In the days heading up to White River, I was a little anxious about how I would perform. I strained my back moving furniture over to our new house in Wallingford, and I also worried about the heat, as I have run very few races during the summer. I also wanted to do well so that I could place high in the Washington Ultra Series. I decided to forgo Cascade Crest training runs for a few days and spend some time at home, fixing things around the house, and by race day I felt OK.
I drove down on Friday afternoon with my friend and fellow adventure racer, Murray Maitland. We set up our tents at Buck Creek, a couple hundred yards from the start/finish, then headed over to packet pickup, where I was immediately heckled by Adam Hewey for turning 40 and entering the Master's category only a few weeks ago. I had already decided not to join USATF (necessary in order to compete for prize money) and Adam seemed relieved to hear that. I didn't really want to feel pressured to compete, as I enjoy a race much more when it feels more relaxed and social.
I woke up at 4:45am to the sound of a caravan of cars arriving for the early start at 5:30, and I spent my time planning in my mind how much water I would need at each aid station and what food to pack with me. I usually do not rely at all on aid stations for food, and instead pack a small waist pouch with sufficient food to complete half the race. I leave another pouch of food in the drop bag at Buck Creek for the second half of the race, along with two extra water bottles of my favorite energy drink mixture, so I can quickly swap out as I go by.
At 6:30am, we are toeing the line, ready to start, although we delay for about a minute while we all wait for Scott Jurek to come back from the porta-potties. I try to stay back mid-pack as I really need to learn to start slower, and I figure that putting a bunch of bodies in front of me will help me with that. The countdown hits zero, and we are off.
I run comfortably for the first ten minutes, and then I start passing a few slower people as I warm up. Soon I am running right behind Chris Twardzik, who is the one person I'd like to beat in this race, as we are competing for the Washington Ultra Series. After several minutes behind him, I decide that I am going to let him chase me in this race, and speed up to catch the next chain of runners up ahead. I enjoy running behind three or four other runners, as their energy pulls me effortlessly along, and we continue on past the first aid station (3.9 miles / 32 minutes?) and into the climb up to Ranger Creek.
As the climb steepens, I pull away from some of the slower runners in the paceline, until I am behind Prudence L'Heureux. After she stumbles and drops her Powerbar into the bushes then goes to retrieve it, I am on my own for a while, speed-walking the steeps and jogging the mellower sections of the climb to Ranger Creek.
I pull into Ranger Creek (11.7 miles / 1:53?) with both my bottles empty. I quickly fill up one bottle of water and I'm off again. I feel pretty great. No back issues either. The trail here climbs up through the trees some more and pops out a couple times at amazing overlooks atop thousand foot cliffs - nice! The climbing is mostly over, and we follow some beautiful ridgeline singletrack on our way to Corral Pass. This section is an out-and-back, so everyone gets a chance to say hi to friends or scope out the competition, depending on their attitude. A couple of the sections are a bit narrow, and the guy in front of me falls off the trail as he steps off to let a runner come by in the opposite direction. When I see Kami Semick coming back at us, I know I am close, and I arrive at Corral Pass a minute later (16.9 miles / 2:45?). I fill up my bottle with water again and leave.
I remember two years ago when I did this race. In retrospect, training 30 miles a week does not a 50 mile racer make. I went out fast, and by the time I reach Corral Pass, I was not ready to leave. I spent a few minutes at every aid station, eating and drinking and trying to recover. In the end, I almost killed myself to finish sub 9 hours. This time around, I am beating a 10 minute per mile pace, and I've still got a big downhill to come. And I feel great.
I start retracing my steps back toward Ranger Creek, only to pass Chris Twardzik going the other way, just a couple minutes behind me. I still have my work cut out for me. I say hi to all of my friends as we pass and before I know it I am back at Ranger Creek. One of the aid station workers, Scott, knows my name and says he knows me from living in Queen Anne. Small world. At the end of the race, he'll even share some beers with me.
Back to the present, we turn onto a new trail for a steep downhill section towards Buck Creek. This section is my favorite part. The trail is soft and the descent is long and shaded, punctuated occasionally by a switchback. I see glimpses of a runner behind me. It is Adam Hewey, who heckled me a little last night. He and I pull into Buck Creek together (mile 27.2 / 4:10?) . I quickly restock my food and grab two filled bottles from my dropbag, and I'm off. After I leave though, I wait for Adam for a few seconds to catch up so that we can run together and chat. He is angling for an 8 hour finish, which looks quite feasible at this point. I am happy to have someone to talk with as we mostly hike up the climb to Fawn Ridge.
On our way up, we come across Phi Kochik, who joins in with us. Adam lives in Ballard, and Phil now lives around the corner from my new house in Wallingford. It's funny that they live so close and I haven't talked with either of them before for more than a minute or two.
Fawn Ridge represents two thirds of the climb up to Suntop, and I'm still feeling fine. Clouds came in to cover the sun, which really helped prevent me from overheating. The weather is hot, but not nearly as bad as I had expected and feared.
Phil, Adam and I ran loosely together all the way to Suntop, passing Kami Semick along the way. I feel good to be passing famous ultra-runners at this point in the race. Kami seems most concerned about whether Prudence is behind us. We say that we think she is quite a ways behind, and Kami relaxes a bit. We pull into Suntop (mile 37 / 6:05?) and smile for Glenn, who is taking our pictures with Mt Rainier as a backdrop.
We head on down the forest road at a reasonably relaxed pace. At least, my legs aren't complaining as much as they could be. I do have a huge blister on my sole, however, and it slowly gets bigger as we pound the 3000' of descent down the road to Skookum Flats. We see Hal Koerner turning into Skookum Flats when we are only a few hundred yards away.
