Infinity War: How Two Women Beat Mt. Rainier's Toughest Challenge

PARADISE, WA — It's 2 a.m. on a Tuesday, and Kaytlyn Gerbin and Alex Borsuk are laying on the Muir steps at Paradise on Mt. Rainier, two unopened bottles of champagne standing next to them.

They had just completed a record-breaking 134-mile trek across Mt. Rainier called the Infinity Loop — a monster feat that led the women to the top of Mt. Rainier twice and on a 93-mile run along the Wonderland Trail that circles the volcano.

Their brief rest there on the Muir steps was part celebration, part necessary. They completed the Infinity Loop in a little over four days on just a few hours of sleep, but they were expected to be back at work that same morning.

"We gave each other a hug, packed up, and went home," Gerbin recalls.

A few hours later, the 30-year-old scientist from Issaquah was back at work at the Allen Institute for Cell Science. Remember that the next time you hit snooze on a Monday morning.

The Plan

The Infinity Loop was devised years ago by Washington-born alpine icon Chad Kellogg, who died in a 2014 hiking accident in Patagonia. He never even got to attempt his creation.

The name comes from the shape of the trek. It begins and ends at the Muir steps near the Henry M. Jackson visitor center at Paradise. From there, hikers ascend Rainier and then descend on the north side of the mountain. Once at the Wonderland Trail at the White River, you run either east or west — your choice — to loop around the mountain until you end up back at the Muir steps.

Then you do it all over again, just in the opposite direction along the Wonderland Trail.

In 2016, mountaineers Ras Vaught and Gavin Woody were the first to complete the Infinity Loop. But Jason Antin and Erik Sanders notched the fastest time so far last summer: 2 days, 11 hours, and 21 minutes.

Gerbin and Borsuk are the first female team to complete the Infinity Loop. They are also just the eighth and ninth people to ever complete it.

Gerbin has been watching people attempt the Infinity Loop since 2016. The feat piqued her interest because it requires a unique set of abilities that she happens to have: ultra-long distance running and mountaineering. She is an avid trail runner, hiker and competes in ultra-marathons in the U.S. and Europe.

Borsuk was a fan of the loop, too, after seeing a presentation about it by speed climber Scott Bennett. Borsuk asked Gerbin to do it in 2019. At first, it looked like other races might get in the way.

But just seven days before they started, Gerbin decided to cancel the races and do the loop instead.

'This Is Going To Be Really Hard'

They began on July 25 by stashing one car full of gear and food at Paradise, and a second car at the White River campground. They left checklists in each car as a reminder of what to eat in case they were a little spacey due to exhaustion.

The first leg took them up to the 14,410-foot summit of Mt. Rainier. Gerbin just remembers feeling very excited. And part of that was because this would be her first major quest with only a woman as a partner.

“This is the first time I’ve done any kind of self-supported adventure with another woman — the first time I’ve gone mountaineering with only another woman,” she said.

From the Muir steps, they were at the summit of Rainier in about six hours. The sun was just starting to come up when they got there.

“There was this moment where we stopped and were exhausted and let out a big sigh and were like, ‘this is going to be really hard.’ We weren’t even done with the first climb,” Gerbin said. “But then we said, ‘oh boy, OK, we got this.’”

They went into the trek knowing that it was possible they wouldn’t finish. They had to be OK with that. They vowed not to make bad decisions that might put their lives in danger.

“We were not going to make stupid decisions,” she said.

Bonked

From Paradise to the Rainier summit is about 15 miles, and the descent down to the White River campground along the Emmons Glacier route is another 10 miles. Gerbin and Borsuk did that all in 13 hours, which is very fast, especially for such difficult terrain.

The average hiker can do Mt. Si (8 miles round-trip) in about 4 hours. Imagine doing that three times in a row at the same pace — and then add heavy gear and glaciers to the mix.

When they reached White River, they ate, and Gerbin took a 10-minute nap. Then they were off again, running clockwise along the Wonderland Trail in a 30-mile loop around the east side of Rainier that would bring them back to Paradise.

Their first challenge came when Borsuk “bonked,” a term in distance running that means hitting a mental and physical wall.

“She was having a really hard time and started doubting her abilities and whether or not this was absolutely crazy,” Gerbin said.

