REPORT: Bear Puts Abrupt End to 1st 900mi Idaho Centennial Trail FKT Attempt

Christof Teuscher
This is a temporary report. More content will be added. Including a movie, sometime in the near or far future…

On Fri, Jul 2, 2021, at 5:00pm MT, I embarked on a 1st solo and self-supported FKT attempt of the ICT at the Nevada border. See announcement.

Unfortunately, the attempt ended abruptly: a bear found, dug up, and completely annihilated one of my resupply caches at mile 321 (near Thunder Mountain mine) for my next 100 mile leg. The cache was buried and sealed airtight. You can see what was left of it in the image below. There was a lot more in it. I encountered the confrontational bear twice, on the way up to the cache location and while waiting 16h for my “rescue.”

I’d like to emphasize that I’m the only one to blame, not the bear. I was naive, thinking this was bear proof. You really don’t want to feed any bear because they become problem bears, so this was very irresponsible.

This is what was left of the resupply cache. And there was a lot more in it originally…

There was also a new ICT fire closure near Campbell’s Ferry (Dixie and Jumbo fires), right on my next leg, with no real alternative route.

The ICT fire closure near Campbell’s Ferry (Dixie and Jumbo fires).

As a consequence of the bear and the fire incident, the FKT effort was called off.

I had just enough food left to wait for my wife, who had to drive 14h to pick me up in the middle of the Frank Church wilderness.

The route

The official ICT route can be seen in the embedded interactive map below.

Direct link to the interactive map: https://idaho.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=05f25d258b8b4645958c0c453d4f0211

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