We pull into Skookum Flats (mile 43.4 / 6:51) with time to spare to break the 8 hour barrier. I look for a couple Gus, but they don't have any. I am a little behind on my food at this point, as my stomach has been bothering me slightly, but I think I can finish. A couple hundred yards out from the aid station, a feel a little light-headed, and I slow down to eat what I can from my waist bag, letting Adam and Phil disappear into the woods. I continue on. I can feel the heat emanating from my body. The one water bottle that I filled up for the last 6.6 miles is now half-empty. I have to stop and eat a little more. I think that I just ran out of gas.
It's a bit disappointing to run a race so well and then bonk a few miles from the finish line. I think that is what happens when you start looking forward to the finish and stop paying attention to your body. In retrospect, I should have brought an extra water bottle on the downhill from Suntop and ate and drank a little more while I was relaxing on the downhill. In any case, I still have a race to finish.
Next comes the double disappointment. Chris Twardzik passes me with twenty minutes to go. He looks great. I struggle to run as best I can. I run out of water.
At one point, the trail passes very close to White River, and I refill a water battle with silty river water. I pour it on my head as I run. I think that the food is starting to help, or it may just be the lure of the finish line, but I get at least a part of my energy back, and I can run the last several hundred yards to the finish line. Final time was just over 7 hours 50 minutes. 14th place. I was quite happy. I finished 3rd in the Masters category. Only later did I find that the prize money would have been $200 if I had signed up for USATF. Oh well, maybe next year. Congrats to Adam for picking up 2nd place Masters. He'll be tough competition in races to come.
Also, congrats to Anton Krupicka, who broke Uli's old course records by about 30 seconds.
Afterwards, I hobbled down to White River for a post-race soak, then went over to the medical tent to get all the grit out of my blister, which was "the size of Milwaukee" according to the guy there. The atmosphere afterwards was really great, and I lounged around for a couple hours with the other racers watching runners come in.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Sloan - Corkscrew Route
Zak Bisarcky sent out an email to the WAC email list searching for out-of-work people who wanted to join him on a climb. A few of us responded, and after many emails back and forth, Zak, Rob Hurvitz and I decided to conquer Sloan Peak as a one day adventure.
We met at 65th Street Park and Ride at 5
am on July 15th (mid-week) and set out for the Mountain Loop Highway. I decided that we should try the new Mountaineers route starting from Bedal Creek rather than the old Sloan Creek route. I had a topo map and compass, so I figured we could wing it even if we couldn't follow the route directions, which were a little obtuse.
We hiked up Bedal Creek trail for a half hour, then at some point decided that we had gone far enough and turned to head straight up the hill through steep open forest. After several hundred feet of climbing, we turned east and traversed through the forest. I was worried that we might go too far and end up under steep cliffs, but it turns out that we were supposed to keep going east until the forest ended at an open drainage. Instead, we turned and headed up to 5000' through the forest, and then had to bushwhack across nasty brush for much longer than we needed to in order to reach the saddle at 5330'. Crossing the saddle, we joined up with the Sloan Creek route, and aimed for a point just west of a small knoll at 5852'. Here we reached snow and the gl
acier was ahead of us. We roped up and headed straight up the glacier. Some crevasses were evident, but there was lots of snow and the hike up was easy. We traversed a short ways over to the SW corner of the glacier at 7200' and exited onto rocks, where we left our glacier gear and ice axes.
We followed a well-defined but exposed goat/climber trail for a ways along the south and west slopes until it climbed up to a gully. We scrambled (3rd class) up the gully and followed the ridge above to the summit. The views are beautiful in all directions, as Sloan is the tallest peak in the area, with the exception of Glacier Peak rising not too far to the east. We never saw another person on the whole trip. I like climbing on a weekday. After a half hour or relaxation, we headed down the way that we had come up.
Crossing the saddle, we headed down the open drainage, which was also a difficult and steep bushwhack. Once in the forest, things got easier, and we made it back to the car at 6:30pm - 10.5 hours car to car with breaks.
We met at 65th Street Park and Ride at 5
am on July 15th (mid-week) and set out for the Mountain Loop Highway. I decided that we should try the new Mountaineers route starting from Bedal Creek rather than the old Sloan Creek route. I had a topo map and compass, so I figured we could wing it even if we couldn't follow the route directions, which were a little obtuse.We hiked up Bedal Creek trail for a half hour, then at some point decided that we had gone far enough and turned to head straight up the hill through steep open forest. After several hundred feet of climbing, we turned east and traversed through the forest. I was worried that we might go too far and end up under steep cliffs, but it turns out that we were supposed to keep going east until the forest ended at an open drainage. Instead, we turned and headed up to 5000' through the forest, and then had to bushwhack across nasty brush for much longer than we needed to in order to reach the saddle at 5330'. Crossing the saddle, we joined up with the Sloan Creek route, and aimed for a point just west of a small knoll at 5852'. Here we reached snow and the gl
acier was ahead of us. We roped up and headed straight up the glacier. Some crevasses were evident, but there was lots of snow and the hike up was easy. We traversed a short ways over to the SW corner of the glacier at 7200' and exited onto rocks, where we left our glacier gear and ice axes.We followed a well-defined but exposed goat/climber trail for a ways along the south and west slopes until it climbed up to a gully. We scrambled (3rd class) up the gully and followed the ridge above to the summit. The views are beautiful in all directions, as Sloan is the tallest peak in the area, with the exception of Glacier Peak rising not too far to the east. We never saw another person on the whole trip. I like climbing on a weekday. After a half hour or relaxation, we headed down the way that we had come up.
Crossing the saddle, we headed down the open drainage, which was also a difficult and steep bushwhack. Once in the forest, things got easier, and we made it back to the car at 6:30pm - 10.5 hours car to car with breaks.
Forbidden Fourth of July
Kristin Kaupang and Jeff Watts have been wanting to climb Forbidden for a while, and Kathy and I got to join them for a 4th of July attempt. Another group of WACers was also heading up: Denny, Joanna, Liz and Carlos, so we would have a lot of friendly company.
After getting the last permit available, we hiked up to Boston Basin and set up camp. The other WACers were going to head up the mountain in the wee hours of the morning, so we decided on a 6am start to give them a head start, as the mountain was sure to be crowded.
