Updated with maps 2005-02-14
The maps page now has the CP's, profile and route maps for the race
We did it, we finished another one. We found all the check points, and made it back to the finish in 7 Hours 54 minutes.
As you can see from the picture, it was a very wet race, but apart from being soaked through, everyone had a great time during the race. We got to cross several rivers, one or two several times, as if just once wasn?t enough? We almost saw some beautiful mountains, and some great lakes. We did the Tyrollean Traverse, which was more or a zip line. And to finish it of we went for a swim in a Beaver pond before dashing to the finish line in just under 8 hours
We had two teams entered for this race. Originally we had planned on having a coed 4, and a coed 3, but after illness forced a last minute drop out, we rearranged into an Open Male 3, and an Open Female 3, and raced as It?s just a flesh wound - Red team with Shannon, Michelle, Marna, and It?s just a flesh wound - Blue Team with Steve, Mike, and Martin. We decided to stick together through out the race.
The race started on Friday night when some of the team met up for the Pre race meeting. At this Justin and Joel gave us the regular pre race talk, and threw in a few extras about developments in the local AR community:
The new PNWAR discussion board hosted on their site, and provided by the MP Gear guys.
The upcoming social events, and regular training.
Roger from Mergeo told us about their plans for a 4 race, mid week race series in Eastside parks, organized by him, and Eric Bone.
There was also the regular pre race prize drawing, with some awesome prizes, including several awesome Gregory Reactor packs. I was fortunate enough to win one of these, and will provide a gear review of my new pack soon. This is another great reason to be at the pre race meeting.
We were given the maps, and had a chance to check out the course. No UTM plotting this time. All the CPs where marked. All that is except for the extra map we would pick up at CP5.
It looked like Don had done a great job of making an interesting course for us, except for the start, which was a road run from Hyak to the other side of the freeway, and then another 2 miles of road paralleling the freeway.
After checking the map, we thought we had a great route selected. While the other teams headed around the road, we would cut across the lake, and under the freeway via a bridge that ended up right next to the first CP.
As some team members couldn?t make a Friday check in, both teams checked in early Saturday morning. With such a small field, this took just a few minutes while we emptied out our carefully packed packs to find the elusive needle, sunscreen, and other items of essential team gear.
After repacking, making our final gear checks, adjusting everything one last time, and then remembering yet another essential item we just had to have along for the ride, it was time to line up for the start around 7.45am.
Choosing clothing for the start was quite difficult, with a wide variety of options visible on the start line, from some with full arctic gear down to the other extreme of tights and a thin shirt. No one seemed to want to take their snow shoes along, but there were some interesting duck taped shoes, nails in the soles of shoes for traction and slip on ?ice soles? to deal with the changeable and icy conditions.
After a quick video and photo session with the camera men, we lined up, the horn blew, and we sprinted gingerly across the icy bridge.
After letting all the other teams past, we went the opposite direction to them all, and headed for our "fast" route to CP1.
All went according to plan, until Michelle hit a rock sliding down the bank into the dry lake bed and bruised her tail bone which would cause her problems for the rest of the race.
Then we found a small river to cross, just a hundred meters into the race, we where going to end up with wet feet. At this point those without seal skin socks were beginning to regret not making the purchase. But keep repeating ?wool will keep you warm even when wet?, in an effort to feel better about the situation so early on in the race.
We plunged across the river, and continued thru the thicker than expected brush towards our objective - CP1.
All the while we were looking to see the other teams, but the freeway obscured our view, so we thought we were well ahead of everyone. Lots of excitement!
We reached the freeway, and under both bridges before coming up onto the frontage road, with just one other team in sight. WOW, that must have saved us so much time; we must be in second place.
Unfortunately when we checked in at the CP, we found out that everyone else had chosen an alternate shortcut that was even shorter than ours, so now we were in last place !
Oh well, we were only about 22 minutes in, and so on with the race, and a nice 2 miles of flat road before the first climb. This went pretty well, except for our pace which was very slow as some of us are not runners. We did start to see signs of another team of two just in front of us, which made us feel better as we appeared to be catching them. We managed to do that when one of the two had to dash into the bushes for a bio break! (Hey passing a team is passing a team, by what ever means.)
Towards the end of the road, it started to get very icy, so the pace slowed even further until we got onto some decent snow, which was nicely hard packed, and provided good traction.
CP2 was now in sight, or at least we could see where we thought it should be, a clear peak with clear cut faces. We had two route options here, bushwhack from the first hairpin up 400 feet of pretty steep terrain, or continue along the road another 700 meters then bushwhack 200 feet.
Looking at the terrain from the first hairpin, this decision was easy, we would continue along the road, and opt for the shorter bushwhack.
200 vertical feet of bushwhacking later, we reached the peak, and the second CP. Pausing while we punched our passport, we had brief views thru the cloud back down to the lake, and could see the start line.
CP3 was back down the way we had come, veering slightly to the right to hit the south end of Resort Creek Lake. Going down was almost harder than going up, as by now we were following a well trod path, or make that a well slid path, as the descent was a slick combination of ice, moss, mud, shrubs, and other assorted springy wet foliage. This made for an exciting descent with lots of laughter, cries, and a few screams as we slid our way back to the trail. Marna was wearing regular tennis shoes and felt for most of the race that she was on ice skates, but she did a great job keeping up with the team despite that challenge. (She now has a pair of trail running shoes on her REI list)
Along the trail and at the end of the lake a short bushwhack to CP3. Finding this one was very easy, but next we had to figure out where CP4 was?
