Hardrock 100 2009 Grouse Gulch to Engineer

Mile 42.1 to mile 48.6
Arrived 12:21 am
2:53 from Grouse Gulch, 7 minutes in the aid station (:53 total in aid stations)

-slow climb, Bur caught up to us…we stayed together for a while then he passed us
-kept seeing lights behind and ahead of us, though with the turns it got awfully dark at times as the moon hadn’t risen yet – we were resolute that we would not take any wrong turns, particularly with the confusion of the darkness
-The drive up this road was long (and bumpy) when I rode up with Corey Johnson for the trail work a few days ago…it was literally taking us HOURS to walk up it now.
-We could finally see the silhouette of the pass ahead…it didn’t take long from there to the pass itself
-I saw the last flag before the drop and then…the drop. I swore we had switchbacks on the way up here last year, but in this direction we dropped almost straight down into the basin.
-I apparently had put the wrong set of batteries in my headlamp and it was starting to become an issue: the Brunton L3 will maintain a lower, reduced power setting if the batteries are dying, which they obviously were. We stopped just past a stream crossing before Engineer aid station and I changed the batteries in my headlamp. I don’t know if it was here or on the climb up the road but somehow I had lost my sunglasses (I had them on my head but under the headlamp strap, somehow they got lost