At 6am, we got moving, heading up across the glacier to the snow gully that led to the ridge. We climbed the 50 degree gully for a few hundred feet (don't fall)
to reach some rock 4th class ledges. A few exposed moves got us up on the loose rocky ledges, and we headed left up a steep gully another 150 feet to the ridge proper. Leaving our packs, we scrambled a short ways up the ridge before setting up a belay to start the roped climbing.
Kathy and I quickly finished the first pitch behind Kristin and Jeff, only to wait for almost an hour while they finished the second pitch, then someone else came down from above, then a pair simul-climbed past us. I realized that we probably would not reach the summit, as it was too busy, and we had three other rope teams that we knew about ahead of us (all of whom planned to downclimb the West Ridge), as well as several groups of simul-climbers who would occasionally speed past us up and down the ridge.
The ridge itself was mostly very low 5th class climbing. Pitching it out like we did slowed us down a bit, but we were stuck behind Kristin and Jeff and the other two WAC rope teams ahead of them in any case. Kathy and I finished a few more pitches. Kathy was worried about having to downclimb the ridge, so I suggested that we turn around early. We let Kristin and Jeff know that we were turning around and then headed back, taking our time to downclimb the ridge.
Down in the gully, we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to belay ourselves around the sketchy moves coming up. Only after a lot of delay did we discover that there was a rappel station that allowed us to skip the sketchiest section that came right off the snow, and we rappeled a very short rappel down the last ledge to the snow gully. During this time, we saw a two foot wide slab of rock spontaneously let loose and slide down the snow gully ahead of us as the day warmed up.
Kathy and I downclimbed the gully. Halfway down, we heard a roar of rocks coming down a gully to our left, and we instinctively ducked and covered. We made it down safely, then hiked across the very low angle glacier back to camp. We made it back for dinner at 7pm, a long day. We ate dinner and kept our radio on, listending to how the others were doing.
Kristin, Jeff and others reached the top at 2:30,
about an hour and a half after Kathy and I had turned around. With so many people on the mountain, they took a long time to get down, and were still trying to do double rope rappels down the snow gully when the sun set. From our campsite, Kathy and I watched them, like little ants, coming down the snow gully. A rope got stuck and they had to climb partway back up the gully to deal with it. With headlamps on, they trudged back home, tired and weary, making it back to camp at 11pm.
The next morning, everyone was too tired to do anything else, so we slept in, packed up at a casual pace, and headed home.
After getting the last permit available, we hiked up to Boston Basin and set up camp. The other WACers were going to head up the mountain in the wee hours of the morning, so we decided on a 6am start to give them a head start, as the mountain was sure to be crowded.
At 6am, we got moving, heading up across the glacier to the snow gully that led to the ridge. We climbed the 50 degree gully for a few hundred feet (don't fall)
to reach some rock 4th class ledges. A few exposed moves got us up on the loose rocky ledges, and we headed left up a steep gully another 150 feet to the ridge proper. Leaving our packs, we scrambled a short ways up the ridge before setting up a belay to start the roped climbing.Kathy and I quickly finished the first pitch behind Kristin and Jeff, only to wait for almost an hour while they finished the second pitch, then someone else came down from above, then a pair simul-climbed past us. I realized that we probably would not reach the summit, as it was too busy, and we had three other rope teams that we knew about ahead of us (all of whom planned to downclimb the West Ridge), as well as several groups of simul-climbers who would occasionally speed past us up and down the ridge.
The ridge itself was mostly very low 5th class climbing. Pitching it out like we did slowed us down a bit, but we were stuck behind Kristin and Jeff and the other two WAC rope teams ahead of them in any case. Kathy and I finished a few more pitches. Kathy was worried about having to downclimb the ridge, so I suggested that we turn around early. We let Kristin and Jeff know that we were turning around and then headed back, taking our time to downclimb the ridge.
Down in the gully, we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to belay ourselves around the sketchy moves coming up. Only after a lot of delay did we discover that there was a rappel station that allowed us to skip the sketchiest section that came right off the snow, and we rappeled a very short rappel down the last ledge to the snow gully. During this time, we saw a two foot wide slab of rock spontaneously let loose and slide down the snow gully ahead of us as the day warmed up.
Kathy and I downclimbed the gully. Halfway down, we heard a roar of rocks coming down a gully to our left, and we instinctively ducked and covered. We made it down safely, then hiked across the very low angle glacier back to camp. We made it back for dinner at 7pm, a long day. We ate dinner and kept our radio on, listending to how the others were doing.
Kristin, Jeff and others reached the top at 2:30,
about an hour and a half after Kathy and I had turned around. With so many people on the mountain, they took a long time to get down, and were still trying to do double rope rappels down the snow gully when the sun set. From our campsite, Kathy and I watched them, like little ants, coming down the snow gully. A rope got stuck and they had to climb partway back up the gully to deal with it. With headlamps on, they trudged back home, tired and weary, making it back to camp at 11pm.The next morning, everyone was too tired to do anything else, so we slept in, packed up at a casual pace, and headed home.
Enchantments Trail Running
I went out to run the Enchantments loop on June 27th, a popular loop for ultarunners and fast hikers who are unable to get one of the few camping permits in the Enchantments Basin. Kathy also went for a girls-weekend with Victoria, Kristin and Leah, and they planned to hike the loop the same day. We expected to run into each other at some point during the day, and meet for dinner at Gustav's afterwards.
I drove out to Leavenworth early Saturday and started my run from the Stuart Lake trailhead at 9am. I followed a nice trail through the forest up to Colchuck Lake, and rounded it in a counterclockwise direction, aiming for Aasgard Pass. At this point I was rock-hopping more than running. Snow covered part of Aasgard Pass, and waterfalls cascaded down along its right side. I headed straight up along the waterfall/stream, and after passing a rock outcropping on its right, I ascended some steep slabs that eventually became unclimbable and trapped me between rushing snowmelt and steep walls, and I retreated back down to the base of the outcropping. From there, I discovered that the hiker's trail went left, and followed it steeply up the left side of the pass.
