Raid the North Extreme was the first real expedition race for this Dirty Avocados adventure racing team. Leading up to race day, we had never been so excited for one race. We had trained together, raced together, planned together, played together and now…finally…we arrived in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada to race RTNX together.

The four of us—Melissa Griffiths, Mike Chastaine, Will Gilmore and I, Brian Schmitz—arrived in Rupert to find a wonderland of lush and wet forest, expansive mountains, and limitless waterways. We were all amazed at the prospect of racing in a place that contrasts our northern California stomping grounds; which normally includes rugged and tall mountains, but mostly dry and open.

The race actually would start off the coast of Rupert on the Queen Charlotte Islands. This was a major change to the original plans and a major opportunity. Normally, the Charlottes are off limits. Kudos to the race staff for selling us in!

The start was early on a sun-drenched Monday morning and began with a sweet 4-hour paddle down the Skidgate Channel. The paddle was calm and uneventful…except for a few verses of the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song from Melissa and Mike. “Are you ready kids? Aye-aye Captain…” No offense; but I’ll be happy if I never hear that song again!

We arrived at CP1 and quickly transitioned to the first mountain trek. The transition was relatively quick. As we trotted off towards the mountain that held CP2, we were spurred along by the excitement of finally getting on our feet for what we expected would be a challenging but reasonable jaunt up to a peak and then over a saddle and finally an arrival at CP3…all before dark. Little did we know.

After nice jog with some other teams along the last trail we’d see for a long while, we pealed off and headed up via a stream. This is where we would soon be served our first—and certainly not our last—dose of BC bushwhacking. After walking up the stream for a while, the terrain turned up and we were soon face to face with a major waterfall. Yikes! Do we climb up along side that or turn back and head up one of the more forgiving hillsides? After a vain attempt at the falls, we turned back and hit the hillside bush.

This is where route finding would become ever challenging, as the 100-foot contours on our 50,000-topo maps hid soooo many portly, impassable, and sometimes-fatal cliffs and other obstacles. This, again, would be a constant throughout the race. This aspect caused a slow and painful exercise of going forward, backward, and around. And this made pinpointing our location very difficult. We finally penetrated the tree line and we could see the mountaintop we were in the hunt for.

At that point, though, we could also hear an unfamiliar sound. Thump, thump, thump! It was the sound of helicopter closing in fast! Soon we could make out what would be the Canadian Coast Guard’s Search and Rescue. They had arrived for team Supplier Pipeline, after one of their teammates took a serious fall on the scree above.

We continued up and were a little surprised to see CP2 a little farther, higher, and more precarious than we expected. We continued on and finally tagged CP2. We also met a team Expedition Canada along the way down and decided to team up for some of the trek to the saddle that would take us to CP3.

We then, again, heard a now familiar sound. Thump, thump, thump! It was the sound of another helicopter. The mountain had take yet another racer; one from team Running Free.

At this point, night had arrived and we were well below the treeline and back in some serious bush. The bushwhacking continued to be slow and frustrating. We finally decided to sleep off what was left of the night and take on the bush during the day.

Finding a route up to the ridge that held the saddle we were seeking continued to prove extremely challenging. The terrain continued to be thick and slow going and the fog was starting to fill in any relieving gaps. By the afternoon, we had fallen way off schedule and now we were out of food. We had remembered that this trek was supposed to take about half of 1 day. We were now on day 2.

We finally reached the ridge areas; but with the thick fog and wet snow continued to thwart our progress. We eventually reached a point where we needed help. We held out long enough and finally decided to radio the race staff, as we needed to be safely pointed in the right direction. We had already crossed way too many sections that exposed us to some potentially fatal outcomes.

We were instructed to change course, head to a gully that would take us down to 2,000 feet, and we’d then see an approachable forest and some deer trails that would lead us to the saddle we were looking for.

We continued through the snow and fog and found what we thought was the gulley. One problem, though. We couldn’t see past the opening (because of the fog) and we could hear what sounded like a serious waterfall. Do we step through the fog and hope there is something on the other side besides a drop or waterfall? We had no choice but to move forward.

