By Devon O’Neil

To say the least, it was ironic. Some 11 ½ hours into a 12 1/2-hour trek along the rugged ridge of the Bridger Mountains, we came across a group of young men at the famed white Montana State “M,” high above Bozeman. 

“Yes!” they yelled toward our headlamps bouncing down the trail, struggling up the slope in their white tank top T-shirts. “Water! You guys must have water for us!”

“No,” one of us mumbled in response. “We don’t have any.” 

“Yeah, right!” they yelled back. “Give us some of your water!”

“We don’t have any. Really.”  

By that time it had been some 5 hours since we last took a sip of water. We were in terrible need ourselves, which is why the demand pissed us off so.

“How long you been hiking, dude?” one of the young men asked Mike Kloser, Team Nike’s captain. 

“Twelve hours.”

I wondered why he didn’t tell the truth: Forget 12 hours — Nike had been going nearly four full days at this point, having covered some 375 miles.

The kid pointed toward the ridge we were leaving behind, incredulous. “Did you hike that whole mountain?”

“Yeah,” Kloser replied. “The ridge.”

“Wow,” the kid said. “You guys are nuts.”

Such are the poignant comments you hear when you spend a day with the fastest team in the Primal Quest field.

I set out with Nike on the 29-mile trek from one end of the Bridgers to the other, to gain an understanding of how the team operates while leading this late in a race of this caliber.

How fast would they move? What dynamics would there be to observe? How would they handle the navigation challenges 4,000 feet above the valley floor, at elevation 9,300 feet?

I got what I came for: a wholly new comprehension of why this team is the best. They entered the trek with 352 miles in their legs. I came in fresh. And yet, they moved so swiftly, so efficiently through the stinging 40 mph winds, I didn’t even feel like I had time to stop and tie my shoe. Or sit down for a minute to eat. Or change out my soggy socks. If I’d done any of those things, I never would’ve seen Nike again. They were moving that fast.

Michael Tobin and Chris Forne set the pace, with Monique Merrill and Kloser never more than 30 seconds behind. We power-hiked the uphills and ran even the slightest hint of a downhill. We kicked steps through an endless number of June snowfields and glissaded down gleefully like kids on a midwinter snow day. They encouraged each other and me as well.

Although it largely ceased when the light dissolved about 10:30 p.m., the daytime conversation often bordered on hilarity:

Merrill, upon learning the Kiwi Forne began reading topographic maps when he was 6: “Chris! Why would you do that?”

Forne: “Why wouldn’t I?”

Merrill: “You should’ve been playing in the dirt like the other kids.”

Not to be dismissed, the toughness exhibited by this team has always been easy to recognize, but to see it up close at such a late stage in the race told its own story. Merrill, for instance, had three toenails peeling off her swollen feet as well as a terrible case of diarrhea. And among the five of us, she went the longest without water.

But it didn’t slow her down more than anyone else.

At 2 o’clock in the morning, when we finally reached the transition area, I watched as the four Nike athletes got ready for bed. If they slept well, they’d get about 3 ½ hours, bringing their total to 13 over the four nights. The next morning they’d begin anew, somehow fresh and, as usual, alarmingly recharged, not a doubt in their minds Primal Quest has been theirs to win all along.

Devon O’Neil is a writer from Colorado. You can read his recap of the race soon after it ends at www.summitdaily.com, among other places.