At the top I took a breather and chatted with some climbers who were planning on scrambling up Dragontail. It looked inviting, but I had no crampons, ice axe or poles. Maybe next time. The Enchantment Basin was still mostly covered in snow, and I travelled cross country, aiming for Little Annapurna. I climbed easy slabs and snow to reach the summit, with beautiful views of McClellan, Prusik and the rest of the Enchantments.
After a few minutes, I headed down and picked up a boot track through the snow towards the lower Enchantment Basin. Mountain goats greeted me. I caught up with Kathy and friends, and we agreed to meet at Gustav's after we had all finished.
I dropped down towards Snow Lake and started to run again, enjoying the 5000 feet of downhill ahead of me. Down, down, down. Near the Snow Lake trailhead, I started to feel the effects of the heat, and I enjoyed stopping at Icicle Creek and soaking my feet when I reached the trailhead. Unfortunately, I still needed to get back to my car at the Stuart Lake trailhead, which was 8 miles away and over one thousand feet higher.
I headed up the road, ready to be done, so I started thumbing for rides. After 15 minutes or so, I caught a ride up to Bridge Creek campground, and started the hike up the side road to Stuart Creek trailhead. On my way, I found a VW hubcap. I had noticed that my car was missing a hubcap the week before. Score! I could use this. I put the hubcap by a turnout in the road and kept hiking. A car came by and gave me a ride to the trailhead and my car. I was done.
I drove back down to the turnout to pick up the hubcap, but it was not there. Then I noticed that my car was missing two hubcaps. Hmmm. I drove to Gustav's, arriving at 6pm, and ate dinner. Kathy and friends showed up an hour later to join me, having completed their own Enchantment loop.
On Sunday, I drove back to Eight Mile TH and ran up to Windy Pass, on the shoulder of Cashmere. A 17 mile round trip, this trail was much more runnable than the Enchantment loop, and was a good complement to the run of the day before. At Windy Pass, the summit of Cashmere beckoned me from a short ways away - perhaps another day. I turned around and headed back. After a milkshake in Leavenworth, I was ready to head home.
I drove out to Leavenworth early Saturday and started my run from the Stuart Lake trailhead at 9am. I followed a nice trail through the forest up to Colchuck Lake, and rounded it in a counterclockwise direction, aiming for Aasgard Pass. At this point I was rock-hopping more than running. Snow covered part of Aasgard Pass, and waterfalls cascaded down along its right side. I headed straight up along the waterfall/stream, and after passing a rock outcropping on its right, I ascended some steep slabs that eventually became unclimbable and trapped me between rushing snowmelt and steep walls, and I retreated back down to the base of the outcropping. From there, I discovered that the hiker's trail went left, and followed it steeply up the left side of the pass.
At the top I took a breather and chatted with some climbers who were planning on scrambling up Dragontail. It looked inviting, but I had no crampons, ice axe or poles. Maybe next time. The Enchantment Basin was still mostly covered in snow, and I travelled cross country, aiming for Little Annapurna. I climbed easy slabs and snow to reach the summit, with beautiful views of McClellan, Prusik and the rest of the Enchantments.
After a few minutes, I headed down and picked up a boot track through the snow towards the lower Enchantment Basin. Mountain goats greeted me. I caught up with Kathy and friends, and we agreed to meet at Gustav's after we had all finished.I dropped down towards Snow Lake and started to run again, enjoying the 5000 feet of downhill ahead of me. Down, down, down. Near the Snow Lake trailhead, I started to feel the effects of the heat, and I enjoyed stopping at Icicle Creek and soaking my feet when I reached the trailhead. Unfortunately, I still needed to get back to my car at the Stuart Lake trailhead, which was 8 miles away and over one thousand feet higher.
I headed up the road, ready to be done, so I started thumbing for rides. After 15 minutes or so, I caught a ride up to Bridge Creek campground, and started the hike up the side road to Stuart Creek trailhead. On my way, I found a VW hubcap. I had noticed that my car was missing a hubcap the week before. Score! I could use this. I put the hubcap by a turnout in the road and kept hiking. A car came by and gave me a ride to the trailhead and my car. I was done.
I drove back down to the turnout to pick up the hubcap, but it was not there. Then I noticed that my car was missing two hubcaps. Hmmm. I drove to Gustav's, arriving at 6pm, and ate dinner. Kathy and friends showed up an hour later to join me, having completed their own Enchantment loop.
On Sunday, I drove back to Eight Mile TH and ran up to Windy Pass, on the shoulder of Cashmere. A 17 mile round trip, this trail was much more runnable than the Enchantment loop, and was a good complement to the run of the day before. At Windy Pass, the summit of Cashmere beckoned me from a short ways away - perhaps another day. I turned around and headed back. After a milkshake in Leavenworth, I was ready to head home.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Crux and Crucible Adventure Race
Crux and Crucible was a new race put on up in Farragut State Park, northern Idaho. Peteris Ledins, Christi Masi, Andrew Feucht and I headed up to represent team Verve. Crux and Crucible was set up as two 12-14 hour races, one each day. The Crux and Crucible were fairly different feeling races. The Crux contained a lot of bushwhacking and harder navigation, whereas the Crucible was fairly fast and straightforward.
I'll start with my final impressions: while we got a lot of good stories out of this race and had a memorable time, we have decided that the RD's adventure races leave something to be desired on the organizational front. The RD tried to talk up some of the parts of the races and create adventure through vagueness, which didn't seem to work out. The Crux had a swim segment, which some of the team could opt not to do and do some other unknown task instead. After many questions, the RD finally told the racers that our kayaks would be on a barge at the TA and that we would have to swim out to it in order to get our kayaks, and if only some of the team swam out, then they would have to bring the kayaks back to the others on the beach. There were some issues with staging the gear that were made clearer when he finally told us what we were going to be doing. However, on Saturday morning, he announced that the swim was cancelled because the barge was too small to hold all the kayaks without putting them on top of one another, and gear had to be restaged.
