After over 24 hours of racing the we were sitting in the final transition trying to get warmed up to go out on the final paddle leg. Baarbd arrived at the TA just a few minutes behind us. We had been racing neck and neck from the opening gun. This is as close as a race gets.
Going into Gold Rush 2007 I was very excited about the team we had put together. I passed up going to Nationals to race in Sonora. Adam Doti and I put together a super fast team. We were joined by Mats Jansson and Jackie Wollman.
Mats is a great navigator, and extremely strong. He is very fast and a great teammate. Although I’ve known Mats for several years I had never raced with him.
Jackie is a super stud woman. She is fast and strong and has a great attitude. She is great to race with and was also a wonderful teammate.
This was the first time I had raced with Adam. I knew he was strong and tough.
Brian Schmitz was our crew. This would be the first time this team was ever together.
Even though I knew everyone, I had never raced with anyone in this foursome.
With this line up I was very optimistic of a good finish. When we arrived at the check in on Friday night we learned just how strong the field would be. Defending champion True Grit was back. Also present was Baarbd Wire with Mari Chandler, Dancing Pandas, Radioactive Beagles, Lucky and AR Nav Supplies. Mark Henderson was with a new team and Kent Ryhorchuk was there with a teammate as a 2 person male team. There were a total of 21 teams toeing the starting line on Saturday morning and several had a chance to win.
Download Google Earth route.
Download Topo! file.
We got the maps the night before and looked at the route. We would start with a 5 mile run around Pinecrest Lake picking up 2 checkpoints. Then we would pick up the bikes and race 9 miles mostly along a flume trail. Then the race would really start with a very long 24 mile trek with a 400 foot repel in it. That would be followed by a long 40 mile bike and finish with a 15 mile kayak paddle. This was a long course – around 90 to 95 miles. We got all our stuff together by midnight and got some sleep.
Saturday morning we got to Pinecrest Lake pretty early and made some last minute adjustment. I was very anxious to get going. When the gun finally went off at 8:00 I took off at a fast and steady pace to the first CP. We were just behind Baarbd and True Grit when we over shot the first CP. It was misplaced a bit and we headed up the canyon too far. Other teams caught up and as a group we located the checkpoint and moved on. We kept pushing the pace as we and Baarbd pulled away. Running in a group of 7, we got to the TA at the same time, changed shoes and took off together.
The ride was mostly flat along a flume trial. We had to walk on the flume many times because you simply couldn’t and shouldn”t ride it.
Baarbd and us went back and forth through the CP’s. We got a bit of a jump and pulled into the TA just a couple of minutes in front of Baarbd. However, Baarbd transitioned quickly and left on the long trek right in front of us. We hit this TA at 10:25 and was out at 10:35. No one else had come into the TA before we left.
We trekked up the mountain together and ran down the power lines on an 800 foot descent through brush and loose dirt and rocks. This scramble was long and hard on the legs. When we got down to Beardly dam I had to stop to get some dirt out of my shoes. Baarbd just kept going and we lost sight of them. We gave chased. This was the hardest part of the race for me. I was struggling on the run while everyone else seemed to be moving pretty good. We kept pushing the pace along the river on a great and fairly flat single track trail. Finally we got to the end of the trail and hit a dirt road that climbed right out of the river up about 800 feet to the top of the repel.
We got to the Rappel at bit after 1:00.Getting to the repel we found that Baarbd was still on the ropes and figured we were about 10 to 15 minutes behind. The repel was cool with a great view. We basically repelled down a 400 foot slab pitched at about 75%. It was nice how the ropes were integrated into the course. While we were finishing our repel, Roger Pruit of True Grit came down the rope. We figured we were about 15 minutes ahead of them. Roger said that teams were coming in at that point. At the repel I was able to recover. It took us about 25 to 30 minutes to get through the repel as only one person could go down at a time and each team had to use a single rope. That little rest worked wonders for me and I felt strong the rest of the race.
After the repel we had to scramble down another several hundred feet to the river. We had to cross the river to get to the trail. This was an exercise in boulder hopping. Working together we got everyone across with only one foot going in the water. On the other side we quickly reloaded our camelbacks and took off down the trail along the Middle Fork of the Stanislaus River. We ran along the river till we got to Sand Flat campground where there was a CP and the road turned up to start a 2700 foot climb to
Crandle Peak. The first half was fire road up to CP 12 then through a way point. We just kept pushing up the hill. We had a fair amount of time to talk and I got to know Jackie and Adam better. After the waypoint, for the next 1000 vertical feet or so we bushwacked up the mountain. Mats was spot on with the navigation and we moved steadily up the ridges. We got to CP 13 on the peak around 4:00. At that point we had not seen any other teams for several hours. We came down the ridge as it began to get dark. We moved quickly and almost never stopped. The trail was very rocky and rough. My LaSportiva Pikes Peak shoes were great. No blisters or hot spots. My feet were sore because of hours of rocky terrain. The Flexon soul really gripped nicely.
