Triangle Adventure Racing Team

The race started with a mass boat launch and a short paddle down to the first CP/TA. It started snowing as soon as we got in the water. Paddling is not our strong suit, but we managed to keep the canoe pointed in the right direction. The takeout was a short way up a creek that fed into the lake. With all the rain the previous day, the creek was more like a river and the current was so strong that most teams could not paddle up it, us included. The conditions, along with the “no portaging” rule, forced teams to pull their canoes upstream in the cold water that was at times chest deep. (Here’s a great pic of the conditions…http://www.photorefle… ) We came out of the water in a respectable 25th position. Now completely soaked, we changed into dry clothes and hopped on the bikes.

The bike started up a long but manageable climb to CP 2 at the end of a 4WD road. From there it was a bike-whack down to a road leading to CP 3. The bike-whack wasn’t too bad as you could easily follow tracks in the snow left by earlier teams. After a fun, but very cold descent, we reached CP 4/TA 2 in around 15th place.

The next leg was a long paddle with 2 CPs. Thankfully, our support crew (our significant others) visited a local laundromat after TA 1and so we were able to change into dry clothes for the paddle. (Apparently, the laundromat was a very popular place on Sat afternoon!). We had originally strategized that skipping both CPs might be to our advantaged as it would minimize our time on the water and mazimize our time on the trekking leg, but our relatively high position caused us to reconsider. We set out on the paddle to collect CP6 which was the closest of the two CPs. The snow had stopped by this time but the it was still frigidly cold and the wind was howling. It was so cold that there were icicles forming on the canoe. It was so windy that there were several times when we quite literally were paddling and going nowhere. There was even a report of a team capsizing and having to seek aid/shelter at one of the homes on the lake. (Another great pic… http://www.photorefle… ) We struggled back to CP7/TA3 after a couple hours of tough paddling. In retrospect, it was definitely the right decision to get only the one CP and bail on the other.

We spent some time, probably too much time, getting ready for the second biking leg and 4 more CPs. Aside from a short detour (er…wrong turn), the ride up to CP 8 was uneventful. It was dark and we were a little tired (and a lot cold) and spent too much time lingering by the fire at the CP 8. The route from CP 9 to CP 10 had us hike-a-bike up and over a mountain. We caught up with another team on the descent (which turned out to be fellow Triangle team Red or Green) and followed them on the bike-whack out to the road leading to CP 10. Even though CP 10 was located at a prominent intersection, we blew by it twice before ganging up with a couple of other teams coming off the mountain. It was close to 2 am and the course and conditions were beginning to take their toll. We were both experiencing bike problems…the frequent stream crossings wreaked havoc on brakes and drivetrains. We reluctantly decided to skip the long climb to CP 11and pushed/coasted our bikes back to CP 12/TA 4.

Our support crew had cold pizza and a warm car waiting. Again, we spent too much time enjoying the hospitality before heading out on the trek. CP 13 was very close to a CP from last year so we had a slight advantage over other teams in knowing about the trail on the west side of the creek. We could see the headlights of several teams bushwhacking on the wrong side of the creek. There was also some confusion about the exact placement of the CP. At TA 4 race officials told us that reaching the CP required “shimmy-ing” across a fallen tree over the creek. We interpretted this as CP 13 being on or near a fallen tree. We very quickly found a CP right on the trail where we we had plotted CP 13 but kept looking for another CP on a fallen tree. We gave up after a while and just decided to punch the one on the trail (which of course was the right one). In retrospect, we should have just punched it and moved on…we’ll chalk that one up to brain freeze…but I think other teams may have shared the same confusion. The route from CP 13 was straightforward but one of the worst navigation errors in my life cost us at least an hour. We tried to make up for lost time by pressing the pace up and over a pass to CP 14. We only had 3hr 45min left before the 3:00pm cutoff…not enough time to tackle CPs 15-17 which were located to the southwest and further from the finish, but enough to attempt CPs 18 and 19 to the north and east. We made good time on the steep climb to CP 18 but weren’t confident that there was enough time to get CP 19 which would have required another significant climb. In the end we decided to play it safe and head straight back to the finish. We crossed the finish line at 1:00pm. (In hindsight we had plenty of time to get CP 19.)

This was really a war of attrition. Of the 74 teams that started, 28 withdrew. We were fortunate to finish 12th overall. Depsite the weather, this was a great race and was a lot of fun. All the teams, support crews (especially ours!) and volunteers deserve a ton of credit for perservering through the horrible conditions.