He also told us that we had to plot the CPs ourselves, and when asked, said that the scale of the map was 1:24000. When we showed up on Saturday with appropriate UTM grids, we discovered that he had magnified the original map 40-50% in order for us to see the terrain better; however the scale was 1:16000 or so and did not fit our UTM grids. I brought a divider that I could use to do accurate UTM plotting, but I could hardly believe his oversight and misinformation on such a key part of the race. He also said that he had an answer key that showed where the CPs were plotted that we could look at (so why do we need to plot our own points in the first place??).
One of the CPs was wrong in any case. Apparently the RD used a GPS to generated the UTM points without really checking them on the map, and the GPS was not reading very well. The point was 200 meters off on the wrong side of the hill, so noone found it. Nike called the RD to tell him about it. They used their cellphone the next day too to call the RD when 3 of our teams had searched for 15 minutes for another CP. I've never seen another race where you are allowed to call the RD for additional clues. And here I thought that the mandatory team cellphone was for emergencies or something. Silly me (for the record, we all benefitted from the additional help).
In another case, the RD said that we could get the CPs in any order, but there was a CP at the end that was only a block from the CP at the beginning. It was in the town of Bayview at a store. We stopped by on the way out and got a signature from the owner; however, we were told by volunteers at the kayak TA that we were supposed to stop by on the way back during the kayak, so we did. Some other people did not stop by on the way back and got away with it (the volunteers said what?? I didn't hear that...)
Speaking of getting away with it, there was another team that was leaving their woman at their bikes when they went off to hike to search for the checkpoint. We saw her alone when everyone was looking for the misplaced CP, and when we finally gave up we saw her again at the bikes all alone. Her team had abandoned her for a half an hour. At the next CP, they left her again to trek several hundred meters up the ridge to get a CP. Christi/Peteris mentioned it to the RD and he gave the other team a lecture, but the RD gave some lame excuse about wanting to attract good teams to the race (is that why he didn't penalized them?). In any case, he just lost the patronage of one good team -- us.
At the end of the second day, there was an orienteering course that was supposed to be done in order, but my teammates said they overheard another top team saying that they did it out of order. I guess when only the volunteer says something, you can ignore it if it is in your interest.
More cases: when we finished the kayak on Saturday, there was a CP in the middle of a campground. However, the RD did not tell us where to beach our kayaks. There was one particular spot that he wanted us to go where there were volunteers who then told us to carry our kayaks up to the campground. However, we had tried to land at another beach before that until someone related to the race came over to tell us to go "somewhere else". Why didn't the RD just make the CP at the beach instead of the campground? There was no indication that we couldn't just drop our kayaks off anywhere and bushwhack up to the CP. I hate it when RDs want you to do something specific but will not tell you what it is. That makes the race more of a crapshoot than a race.
Speaking of crapshoots, Ian,Roger and Jared were leading by an hour on Sunday and had only one CP left. They were supposed to go to the CP and get instructions for an orienteering course that they had to do before the finish. However, the RD did not explain this. He had on the passport however that they had to go to that CP and get a punch (typically marked by an orienteering flag), although it was actually a manned checkpoint that did not require a puch. So, as they were about to arrive at the last CP, they saw an orienteering marker by the side of the road with a punch on it. They punched it and then headed to the finish, expecting to get the orienteering course info there. Unfortunately, the punch they had seen was part of the O course itself, and when they arrived at the finish, three miles away, they discovered they had to go back. Someone gave them a ride back(!) and they finished the O course, then rode back to the finish line and still won, but it was certainly an anxious moment.
The funniest thing that happened on the course, however, was earlier in the race on Sunday. Ian's team was ahead and had apparently gotten a CP that was very difficult to find. After we wandered around at the location of a CP with Nike and True Grit for a while, Nike called up the RD to ask for more directions as to where the CP was (he had indicated it slightly misplaced with bad description, and it was hidden). After getting some feedback from the RD (hello? What other race have you been to where you call the RD if you are having trouble) Nike found the point and headed off, and True Grit found it shortly thereafter. We found the point a few minutes later and played catch up. About an hour later, we picked up another CP on an overgrown spur road and headed on, only to find Ian's team wandering around on a ridge below the road looking for the CP in the wrong place. We couldn't believe that they had blown such a lead, and Peteris decided to help them out by yelling down and telling them how to get to the CP. Later on, we discovered that it was actually Nike that he was helping. We were beating Nike, a famously solid team, and Peteris decides to stop and give them directions. Doh!
So, I guess I should actually describe the races. The Crux -- we started out with a short run to spread people out, then we hopped on our mountain bikes. My team, Verve, was first on the bikes. Then we did a long biking segment with lots of gratuitous bushwhacking. The crux CP which was not the one called "The Crux", ironcially) was actually a pair of CPs, one on a mountaintop and one 500 vertical feet down the other side. Route choice in this case was significant, and a crucial road to the lower CP was not on the map. The RD did say before the race, however, that all the CPs were near a road, so we knew that there was some sort of road to the lower one, we just did not know where it came from. The teams that guessed (or knew) where that lower road was picked up a fair amount of time than the teams (like mine) that did extra bushwhacking between the two points, although the latter choice seemed reasonable without extra information. The point that was labelled the "Crux" was at the end of the mountain biking segment. There was a cutoff off 4pm for the last CP before the kayaks, and my team arrived at 2:45. However, at that point we were given the information about the "Crux" checkpoint and how to get to it, and we were told at that point that we had to do the Crux and get back by 4pm. We started up a long climb to the top of the mountain near where the Crux was located, but we turned back because we did not have enough time, and we did not pick up the huge amount of bonus points for this CP (it was worth 4 times the average point value of the other CPs). If we had known we had to do the Crux before the cutoff, we could have skipped one of the other CPs and had enough extra time. We learned later, however, that Nike took 2 hours to find the point because there was a typo in the directions (another oversight on the RD's part), and we also learned that at 4pm, after we had started kayaking, they decided to move the cutoff from 4pm to 5pm as so many of the teams had not arrived yet.