It finally got dark and we found CP 14 with a surprise. There were a couple of cases of Pepsi. What a great pick me up. While everyone was doing well, this really picked up the spirits and we were able to keep running. I had been out of water for some time and a couple of Pepsi’s really did the trick for me. Singing our version of Queen’s “Bicycle” we came in to the TA after about 8 ½ hours on the trek. To our great pleasure we were the first in the TA. I later found out that Baarbd had made a wrong turn on one of the fireroads on the ridge and had spend some time getting to the right spot. We must have passed them during that time. The weather was still good and I was feeling great. Everyone seemed to be doing fine. We ate, reloaded our packs and took off before any team had made it in to the TA. We were feeling strong and confident.
Shortly after we took off on the bike it began to sprinkle. We rode at a strong pace and were making good time. It started raining harder. We finally had to don our rain jackets. We were still feeling good and moving very well. We got CP 16 and 16a. We located the trail for 16b and dropped the bikes to run down to the CP. We ran down there and searched all around but could not find it. We later found out that Baarbd didn’t find it either. I’m sure it was misplaced. Never the less it was discouraging to not locate it. This impacts your confidence. At the same time we were beginning to soak through and get cold. Finally we had to keep moving. As we were backtracking to hit the road that we needed to get to CP16c we rode past Baarbd. We didn’t talk and just kept moving. We knew they were right on our tail. This was a pretty long descent and the wet and cold was starting to really have an effect us. All of us were getting cold but Jackie was really cold and getting close to hypothermic I helped her get some more clothing on. We struggled a bit finding 16c but finally located it.
From there we travel across this rolling ridge for miles with lots of ups and downs. We would warm up on the climbs only to freeze again on the down hills. The trail was getting muddy and harder to ride. We had to walk numerous sections that we would have been able to ride if it had been dry. The cold was talking its toll also and we needed to stop periodically to try to try to warm up. We got a space blanket wrapped around Jackie more or less. We had to drop into a canyon then climb out a very steep road to the next CP. The steady rain was just soaking us to the bone. There is no such thing as rain proof. You just get wet. The best gear can do is keep you warm when your wet. We were cold and really trying to get off the mountain and down to the river and our TA. It was around 4 or 5 in the morning and I was ready to get off the bike. There were lots of road and intersections that were not on the maps. In addition our map had gotten wet and was tough to read.
We took a wrong turn that looked good. It took us several miles to a PGE lot. We searched around but could not find a road that was going the right direction. While searching I found a guy sleeping in a truck. I knocked on the window woke him up and asked him the fastest way to the river. He gave me some general directions. He wasn’t upset and didn’t even ask me what I was doing. He was quite nice about it. We jumped back on the bike and we took off. On the way back we ran into Baarbd who had made the same error we had made. We clearly saved them some time by showing them where not to go. I figured we burnt about 45 minutes with this miscue. Galen road up to me, said he had some kind of mechanical and asked if I had a master link. I did and gave him one. I was racing, but I believe in good karma. We took off and started the long descent to the river. Jackie’s rear brake was going out and we were all freezing heading down the mountain.
We pulled into the last transition in first but Baarbd came in a few minutes later. Jackie was extremely cold and the rest of us were in need of some dry clothing and warming up. Baarbd must have been in slightly better shape in the hypotherma department because they were able to change and leave the TA in front of us. We moved as fast as we could but we could not go on to the river as cold as we were without warming up.
Getting the boats down to the river was a huge challenge. There really was no trail. We had to carry two large tandem hard shell and expensive sea kayaks over rocks and logs down to the beach. From there it was a couple of hundred meters to where you could launch. Although a struggle we got all the boats to the beach and jumped in. We were about 18 minutes behind.
I like paddling but my arms were very tired and I was generally hurting. We paddled hard and steady and made good progress. The paddle was through a very winding channel. Every time we came around a corner I was hoping to see Baarbd up ahead. I never saw them. Apparently we made up about 6 or so minutes over the 15 mile paddle. The paddle took us about 3 hours.
The race took us 27 hours and 14 minutes. A strong second place by only 12 minutes. Radioactive Beagles came in over 2 hours later after having been slightly short coursed on the paddle. They had a strong performance. Only 9 of the teams even started the last bike and only 4 made it to the Kayak transition. Dancing Panda’s decided not to do the paddle and took 4th.
Final results found at http://www.teamkarma.com/results/gr24hourchallenge2007results.htm
We had a great race and showed what a DA can be, a great competitor and display sportsmanship. We worked well as a team, especially considering we had never raced together before. Brian was a great crew taking care of us and being ready. I was always sorry about the mess I would leave.
Personally I was very pleased. We ran with the Big Dogs and proved that this is a team that can get on the podium in every race. The west coast has a lot of talented people. A lot of them were at Gold Rush this year. The fact that we were 1 of only 3 teams that made it across the finish line says a lot about how strong this team performed. A lot of things have to go right to win an adventure race. The AR gods were smiling on us, but they smiled on Baarbd a bit more.
Congratulations to our friends at Baarbd for a great race and a well earned victory.
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