REPORT: Unsupported Fremont National Recreation Trail FKT

Christof Teuscher

On Sun, May 27, 2018, I completed an unsupported Fastest Known Time (FKT) on the Fremont National Recreation Trail in 57 hours 37 minutes. I am unaware of any existing running or thru-hiking times on the entire trail, so this may be an Only Known Time (OKT). My attempt was announced here.

I had a pretty miserable time. Yet, it was good training.

At mile 3 on Yamsay Mt. There wasn’t really anything to celebrate at that point. Quite the opposite.

Movie Clips

Here’s a full movie report, if you are into that and have about 9min of your time to waste. For full resolution, go to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVK6LQvgXbw

And if you’d like to see a preview of the epic trails and scenery, here’s that for you too. For full resolution, go to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbVwUlzyEhM

Route

The Fremont National Recreation Trail is a 135 150 mile long-distance multi-use trail in south-central Oregon’s Fremont-Winema National Forest. There are twro main sections separated by about 13 miles of rural road and highway. The northern part begins on the summit of Yamsay Mountain (8,196 feet) and makes its way south over Hager Mountain and along Winter Rim to the Warner Mountains, where it ends at Vee Lake.

The trail is a stunningly scenic undiscovered Oregon gem far off the beaten track. Both the Oregon Desert Trail (ODT) and the Oregon Timber Trail partly follow its route (see map below).

While the official trail distance is listed as 135mi, my Suunto Ambit3 recorded about 140mi on 1min GPS interval, which typically short-logs between 5-10%, depending on the trail. So I suspect this trail to be more like 150mi.

The 135 150 mile Fremont National Recreation Trail #160. Both the Oregon Desert Trail (ODT) and the Oregon Timber Trail partly follow its route. According to the website, the Oregon Timber Trail now also leads over Yamsay Mt., yet, the downloadable GPS track does not seem to include that change yet.

Signs of Trouble

Several times I had some serious trouble to recover from losing the trail on the Winter Rim at night, in the rain, and in very thick fog. I ended up using two GPS, one to backtrack to the last cairn and one to move forward.

Recorded Data

Visualization