We kayaked in a triple towing Christi in a single, which worked OK. Thunder and lightning started off in the distance, but we managed to outrun it. After the kayak section was an orienteering section in the park. The clouds opened up and a completely drenching rain poured down on us. Luckily we had only an hour left, and we finished the O course looking like drowned rats. We kept running into Ian,Roger,Jared on the course during the second half of the race, and we all finished together.
The Crucible was much nicer and straightforward. We ran down to where our kayaks were and did a short swim across the bay (which was not as bad as I thought it would be). Then we kayaked 8 miles or so to where our mountain bikes were stationed, then did a long mountain bike section on fire roads with fairly easy to find CPs with a couple exceptions. Half way through the mountain bike we stopped and ran up and down a mountain, at which point my team had pulled ahead of both Nike and True Grit. We were still leading when we hit the sweet singletrack down Bernard Mountain, at which point Nike blew by us. We passed them again at the bottom, but on the last CP before the park, we choked. Everyone had a problem with the CP, which appeared to be right on the trail; however the trail we were on was not the trail marked on the map, and we should have picked up on some terrain clues (and my inability to accurately located us on the trail along the map) and reoriented ourselves more quickly. Nike and True Grit passed us here, and if we had gone on, we would have found another trail that lead back to the CP. We got onto the orienteering course at the end 10 minutes behind the other teams; however, we could not catch up and finished as the third place co-ed team. It was a close and hard fought battle, though, and that made it really fun.
We raced two somewhat different feeling races during the weekend, and finished each one in a little over 11 hours each, so it was like a 24 hour race with a nice dinner and rest halfway through. I liked that part. Overall, I had a fun time, but the sloppiness of the race really got to me. This race is worth doing once, but probably not a second time.
Peteris' post here: http://www.teamverve.org/2009/06/why-i-love-trioba.html
I'll start with my final impressions: while we got a lot of good stories out of this race and had a memorable time, we have decided that the RD's adventure races leave something to be desired on the organizational front. The RD tried to talk up some of the parts of the races and create adventure through vagueness, which didn't seem to work out. The Crux had a swim segment, which some of the team could opt not to do and do some other unknown task instead. After many questions, the RD finally told the racers that our kayaks would be on a barge at the TA and that we would have to swim out to it in order to get our kayaks, and if only some of the team swam out, then they would have to bring the kayaks back to the others on the beach. There were some issues with staging the gear that were made clearer when he finally told us what we were going to be doing. However, on Saturday morning, he announced that the swim was cancelled because the barge was too small to hold all the kayaks without putting them on top of one another, and gear had to be restaged.
He also told us that we had to plot the CPs ourselves, and when asked, said that the scale of the map was 1:24000. When we showed up on Saturday with appropriate UTM grids, we discovered that he had magnified the original map 40-50% in order for us to see the terrain better; however the scale was 1:16000 or so and did not fit our UTM grids. I brought a divider that I could use to do accurate UTM plotting, but I could hardly believe his oversight and misinformation on such a key part of the race. He also said that he had an answer key that showed where the CPs were plotted that we could look at (so why do we need to plot our own points in the first place??).
One of the CPs was wrong in any case. Apparently the RD used a GPS to generated the UTM points without really checking them on the map, and the GPS was not reading very well. The point was 200 meters off on the wrong side of the hill, so noone found it. Nike called the RD to tell him about it. They used their cellphone the next day too to call the RD when 3 of our teams had searched for 15 minutes for another CP. I've never seen another race where you are allowed to call the RD for additional clues. And here I thought that the mandatory team cellphone was for emergencies or something. Silly me (for the record, we all benefitted from the additional help).
In another case, the RD said that we could get the CPs in any order, but there was a CP at the end that was only a block from the CP at the beginning. It was in the town of Bayview at a store. We stopped by on the way out and got a signature from the owner; however, we were told by volunteers at the kayak TA that we were supposed to stop by on the way back during the kayak, so we did. Some other people did not stop by on the way back and got away with it (the volunteers said what?? I didn't hear that..
Speaking of getting away with it, there was another team that was leaving their woman at their bikes when they went off to hike to search for the checkpoint. We saw her alone when everyone was looking for the misplaced CP, and when we finally gave up we saw her again at the bikes all alone. Her team had abandoned her for a half an hour. At the next CP, they left her again to trek several hundred meters up the ridge to get a CP. Christi/Peteris mentioned it to the RD and he gave the other team a lecture, but the RD gave some lame excuse about wanting to attract good teams to the race (is that why he didn't penalized them?). In any case, he just lost the patronage of one good team -- us.
At the end of the second day, there was an orienteering course that was supposed to be done in order, but my teammates said they overheard another top team saying that they did it out of order. I guess when only the volunteer says something, you can ignore it if it is in your interest.
More cases: when we finished the kayak on Saturday, there was a CP in the middle of a campground. However, the RD did not tell us where to beach our kayaks. There was one particular spot that he wanted us to go where there were volunteers who then told us to carry our kayaks up to the campground. However, we had tried to land at another beach before that until someone related to the race came over to tell us to go "somewhere else". Why didn't the RD just make the CP at the beach instead of the campground? There was no indication that we couldn't just drop our kayaks off anywhere and bushwhack up to the CP. I hate it when RDs want you to do something specific but will not tell you what it is. That makes the race more of a crapshoot than a race.
Speaking of crapshoots, Ian,Roger and Jared were leading by an hour on Sunday and had only one CP left. They were supposed to go to the CP and get instructions for an orienteering course that they had to do before the finish. However, the RD did not explain this. He had on the passport however that they had to go to that CP and get a punch (typically marked by an orienteering flag), although it was actually a manned checkpoint that did not require a puch. So, as they were about to arrive at the last CP, they saw an orienteering marker by the side of the road with a punch on it. They punched it and then headed to the finish, expecting to get the orienteering course info there. Unfortunately, the punch they had seen was part of the O course itself, and when they arrived at the finish, three miles away, they discovered they had to go back. Someone gave them a ride back(!) and they finished the O course, then rode back to the finish line and still won, but it was certainly an anxious moment.