Martin and Marna consulted the map, and figured out a bearing for us to follow through the brush, and we headed off. Just as we were thinking we had missed it, Martin found a trail, and there was our CP.
The trail headed in the right direction, so we used this to get us heading on towards CP5.CP5 was an easy run along the trails, so we quickly picked that one off.
At CP5 we had a chance to see that we were about 30 minutes behind the last team that came through. We received the additional map, where we almost expected to find another dozen or so CP's spread around the area. Fortunately there was just a single additional CP - CP5a, which was along the same trail about 3Km away. We headed off towards CP5a, and just around the next corner, the clouds opened briefly for another view of the lake, and a great picture opportunity.
From this point, we could see the next CP, and it looked like there was another team there. This was good, the team in front of us was now in sight. We had a team behind us, and another visible in front.The chase was on.
On we ran, towards CP5. As we got closer, the weather took a turn for the worse, the clouds rolled in, it started raining, and the visibility went from miles to meters in a few minutes. Disregarding the weather, we ran on towards CP5a. Our pace slowing to a hike as we turned up hill again. We ended up hiking past this one, as the visibility made it difficult to see that we had reached our attack point. Once we realized we had gone too far (easy to tell as all foot prints ahead of us ended), we back tracked, and Michelle quickly found the CP. It was off the road to the left, on a steep pitch with loose, rocky and muddy soil.
Now for a hard choice between staying on the trail, and heading back down the way we came, or bushwhack straight down the hill?
If we had been faster on foot, then retracing our steps would have been a good option, but due to our slow speed, the bushwhack looked a better option, and considerably more fun.
We could see that several other teams had chosen this option, so after looking for the best way in; we plunged down the hill, for another slippery descent.
After what seemed like an eternity of getting whacked in the face by wet bushes, we emerged on the frontage road for a short run to CP6, in the same location as CP1.
The ice on the road was all melting now, as the rain was now continuous, and everything, us included was getting soaked. We were ringing out our muddy gloves frequently and battling to get them put back on again. Michelle made her way through 3 different pairs, wondering each time why she didn?t put her shell on, to stop the gloves from getting repeatedly soaked.
We needed to warm up, so Marna suggested a run, and we jogged of to CP6. With CP6 punched in our passports, it was a short leg to CP7.
After finding CP7, we headed to CP8, which didn?t look too bad, but turned into a nasty bushwhack either along the back of the creek, or thru nasty brush. We chose to use the road as a catching feature, and headed north until we hit that, coming out right at the parking area for Gold creek pond. Then we hiked South down the creek until we found the CP.
CP9 was an easy run along the road, and up the trail. CP10 was a short hike up the hill, but was another easy find. It felt good checking a few more off.
CP11 was Don's cabin, and to get there we had a nice steep muddy descent down the hill, and then had to navigate the streets of the Gold Creek community to find CP11. We received a hospitable welcome, but decided not to stop for hot chocolate, or we may never start up again!
Next we headed to the ropes, which was a short traverse / zip line across the creek.
Everyone was getting cold now, after waiting around for the whole team to cross, so we quickly stashed our harnesses, and head of due West towards CP12.
By now the trail was well marked, so we followed along, and easily found CP12.
CP13 - The last CP, and then home.
No trails to get to this, we had to bushwhack the whole way, except that there was a trail heading in the right direction. We followed this, but it brought us down to the creek, rather than onto the trail we where looking for, so we followed the creek for a bit, ending up alternating between travelling along the creek bed, and hiking back up into the woods.
On one of these trips back into the woods, Shannon found a trail, so we followed this, looking for something obvious to tell us we where close to the CP. There weren?t any obvious attack points, other than looking for rising ground on our right.
This was quite difficult to see as the lay of the land was obscured through the trees, and the mist and rain. But we continued along the trail, and shortly after passing a house in the woods, I noticed that it was getting very steep to the right. This looked like our peak!
After checking the map again, this looked good, so we struck of towards the peak. The initial approach was very steep and slippery with a frozen ice covered ground, so we headed a little further North, and took an easier approach. At the summit, perched atop the highest point, was our CP!
Next stop - The Finish!
However we still had to get back to the frontage road. The obvious and faster route would have been back the way we came to the trail and from there straight to the road. However after some discussion, we decided for the slower, but more direct route down the South West side of the hill, along the creek from Mardee Lake, and pick up the frontage road there.
We had some fun going down hill, but not as much as we did skirting along the creek, crossing it a couple of times, and then finally we saw see the frontage road, but we need to cross the Beaver Pond in our path. We opted for 4 different approaches to crossing this. Shannon went first, and waded across a section that was 4-6 inches deep. Martin was next, opting to cross the beaver dam. Michelle and I opted for the direct route, and waded through the pond. The freezing water reaching the tops of my thighs! Mike and Marna chose the intelligent route, and found the path around the other end of the pond!
The finish line was in sight, we just had 2 miles of road to cover, which we did pretty quickly, and arrived back at Hyak Lodge to a tremendous reception.
We weren?t last, by one team. Later we also found that at least one team hadn?t found all the CP's, so now we have to wait for the official results to figure our position. Latest information tells us there were a few others, so our eyes will be firmly on the Trioba website for the official results.
It?s just a flesh wound - Red team will be either first or second in class.
It?s just a flesh wound - Blue team will be 7th in class or higher?
Thanks to Trioba for putting on another awesome race, and arranging such perfect weather for us.
Thanks Don for arranging such an interesting, and challenging course.
Thanks team for providing such great company during the race.
Cheers - Steve
Ps. Thanks to Michelle for the corrections