The race was simply epic!  Overall if can be boiled down to 3 things: big mountains, big water, and a big climb.  The mountain ranges we trekked (including Lone Peak and the Crazy’s and Bridgers) were absolutely amazing!  The rivers we battled (the Gallatin) and forged were brutal.  The whitewater was big, bad, and super intense.  This made for some absolutely amazing kayaking and–best of all–riverboarding.  Finally, the climbing was unbelievable!  We climbed, ascended and traversed more than 1,200 feet straight up.  So many times I felt as if I was in a Mission Impossible movie.

We (Dirty Avocados II) crossed the finish line in about 9 days; finishing the complete (long) course and every part of this amazing race.  Ultimately that was our one and only goal.  We knew when we started this all that if we could finish the long course that the rest would take of itself.  And it did.  We couldn’t be happier!  Thanks to everyone involved for the support.  This includes our crew, Aja and Matt, our fellow DAs, our family and friends, our sponsors, and the Bay Area AR community. 

See ya out on the dirt and water soon!

PS, Check out pics from the PQ fun here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dirtyavocados/sets/72157606052205922/

The race was simply epic!  Overall if can be boiled down to 3 things: big mountains, big water, and a big climb.  The mountain ranges we trekked (including Lone Peak and the Crazy’s and Bridgers) were absolutely amazing!  The rivers we battled (the Gallatin) and forged were brutal.  The whitewater was big, bad, and super intense.  This made for some absolutely amazing kayaking and–best of all–riverboarding.  Finally, the climbing was unbelievable!  We climbed, ascended and traversed more than 1,200 feet straight up.  So many times I felt as if I was in a Mission Impossible movie.

We (Dirty Avocados II) crossed the finish line in about 9 days; finishing the complete (long) course and every part of this amazing race.  Ultimately that was our one and only goal.  We knew when we started this all that if we could finish the long course that the rest would take of itself.  And it did.  We couldn’t be happier!  Thanks to everyone involved for the support.  This includes our crew, Aja and Matt, our fellow DAs, our family and friends, our sponsors, and the Bay Area AR community. 

See ya out on the dirt and water soon!

PS, Check out pics from the PQ fun here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dirtyavocados/sets/72157606052205922/

Everyone is off the course, well feed and beginning to heal.  Now that we have gotten some sleep in a real bed and a real shower, we all enjoyed the post race party and are beginning to reflect on the enormity of this great event.

There are many great stories to be told.  Those will come out over time.  Overall it was a great effort by all of the DA’s with DAII talking 18th and DA I breaking the top 30.

While feet are pretty messed up and several of us are on antibiotics, the over all health of everyone is very good.

This was an epic event covering over 545 miles and climbing over 65,000 vertical feet.   The highlights for me were the riverboarding and the rope section. Due to weather  not everyone got to do those sections as the river was closed after several rescues and the ropes were closed due to lighting.  DA I was waiting to go up the ropes when the lighting hit and wasn’t allowed to complete that section.

We were very sorry to lose Susan.  She was a victim of her own toughness. She literally rubbed the skin off her heal all the way down to the tendon sheath.  She never complained or said anything until it was too late to do anything.  She went into medical and it was clear that she was risking possible perminate injury if she went on.  Susan made the only decision that she could and had to withdraw.  I honestly believe that we would have been ever faster if she could of stay on.

Brian over came really bad feet through out the race and showed great courage to just keep moving

Team 56 traveled a great deal with Dancing Panda on several treks and though the ropes.  we really enjoyed their company and working together.

The next few days are going to be spend resting, visiting, sharing stories and cleaning up gear for the trip home.

We all greatly appreciate the love and support from everyone.

We will begin posting blogs over the next few week, sharing our stories and experiences.

 Dirty Avocados II is still continuing unranked.  Susan is travelling with the crew and her feet are a mess.  PQ medical staff suggested that continuing could pose serious or long term problems.  Word from Aja is that Brian’s feet are also in pretty bad shape but they’re determined to press on. 

 Dirty Avocado’s is doing well.  They banked alot of sleep yesterday and are moving well.  Donato’s feet are in bad shape with large blisters on the heel.

 I am going to unable to access Internet until Saturday eventing but Aja may have web access to update this blog.

 Susan is out for sure.  She called a friend, beer in hand, and said she was done.  Melissa was at the table with that person and they are now shown as “Unranked” on the PQ site.

The Bad: Both DAs are unranked. 

The Ugly:  Jen of team 62 has suffered a recurrence of her IT band issue and was unable to continue early this afternoon.  I just heard that someone spoke to Susan of Team 56 and her feet were very bad and she is also unable to continue.

The Good:  Both teams are continuing on the course.

Communication on the course must be tough because both teams are still shown as ranked on the leaderboard the last time I checked.

DA/Team 62 is just about 3 1/2 miles from the end of the trek.  It’s almost all downhill (1000′) from their most recent track location.

Aja contacted me and said the teams are doing great.