The funniest thing that happened on the course, however, was earlier in the race on Sunday. Ian's team was ahead and had apparently gotten a CP that was very difficult to find. After we wandered around at the location of a CP with Nike and True Grit for a while, Nike called up the RD to ask for more directions as to where the CP was (he had indicated it slightly misplaced with bad description, and it was hidden). After getting some feedback from the RD (hello? What other race have you been to where you call the RD if you are having trouble) Nike found the point and headed off, and True Grit found it shortly thereafter. We found the point a few minutes later and played catch up. About an hour later, we picked up another CP on an overgrown spur road and headed on, only to find Ian's team wandering around on a ridge below the road looking for the CP in the wrong place. We couldn't believe that they had blown such a lead, and Peteris decided to help them out by yelling down and telling them how to get to the CP. Later on, we discovered that it was actually Nike that he was helping. We were beating Nike, a famously solid team, and Peteris decides to stop and give them directions. Doh!
So, I guess I should actually describe the races. The Crux -- we started out with a short run to spread people out, then we hopped on our mountain bikes. My team, Verve, was first on the bikes. Then we did a long biking segment with lots of gratuitous bushwhacking. The crux CP which was not the one called "The Crux", ironcially) was actually a pair of CPs, one on a mountaintop and one 500 vertical feet down the other side. Route choice in this case was significant, and a crucial road to the lower CP was not on the map. The RD did say before the race, however, that all the CPs were near a road, so we knew that there was some sort of road to the lower one, we just did not know where it came from. The teams that guessed (or knew) where that lower road was picked up a fair amount of time than the teams (like mine) that did extra bushwhacking between the two points, although the latter choice seemed reasonable without extra information. The point that was labelled the "Crux" was at the end of the mountain biking segment. There was a cutoff off 4pm for the last CP before the kayaks, and my team arrived at 2:45. However, at that point we were given the information about the "Crux" checkpoint and how to get to it, and we were told at that point that we had to do the Crux and get back by 4pm. We started up a long climb to the top of the mountain near where the Crux was located, but we turned back because we did not have enough time, and we did not pick up the huge amount of bonus points for this CP (it was worth 4 times the average point value of the other CPs). If we had known we had to do the Crux before the cutoff, we could have skipped one of the other CPs and had enough extra time. We learned later, however, that Nike took 2 hours to find the point because there was a typo in the directions (another oversight on the RD's part), and we also learned that at 4pm, after we had started kayaking, they decided to move the cutoff from 4pm to 5pm as so many of the teams had not arrived yet.
We kayaked in a triple towing Christi in a single, which worked OK. Thunder and lightning started off in the distance, but we managed to outrun it. After the kayak section was an orienteering section in the park. The clouds opened up and a completely drenching rain poured down on us. Luckily we had only an hour left, and we finished the O course looking like drowned rats. We kept running into Ian,Roger,Jared on the course during the second half of the race, and we all finished together.
The Crucible was much nicer and straightforward. We ran down to where our kayaks were and did a short swim across the bay (which was not as bad as I thought it would be). Then we kayaked 8 miles or so to where our mountain bikes were stationed, then did a long mountain bike section on fire roads with fairly easy to find CPs with a couple exceptions. Half way through the mountain bike we stopped and ran up and down a mountain, at which point my team had pulled ahead of both Nike and True Grit. We were still leading when we hit the sweet singletrack down Bernard Mountain, at which point Nike blew by us. We passed them again at the bottom, but on the last CP before the park, we choked. Everyone had a problem with the CP, which appeared to be right on the trail; however the trail we were on was not the trail marked on the map, and we should have picked up on some terrain clues (and my inability to accurately located us on the trail along the map) and reoriented ourselves more quickly. Nike and True Grit passed us here, and if we had gone on, we would have found another trail that lead back to the CP. We got onto the orienteering course at the end 10 minutes behind the other teams; however, we could not catch up and finished as the third place co-ed team. It was a close and hard fought battle, though, and that made it really fun.
We raced two somewhat different feeling races during the weekend, and finished each one in a little over 11 hours each, so it was like a 24 hour race with a nice dinner and rest halfway through. I liked that part. Overall, I had a fun time, but the sloppiness of the race really got to me. This race is worth doing once, but probably not a second time.
Peteris' post here: http://www.teamverve.org/2009/06/why-i-love-trioba.html
Friday, June 5, 2009
Another Trioba writeup
Here is Team Verve's writeup from the Trioba race:
http://www.teamverve.org/2009/06/trioba-at-index-wa.html
http://www.teamverve.org/2009/06/trioba-at-index-wa.html
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Trioba "Wild Sky" Sprint Adventure Race
Andrew Feucht, Matt Hayes, Julie Heidt and I headed up to Index to participate in the "Wild Sky" Trioba Sprint AR. Peteris Ledins, Murray Maitland, and Christi Masi (with whom I raced at Desert Winds last month) were racing with Ian Hoag as Team Verve, and were definitely going to push us hard. We were all looking forward to a good race, and especially to the whitewater rafting trip down the Skykomish at the end.
We camped on Friday out along Reiter Road just outside of Index (an hour and a half from Seattle) where we could find some free camping, and we soaked in the spectacular views of the mountains and river that the area had to offer before heading to sleep. We all met at the River House in Index at 6am for the pre-race meeting (it starts getting light at 5am around here) and received our maps so that we could familiarize ourselves with them. The course worked as follows: bike leg up to a remote TA. Remote trek loop. Bike back through town to another remote TA. Another remote trek loop. Bike to start of rafting. Raft down river to finish. We were allowed one bin at the start line that we could access as we passed through town, and another at the start of the rafting trip where we could leave all of our biking/trekking gear and pick up our rafting gear.
