ColdRiverRun
New member
It is with the utmost pleasure that I help announce that starting on Tuesday June 24th at 4:32 AM and ending at 9:46 PM on the summit of Dix that Jan Wellford of Keene Valley, NY set a new standard for the ADK 46 speed climbing record.
Jan finished an hour shorter that the previous record holder, CaveDog (Ted Kaiser), and also pushed the difficulty level by starting at a trailhead instead of the base of a mountain like others. The starting at the trailhead added just over an hour more to his overall time of 3 days 17 hours and 14 minutes.
Jan is not a member or this board (yet) although he reads it often, but is a member of Adkhighpeaks.com. He has been as you can well imagine, trying to recover mentally and physically from this rigorous adventure over the last few days. Jan is one of the most modest people with such physical gifts that I have ever come across and I know is having difficulty taking the attention we are all giving him. We will try to organize things like the many photos that were taken (Jan shot himself on all summits except Sawteeth) during the near future.
Traveling with Jan through day 4 brought feelings that run very deep having to watch so dramatic of highs and lows. Lows of physical pain and struggle and highs including not caring about the ticking clock and sitting and taking in views and breeze that touch you so very deeply, realizing how lucky we were to be there then on such a day. That feeling of a pinnacle being reach that we and others had worked so very hard for, for so long.
Having finally gone back home to Albany myself after having dinner with Jan and his wife Sunday I was left with the feeling of amazement. Not in the record but with Jan and his wife. They were high school sweet hearts who later married and seem to bring special charisma and smiles to those around them. They share a bond that runs very deep and watching her worry and care and be so on top of and in tune with all Jan’s needs of those days and after left me with a standard that would be harder to break than any physical record ever could.
Cory Delavalle
Jan finished an hour shorter that the previous record holder, CaveDog (Ted Kaiser), and also pushed the difficulty level by starting at a trailhead instead of the base of a mountain like others. The starting at the trailhead added just over an hour more to his overall time of 3 days 17 hours and 14 minutes.
Jan is not a member or this board (yet) although he reads it often, but is a member of Adkhighpeaks.com. He has been as you can well imagine, trying to recover mentally and physically from this rigorous adventure over the last few days. Jan is one of the most modest people with such physical gifts that I have ever come across and I know is having difficulty taking the attention we are all giving him. We will try to organize things like the many photos that were taken (Jan shot himself on all summits except Sawteeth) during the near future.
Traveling with Jan through day 4 brought feelings that run very deep having to watch so dramatic of highs and lows. Lows of physical pain and struggle and highs including not caring about the ticking clock and sitting and taking in views and breeze that touch you so very deeply, realizing how lucky we were to be there then on such a day. That feeling of a pinnacle being reach that we and others had worked so very hard for, for so long.
Having finally gone back home to Albany myself after having dinner with Jan and his wife Sunday I was left with the feeling of amazement. Not in the record but with Jan and his wife. They were high school sweet hearts who later married and seem to bring special charisma and smiles to those around them. They share a bond that runs very deep and watching her worry and care and be so on top of and in tune with all Jan’s needs of those days and after left me with a standard that would be harder to break than any physical record ever could.
Cory Delavalle
