Distance: 79.96km
Elevation: 10,099m
Elapsed Time: 23:38:43

For my birthday back in 2022 I treated myself to a wee challenge - Go up and down some hills for 24 hours and snag 10,000m of vert. Similar to Everesting where the target is 8,848m, though I couldn’t claim an Everest because I used two peaks. I’m usually pretty tuned in to my limits, and I was fairly certain I could bag this one if I didn’t injure myself. I had never done more than 5,000m in one outing though so I was still stepping into unknown territory, as I like to do with DIY adventures.

The Route

I chose this spot out the back of Arrowtown (20 minutes from home) because I could park my car pretty much at the base of the two climbs and use the boot as an aid station.

Peak 1 - Brow Peak (1,456m)

This is a regular for me. I’ve bagged this one probably 50 times from multiple directions. Given my car is parked at around 420m elevation I get just over 1,000m over a 7.6km round trip.

Peak 2 - A3KE (876m)

This is another regular where I do my grunty hill sessions up to the trig station. Although smaller, its still steep. This one gets me 430m over a 3.6km round trip.

The plan

My crude plan:

Trot the easier gradients, hike the rest.
Regular fueling, mix of gels, bars, powdered electrolytes, lollies, pizza and noodles for the cold parts of the night.
Use poles.
Just a waist pack on the smaller hill.
When I want to pull the pin, accept that is a pretty normal feeling, and keep going.

How it went

Great! Everything went swell. It was brisk in the mornings and evenings, but relatively comfortable. The cold kept me moving. I started at 8am, and around 3am the next morning when fatigue was hitting me the cold kept me moving.

Dad was in town and he paid me a visit around 6pm, 10 hours in. He rode my bike to come see me! Bloody trooper. That’s about a 30km round trip. Not bad for 70 years old. He was a bit drained though, 15k in. Luckily I had a boot full of snacks. We shared some electrolytes, had a laugh and went on our ways. Poor fella got a bit lost on the way back in the dark so had some stories himself the next day.

I hit the anticipated thought of quitting, laughed it off as planned, and kept on. 10 minutes later the thought had passed. The cold pizza was amazing (I made sure it lasted), as were the warm noodles. Having the boot was very handy.

The body held up well. Surprisingly not a single issue. I am however writing this now, 2 years later, injured with poor knees. Go figure.