At the start, Verve quickly pulled ahead and disappeared, while Matt got Julie on tow so that we could keep ahead of the masses. We turned onto a fire road that went uphill quickly. and everyone spread out a bit. At the first CP, a rough trail broke off from the road to the second CP. We elected to take the road, and several others headed down the trail. We arrive at CP 2 first, ahead of Verve as well as all the other teams, so we felt good about taking the safe, easy (albeit longer) route. CP 3 took us to the top of Index Town Walls and its beautiful views looking down on Index and across the valley. We did not tarry any more than we had to, however.
The mountain biking took us through some serious water and mud. Water was spread out like a lake across some parts of the road and trail, up to about 20 inches deep. It is a weird sensation riding through such deep, muddy water hoping that there are no holes in front of you. We did not have fenders so we got a healthy spray of mud and water all over.
The trek section took us through some serious bushwhacking. We occasionally followed old abandoned roads, but sometimes went cross-country through heavy brush, slide alder and devils club. Verve caught up with us at this point and we travelled side-by-side for a few CPs. At one point we both overshot a CP and went separate ways looking for it, and they pulled ahead.
A couple CPs later, we found ourselves up above snow level. We decided to take a short-cut down to the main road instead of following a vague snow covered road the longer way around; however, we got cliffed out and had to bushwhack our way down and around some cliffs and lost several minutes.
Back on the bikes, we got to ride some fast downhills past a few more CPs and down into town. We quickly stopped at our bin to refill on water. Verve left just as we arrived, and we saw them again as we pulled into the TA for the second trek loop at Heybrook Ridge. The second trek followed a logging road up to the top of Heybrook Ridge, looped around and came back down again. It was much mellower than the first loop; it had very little bushwhacking and few navigation problems, although it had a big hill. Verve was faster up the hill than we were, and pulled ahead of us by four to five minutes by the time we made it back to the bikes again.
The last biking section followed the road to rafting put-in. One CP along the way was on a spur road that was hidden by a concrete barrier that required us to keep an eye on the cycle computer and pay attention, which we did. We arrived at the rafting put in after 6.5 hours of racing.
Once at the rafting put-in, we were off the clock so that we could get appropriate safety gear, meet our guide and get the raft ready. Then we checked back in, raced to the raft and jumped in. I think our guide, Bucky, enjoyed having a crew that wanted to paddle the whole time and wanted to take the fastest route. Although we certainly still felt like we were racing, the rafting trip was fun and enjoyable and a perfect way to cross the finish line. Steak dinners waited for us at the end at the River House. Verve held on to beat us, but we finished a strong 2nd place. Glenn, RVG and Aaron put on a good race.
We camped on Friday out along Reiter Road just outside of Index (an hour and a half from Seattle) where we could find some free camping, and we soaked in the spectacular views of the mountains and river that the area had to offer before heading to sleep. We all met at the River House in Index at 6am for the pre-race meeting (it starts getting light at 5am around here) and received our maps so that we could familiarize ourselves with them. The course worked as follows: bike leg up to a remote TA. Remote trek loop. Bike back through town to another remote TA. Another remote trek loop. Bike to start of rafting. Raft down river to finish. We were allowed one bin at the start line that we could access as we passed through town, and another at the start of the rafting trip where we could leave all of our biking/trekking gear and pick up our rafting gear.
At the start, Verve quickly pulled ahead and disappeared, while Matt got Julie on tow so that we could keep ahead of the masses. We turned onto a fire road that went uphill quickly. and everyone spread out a bit. At the first CP, a rough trail broke off from the road to the second CP. We elected to take the road, and several others headed down the trail. We arrive at CP 2 first, ahead of Verve as well as all the other teams, so we felt good about taking the safe, easy (albeit longer) route. CP 3 took us to the top of Index Town Walls and its beautiful views looking down on Index and across the valley. We did not tarry any more than we had to, however.
The mountain biking took us through some serious water and mud. Water was spread out like a lake across some parts of the road and trail, up to about 20 inches deep. It is a weird sensation riding through such deep, muddy water hoping that there are no holes in front of you. We did not have fenders so we got a healthy spray of mud and water all over.
The trek section took us through some serious bushwhacking. We occasionally followed old abandoned roads, but sometimes went cross-country through heavy brush, slide alder and devils club. Verve caught up with us at this point and we travelled side-by-side for a few CPs. At one point we both overshot a CP and went separate ways looking for it, and they pulled ahead.
A couple CPs later, we found ourselves up above snow level. We decided to take a short-cut down to the main road instead of following a vague snow covered road the longer way around; however, we got cliffed out and had to bushwhack our way down and around some cliffs and lost several minutes.
Back on the bikes, we got to ride some fast downhills past a few more CPs and down into town. We quickly stopped at our bin to refill on water. Verve left just as we arrived, and we saw them again as we pulled into the TA for the second trek loop at Heybrook Ridge. The second trek followed a logging road up to the top of Heybrook Ridge, looped around and came back down again. It was much mellower than the first loop; it had very little bushwhacking and few navigation problems, although it had a big hill. Verve was faster up the hill than we were, and pulled ahead of us by four to five minutes by the time we made it back to the bikes again.
The last biking section followed the road to rafting put-in. One CP along the way was on a spur road that was hidden by a concrete barrier that required us to keep an eye on the cycle computer and pay attention, which we did. We arrived at the rafting put in after 6.5 hours of racing.
Once at the rafting put-in, we were off the clock so that we could get appropriate safety gear, meet our guide and get the raft ready. Then we checked back in, raced to the raft and jumped in. I think our guide, Bucky, enjoyed having a crew that wanted to paddle the whole time and wanted to take the fastest route. Although we certainly still felt like we were racing, the rafting trip was fun and enjoyable and a perfect way to cross the finish line. Steak dinners waited for us at the end at the River House. Verve held on to beat us, but we finished a strong 2nd place. Glenn, RVG and Aaron put on a good race.
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