. Being injured, I got to sit at the finish line and watch his badass kick.

 

We came up with our skit about twenty minutes before they were due. It was a "Leave No Juan Behind" skit, which is a true story told by the camp founder about a Cross Canyon boy who faked injuries, then broke his ankle during the race and was abandoned by our team. The only reason our skit didn't suck was that our Juan (a Spanish lad named Randy) spoke incredible Spanish, wore a comically-oversized sombrero, and managed to keep the audience laughing for the ENTIRE SKIT. It was beautiful, and a great way to end the week.

 

Oh, our tent managed to move from last place on Thursday to third place on Friday. I'm very proud of those guys. We had an awesome tent, even if were were racist towards each other. We had black twins from Mississippi (who were the shortest, funniest guys you could imagine), my Asian pal, Randy the Spaniard, and a bunch of pasty-white kids. Our tent motto: "We have four John's, a Sean, and a guy we call Juan."

 

What a bunch of classy people.

 

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So that was my Steens 2013 journey. While we didn't win backpacks or hats, I did come home with something a bit more permanent. Now I'm going to go sleep for forever.

 

- Kolth