Christof Teuscher, the outrageous Portland-based endurance athlete who recently climbed Mount Adams and Mount Hood and ran the distance between them, was forced to abandon a radical attempt to run and speed-hike the Oregon Desert Trail.

Earlier this summer, Teuscher climbed Mount Adams, ran to Mount Hood, and then climbed Mount Hood, 158 miles and 39,764 feet of elevation gain in 64 hours and 48 minutes. He followed up that Herculean effort with a solo adventure through the Alpine Lakes Wilderness in Washington, and then a brutal ultra-marathon in the Swiss Alps. His Alpine Lakes adventure ended in failure, but his performance in his homeland of Switzerland was a triumph. He took fifth place out of 72 finishers in that 200-kilometer race with a time of 40 hours and 27 minutes, and posted the fastest time for any competitor over 40.

Teuscher’s desert journey in August was his most ambitious yet. His plan was to run and hike the entire Oregon Desert Trail, from the Oregon Badlands outside of Bend to the Owyhee Canyonlands near the Idaho border. The route covers 800 miles of harsh desert terrain with little if any water, numerous steep climbs, extreme wildfire danger, and limited cell phone coverage in case something goes wrong.

Teuscher and his wife Ursina scouted the remote and parched route in detail and buried about 40 food and water caches at steady intervals along the way. Teuscher planned to run and hike solo, about 50 miles per day on average, using GPS to find and dig up his caches for his daily food and water.

But in a recent blog post he reported that a nagging injury forced him to give up on his goal:

I’m very sad to report that I had to abort the 800-mile Oregon Desert Trail (ODT) speed record attempt after 9 days and about 371 miles because of a debilitating Achilles inflammation.

The problems started on day 6. On day 7 I could only run downhill. I tried everything (well, except icing and resting, haha) to mitigate the swelling and the irritation, but nothing seemed to help.

On day 8 I could not run at all and I had to cut open the left shoe on the back so that I would still fit in with the swelling. Instead of running I power-hiked the entire day and still reached my next cache. Today (day 9) I was supposed to reach Frenchglen, but it became very clear before the sun even rose that I was not going to make that 49-mile stretch until my next daily food cache. After hours of struggling with my stubborn mind, I saw no other solution than to call for help by sending off a SPOT rescue message. From that point on I still needed to move 26 miles to my next water cache and point where someone could drive to. I barely made it there and in a lot of pain. In the meantime, Ursina drove about 8 hours to come and rescue me in the middle of nowhere. I was only able to hobble to the car.

Injuries suck. Failing sucks. They really do.

Now I need to rest and recover before I can tell the many stories. Thanks for all your support and encouragement, it means a lot!

You can learn learn more about Christof Teuscher’s plans and past accomplishments by linking to his blog here.

Last modified: August 21, 2015