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Wednesday, June 22, 2022
A11
Scaling new heights Return of the night eel
THE NATURAL WORLD
Baker City native
Jason Hardrath
turned a severe injury
into motivation
I
By LISA BRITTON
Baker City Herald
BAKER CITY — Jason
Hardrath is no stranger to
challenges, especially those
that push him to his physical
limits.
Hardrath, 33, grew up in
Baker City. He started running
in middle school, ran competi-
tively for Corban University in
Salem, and celebrated his col-
lege graduation by bicycling
from the Pacific Ocean to the
Atlantic Ocean in 50 days.
Then he started running
marathons, progressing to tri-
athlons, which include swim-
ming, running and bicycling
segments.
But then came 2015 and
a car accident. He tore up
a knee, broke his shoulder,
broke ribs, collapsed one lung
and damaged internal organs.
His doctor told Hardrath
he’d probably never run again.
“He said, ‘Yeah, you’re
probably going to let that part
of your life go.’ ”
Hardrath was 25.
“I remember my spirit
sinking at first,” he said.
Then came the spark, and
his determination, and this
thought:
“You don’t know me. You
just wait and watch.”
From physical therapy
to mountain peaks
His recovery wasn’t easy
— he had physical therapy,
and worked on his own to
improve his range of motion.
“Finding every which way
to keep moving forward,” he
said.
Running didn’t work, but
he could walk. And then he
started hiking.
“I can’t run, but what can I
do? I guess I’m a hiker now,”
he said.
Part of Hardrath’s story
is about having ADHD —
attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder.
“I still don’t sit still well,”
he said.
He said his mom, Kathy,
researched as much as she
could about ADHD when he
was a child.
“Her support was huge to
my resilience,” he said. “She
hunted to find every bit she
could learn to understand this
crazy little kid she had.”
With ADHD, Hardrath
said he can experience
extremes: ranging from
being completely unfocused
(when he has to fill out paper-
work, for instance), or hyper
focused on a task.
It was that latter approach
that surfaced when he started
hiking.
“Hills led to small moun-
tains. Small mountains led to
big mountains,” he said.
Next came technical
climbs, so he joined a climb-
ing gym to learn this new skill.
He struggled at first.
“It was a lesson in being
brave enough to suck at
something new,” he said with
a laugh. “11-year-olds were
better than me.”
But he persisted to learn
rope skills and climbing
movements, and gain upper
body strength.
“That was a long, hard
process,” he said.
Eventually he returned to
running, but he moved at a
slower pace than during his
triathlon days.
But as he ran trails, and
hiked mountains and scaled
peaks, he started thinking
bigger.
“Let’s see if I can climb
one or two in a day,” he said.
Then Hardrath discovered
something called FKTs —
fastest known times.
Essentially, these are a log
of routes and the person who
recorded the fastest known
time to reach a peak.
Suddenly he had a new
challenge.
The way he orients his life,
he said, is “by pursuing chal-
lenges, growth, the next big
goal.”
Chasing FKTs, he said,
helped him “reclaim personal
power and independence.”
“Physical pursuits is how I
expressed myself,” Hardrath said.
Jason Hardrath/Contributed Photo
Jason Hardrath’s adventure to log 100 fastest known times
(FKTs) is documented in the film “Journey to 100.”
that much time — he only had
70 days at the most, during
his summer vacation.
“No one had ever done it
in a single season,” he said.
He wanted to do it in 50
days.
“They’re big, but also
remote,” he said. “It was a
wild logistical challenge, as
well as a physical challenge.”
A connection
Jason Hardrath/Contributed Photo
After a car accident derailed
his running career, Baker City
native Jason Hardrath turned
his attention first to rehabilita-
tion, then mountain climbing.
Contributed Photo
“Journey to 100” was pro-
duced by WZRD Media and
Athletic Brewing Co.
So he started “bagging”
peaks and finding routes to
top multiple mountains in one
day.
“I did five peaks in a
day — can I do seven?” he
remembers thinking. “Noth-
ing but me, and nature, and
the clock.”
He set a goal: to log 100
FKTs.
Some were to best another
hiker’s record; others were
new routes he submitted with
his time.
“I love that every bit as
much — that element of
exploration,” he said.
Hardrath had recorded
about 50 FKTs when he dis-
covered the Washington
Bulger List — the top 100
peaks in Washington. The
FKT to complete the list was
410 days, recorded in 2018.
“In my head, I thought,
‘That record will get demol-
ished.’ At the very least, it
should be 100 peaks in 100
days,” he said.
Hardrath, who teaches P.E.
in Bonanza, Oregon, near
Klamath Falls, didn’t have
As he logged FKTs,
Hardrath was invited to par-
ticipate in several podcasts.
One of those episodes caught
the notice of the founder of
Athletic Brewing Co.
They exchanged mes-
sages, and Hardrath learned
that the company wanted to
support his journey.
Soon Hardrath had help
with gas money.
“That really helps, on a
teacher’s salary, to make these
adventures happen,” he said.
He shared detailed trip
logs, and soon the idea
emerged to document his
journey to logging 100 FKTs.
That footage, gathered
leading up to his 100th FKT,
resulted in the film “Journey
to 100,” a 30-minute docu-
mentary released this spring
by Athletic Brewing Co. and
WZRD Media.
Hardrath often talks about
his adventures with his P.E.
students, who range from kin-
dergartners to sixth-graders.
He hopes to instill the
belief that anything is
possible.
“I’ve been doing this, in
part, to inspire students,” he
said. “To mentor and encour-
age the next generation — I
went and did this thing that
was supposedly impossible.”
And he keeps moving for-
ward — his next idea, for the
summer of 2023, is to com-
plete the Rockies Grand Slam
of 120 peaks.