It was a pivotal moment. Borsuk needed more than just calories to burn. Gerbin had to keep her teammate focused on the simple goal of getting back to the car at Paradise. She also had to worry about her own mental state.

“I basically took the approach if I was pacing someone through a race. I tried to keep her positive. You can tell when someone is in their head and doubting themselves. We just were trying to problem solve together,” she recalled.

And it worked.

'Not A Runner'

Gerbin's journey to becomnig a distance athlete is almost as good a story as the Infinity Loop.

About a decade ago, she took a phys-ed class in college in Wisconsin that required students to complete a marathon to pass.

"I was not a runner," she laughed.

But she passed the class, and kept going. She moved to Seattle in 2011 for grad school and started hiking and taking mountaineering classes. That led her to the local trail running scene, which she credits with helping her push beyond 26.2 miles.

"What got me hooked was how supportive the trail running and ultra running communities are. You finish and drink beer and it's a really intimate experience. That drew me to it," she said.

Her first 50K race (31 miles) went "horribly," she said — but not too horrible. In 2017 she placed 4th in the 100-mile Western States Endurance Run, and has competed in plenty of other ultra events since. She's even sponsored by La Sportiva footwear and Seattle's Seven Hills Running Shop.

Borsuk, 30, who lives in Portland, is just as prolific. On top of running, they've climbed some of the Pacific Northwest's tallest peaks together, including Rainier and Mt. Hood.

Gerbin is one of the lucky few to discover an athletic ability that was mostly hidden until she took that college class.

"I'm constantly surprising myself about what the body is capable of," she said.

Super Windy

The team made it back to Paradise early in the morning on July 27. After eating and sleeping for about an hour, they set out for the summit of Rainier. They slogged through rough weather for hours, but it was even worse when they made it above the cloud line.

They could see a big storm headed for the summit, and they measured wind speeds above 50 mph. They didn’t have the right gear to stay on the mountain and were soaking wet. At that point, they were on pace with the fastest Infinity Loop men's time, but they made the call to go back to Paradise — killing their chance to beat that record time.

“We asked ourselves, ‘if this was just a random weekend would you ever climb up into this storm?’ We both said no,” Gerbin said.

The storm cost them about 24 hours between the wasted hiking and waiting for the weather to turn at Paradise. They were close to giving up, but after an hour or so nap and a few burritos, they decided to keep going. Gerbin and Borsuk scrambled to rearrange their plans. They wanted to see if they could get Monday off work.

On Saturday night, July 27, they tried again for the Rainier summit. The hike took about two hours longer than the first time because Saturday is the most popular time of the week to climb the volcano. They were stuck in line with dozens of others headed for the summit.

In 15 hours, they were back at White River.

Fueled By Themselves

Gerbin and Borsuk were just plain tired when they came down from Rainier the second time — and they were about to confront a grueling 63-mile run along the Wonderland Trail around Rainier's west side.

To keep their bodies running, they set an alarm every 30 minutes to remind them to eat. But even all those calories stopped working after a while. In the middle of the night, they pulled out heat blankets and laid down in the middle of the trail to nap.

They also started to make friends. One thru-hiker gave them Snickers and started telling other hikers on the trail about these two crazy women doing the Infinity Loop. So when Gerbin and Borsuk passed other hikers, their reputation had preceded them. Other hikers started handing them candy bars.

“That was so uplifting because at that point we were so tired, so exhausted,” she said.

The goal along that last leg was to finish by sunset on July 29. It was crippling, Gerbin said, when the sun set on them that night and they pulled out their head lamps one last time. They told each other they’d take a ride back to the Muir steps if they happened to see a car.

But they didn’t. Slowly, tired, and aching, they made it to the steps under their own power where their husbands were waiting with those bottles of champagne.

“We pretty much crawled to the finish,” Gerbin said.

She went home, slept for a few hours, and then got up for her workday. She crashed pretty hard that night. A week later Gerbin is still recovering. She’s been going on short hikes with her dog in Issaquah, but has no plans for the next big adventure.

What stands out to her now is how self-sufficient the whole thing was. Gerbin and Borsuk did everything themselves, did everything for each other, and it worked.

“It was all on our own. That’s one of my favorite things,” she said.