We stepped through and saw a very steep and narrow snow and ice filled gulley with very little relief. A controlled glissade was our only option. As we each carefully moved downward, Melissa slipped and started soaring down toward Mike. She hit Mike and the two of them spun downward until they could arrest and stop. Whew!! Though, before we knew it, I was now off my feet and skidding downward. I couldn’t arrest before I flew into the wall and dropped down into a crevasse. Lucky it was a soft landing and not very deep. I climbed out and we all proceed down to the 2,000-foot mark. We thought this was end of the menace. Little did we know.

We followed some deer trails to find…yet another cliff. Cliffed out again! We decided at that point to make a camp. It was late and we had been way out of food and we were drenched (did I mention it had been raining) and soon the night’s chill would set in. We made a makeshift shelter and nursed a damp fire until we finally puppy-piled ourselves to sleep. Though, it was more like mixed levels of dozing.

The next day (day 3!) we decided to head back up to the ridge, as that was were we ultimately needed to be to get to the saddle. We radioed our status to the race staff and were instructed to meet some race staff on the ridge, where we’d be met with food and a way down. We finally did so (after yet more super sketchy and exposed situations). The jaunt down was incredible, as we followed the course designer, legendary Lawrence Foster and others. They essentially put on a clinic in rugged terrain route finding. That was awesome!

We finally arrived at CP3; 57 hours after we started. Wow! That section alone was longer than any race I had done to date. (The help we received on the mountain didn’t disqualify us due to the amount of help that was dished out to so many other teams.)

At this point, most every team’s race had drastically changed due to the first trek’s unexpected outcome. We made our way to the next transition and were moved to a shorter course. After a rapid recovery and nap, we set out on a short night paddle and followed that with a short trek. The trek progressed well early; but we struggled to finish it as the injuries and damage we had sustained during the first trek lingered. We missed a cutoff and we were pushed past that section’s mountain peak and onto the bikes. We decided to short the bike to allow our injuries to heal some, as we had a ferry ride back to Rupert that night and thought that’d allow us to be stronger during the remainder of the race.

The remainder of the race started with a short jog through Rupert to a paddle. The paddle started calmly but turned wet and windy. We finally ended the first half of the paddle and prepared for a demanding portage. Will created a nifty system of backpacking the deflated boats. Will and I were the privileged two that humped the boats…on our backs. These things were the size of TVs and weighed as much. Ugh! Plus the trail we started on quickly widdled down to something only the “force” (and Will) could distinguish. We met team Dancing Pandas along the way and decided to partner. They were a lot of help and a ton of fun!

We all finally decided to peel off down toward the water. The bushwhacking was again treacherous. It was as thick and taxing as ever. And now we had boats on our backs. We had to climb up and down small loose cliffs and sloppy hillsides. And down and across rugged streams. After 8 FREAKIN’ hours of this, we finally found the water.

We completed the paddled after 3 more hours. We then not so quickly transitioned to the bikes for a night ride that was mostly road and mostly…uninteresting.

We then transitioned to yet another paddle and ended that with a sunrise and…another portage!! (I now hate that word.) After humping our boats (inflated this time) again, we transitioned to the last leg, a trek up a small mountain overlooking Rupert and the finish.

The way up was straightforward. However, we got a little twisted at the top of the mountain. After a quick recovery, we bushwhacked some and then discovered a clear trail across a saddle and up the last section. We finally tagged the top and proceeded down a raw road. It was painful due to some of our foot and leg problems that continued to build. The final minutes of the race was run through town and finally the FINISH!

Officially we finished in 5 and a half days in 15th place out of 23 teams. More important than the outcome was the effect of what we had just accomplished. We became a quintessential team. We each filled key roles, banded together in the face of adversity and danger (too many times to count), and grew and matured as racers. Plus we had TONS of fun!

I want to thank my teammates for supporting the team and me. Melissa’s toughness when dealing with some painful injuries late in the race was balls out! And her enthusiasm and spirit is unmatched. Mike’s leadership and experience proved to save our lives during the first trek and was invaluable throughout the entire race. I’ll never forget it. And Will’s navigation and creative thinking was awesome in the face of some of the most challenging terrain and conditions we had ever faced.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 9th, 2007 at 7:17 am and is filed under Race Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. [Permalink]