He’d be joined by Nathan
Longhurst, who accompa-
nied him on some Bulger List
hikes and is now working on
the Sierra Peaks Section List
of bagging 247 peaks.
“To see an athlete fall
in love with what I love
— I want to support that,”
Hardrath said.
Melanoma stands out.
Check your skin.
You could spot cancer.
LEA RN M ORE AT
STARTSEEIN GMELANOMA.COM
t is a breezy day in late May and I am
practices, deforestation, grazing and treatment
knee deep in the Umatilla River. Flows
with rotenone to poison “trash fish” added to
dropped enough following a recent
the toll. That juvenile lamprey are poor swim-
mers and have a bottom-dwelling lifestyle
surge of snowmelt and rainfall to allow for
make them particularly vulnerable to intro-
safe wading. Cliff swallows carve a grace-
ful path through the air as they pick moth-
duced bass, walleye and channel catfish.
like caddisflies from the water’s surface.
Regional Indian tribes and the U.S. Fish
The honey-sweet odor of wispy cottonwood
and Wildlife Service lead conservation efforts
bloom floods the air. Water cascading from
to restore runs of Pacific lamprey popula-
tions. Lampreys dried in the sun or roasted over
upstream rapids masks the sound of nearby
wood coals are considered a delicacy by tribal
freeway traffic.
I stand still as a post where a patch of loose elders. Translocation, or placing adult lamprey
gravel has collected atop ancient lava flow and in Columbia Basin streams where populations
watch a pair of Pacific lamprey wriggle in gen- were formerly present, has produced promising
tle current. Named the “night eel” because of
results in several streams, including the Uma-
tilla, Yakima, Methow, Wenatchee and Clearwa-
their nocturnal behavior and serpentine shape,
ter rivers. In some cases, numbers of returning
lamprey lack the backbone of true eels that
spawn in the Sargasso Sea. Without paired fins fish have been large enough to support a modest
subsistence fishery for tribal members.
to maneuver and an air bladder to stay buoy-
ant, they are more challenged than a ’49 Ford
The anthropologist Eugene Hunn wrote
on a Los Angeles freeway. What lamprey do
how Sahaptin-speaking peoples from the
possess, though, is the ability to navi-
mid-Columbia intercepted a spawn-
gate rock-faced falls using their suck-
ing run of “eels” during a 19th century
ing mouth to grab hold and flexible
spring root-gathering excursion up the
John Day River. At large falls such as
tail to corkscrew up and over.
Celilo and Kettle, migrating lampreys
Adult lampreys migrate from the
were collected off rocks where they
Pacific Ocean from May to Septem-
ber and “hold over” in mainstem res-
attached to rest. A tradition of tribal
ervoirs of the Columbia and Snake
harvest continues today at Oregon’s
Dennis
Rivers before spawning the following
Willamette Falls.
Dauble
year. Their appearance in Blue Moun-
The Wanapum Tribe tells of an
tain streams coincides with the spring
important fishery near Pasco, Wash-
migration of chinook salmon, welcome bloom ington, a location referred to as Kosith or “at
of arrowleaf balsamroot and the joyful song of the point of land.” Adult lamprey congre-
gated there, perhaps confused by flow from
meadowlark.
three adjacent rivers, and were caught at night
Both sexes of Pacific lamprey build a nest
from canoes by Indian fishers who used dip
in sandy gravel via body vibrations and by
nets made of hemp. The flooded backwater of
moving small rocks with their mouth. After
McNary Dam put a stop to that practice.
eggs hatch, the larvae or ammocoete burrow
The Snake River near Asotin, Washing-
into the river bottom to feed on microscopic
ton, was another traditional harvest location for
algae for 5 to 7 years. During this time, the
Indian fishers. An 1892 report of the United
juvenile form has an oral hood, lack teeth and
States Fish Commission described the occur-
eyes are underdeveloped.
rence of this revered “three-toothed” lamprey as
Lampreys the size of a small garter snake
emerge from their burrow and begin a lengthy, far upriver as Lower Salmon Falls. Nez Perce
elders still share stories of catching “eels” as
danger-fraught journey to the Pacific Ocean
young children in the Clearwater River.
under the cover of spring freshets. Only after
Dark clouds loom overhead. Behind me, on
they transform to the young adult stage do they
a shoreline lined with brush willow, a redwing
attach to other fish and suck body fluid and
blackbird struggles to balance on a branch
blood for nourishment.
that sways with each gust of wind. A thunder-
Adult Pacific lamprey have no value to
storm is in the works. Three lamprey as long as
sport anglers (except for use as sturgeon bait).
However, they are part of the food web for sea my arm swim into the shallow riffle at my feet
lion, white sturgeon and fish-eating birds. Sim- and join the party. One male grasps a female
ilar to Pacific salmon, the spent carcasses of
with his sucking mouth. Their bodies twist and
intertwine. Eggs and milt mix their life energy
sea-going lamprey contribute ocean-derived
with the river.
nutrients to tributary streams.
The ancient night eel has survived against
Coincident with hydroelectric dam devel-
opment in the Columbia River, numbers of
all odds for thousands of years. Bearing wit-
ness to their return assures the circle of life is
adult lampreys migrating over Bonneville
not broken.
Dam declined from 350,000 in the 1960s to
Dennis Dauble is a retired fishery scientist,
22,000 in 1997. A similar pattern of decline
outdoor writer, presenter and educator who
was observed in the Snake River after comple-
tion of the Hells Canyon complex and the four
lives in Richland, Washington. For more sto-
ries about fish and fishing in area waters, see
lower Snake River dams in the 1960s. Loss of
DennisDaubleBooks.com.
critical tributary habitat from poor irrigation