Raid The North 2007
Published by Adam Doti July 4th, 2007 in Adventure Racing
The below race notes/report were written by Brian and Melissa. They are so zonked from the event that a full race report won't be coming out for a while. So a little something to wet your appetite. Enjoy.
-Adam
* * *
We're all recovering. Different things each ail us. Swamp rash is the one thing we all have in common. It's a bacteria found in mossy, wet, swampy areas such as BC. It causes small pimple-like spots and its spreads. Yuck! In lieu of a race report, I'm going to outline of the most pivotal experiences.
The planning for this race was INSANE! We've never had to plan and re-plan sooo many things about a race…ever. Everything from various and constantly changing gear drop bags and boxes to the course itself. The fact that we only had one misplaced gear situation was amazing! And even then, we were able to deal.
The danger in this race was WAY more than I expected. Doing these kinds of races, one naturally expects that there will be chances for injury and even death. The death aspect was more present at points. Specifically, during the most epic trek of our lives. See below.
Trek #1—to hell and back. We completed this trek in 57 hrs. Yea, FIFTY-SEVEN hours. For various reasons, we got off course and got caught in cliffed-out and fog-blinding conditions that trapped us on one peak. There were sooo many times we were in situations on the high peak and the surrounding ridges were one slip and we fall hundreds of feet straight down. The margin for error was zero. I was scared shitless too many times to count. Seriously. At the end of the day, we as team fought that situation and prevailed. We learned more about ourselves as individuals and as a team. And we grew even closer than ever.
Lastly, I want to thank my teammates for supporting the team and me. Melissa's toughness when dealing with some painful injuries late in the race was balls out! And her enthusiasm and spirit is unmatched. Mike's leadership and experience proved to save our lives during Trek #1 and was invaluable throughout the entire race. I'll never forget it. And Will's navigation and creative thinking was awesome!!
- brian
This race was the most insane thing I have ever done. Someone summed it up by saying that to be a good adventure racer you just have to be hard to kill ... they tried really hard to make us good racers! We all found religion after 48 hours with no food, and Mike officially retired about 17 times. 3 people were air lifted off the mountain and only 4 teams completed the entire course, that should give you an idea of the intensity of the race.It's hard to explain the feeling of traversing a 45 degree snow cliff in running shoes, or watching your team mate sliding down a glacier with no ice axe, or bush wacking through dense forest for 8 hours and moving 4 miles.
The highlight for me was the incredible team work and courage we all displayed. Several teams completely fell apart but the Dirty Avocados put on a very proud show and maintained a sense of humor when all we wanted to do was crumple into a heap and burst into tears. I know it's not just me who felt like that!
Now that the race is over, life is slowly getting back to normal. Brian is looking forward to a visit from Dave The Rave, a Charlotte Island resident who befriended us and let us use his shower. The trade off is that he'll be visiting the Bay Area in the not too distant future and is hankering for a space on Brian's couch. Mike looks like the Swamp Monster with a very attractive rash in some very attractive places. Will got super sick and sounds like a 90 year old on dope, or maybe it was his nightingale singing that did that. I'm faring well with a couple of cuts and bruises but we're all looking forward to racing together again soon.
Awesome job team, I'm proud to have been part of it.
- melissa
We're all recovering. Different things each ail us. Swamp rash is the one thing we all have in common. It's a bacteria found in mossy, wet, swampy areas such as BC. It causes small pimple-like spots and its spreads. Yuck! In lieu of a race report, I'm going to outline of the most pivotal experiences.
The planning for this race was INSANE! We've never had to plan and re-plan sooo many things about a race…ever. Everything from various and constantly changing gear drop bags and boxes to the course itself. The fact that we only had one misplaced gear situation was amazing! And even then, we were able to deal.
The danger in this race was WAY more than I expected. Doing these kinds of races, one naturally expects that there will be chances for injury and even death. The death aspect was more present at points. Specifically, during the most epic trek of our lives. See below.
Trek #1—to hell and back. We completed this trek in 57 hrs. Yea, FIFTY-SEVEN hours. For various reasons, we got off course and got caught in cliffed-out and fog-blinding conditions that trapped us on one peak. There were sooo many times we were in situations on the high peak and the surrounding ridges were one slip and we fall hundreds of feet straight down. The margin for error was zero. I was scared shitless too many times to count. Seriously. At the end of the day, we as team fought that situation and prevailed. We learned more about ourselves as individuals and as a team. And we grew even closer than ever.
- That trek included two nights. The second night, instead of pushing through most of the night like the first, we decided to make camp. We had been out of food for more than a day and were all cold and completely wet. We needed help. The race staff couldn't help so we had to deal. We improvised with shelter and fire and got through the night.
- One instance during that trek that I'll never forget is when the race staff radioed instructions to us to descend down a nearby snow-covered gulley to a point below where we should be able to find some deer trails. However, when we approached what we hoped was the right gulley we couldn't see the run-out. It was socked in with fog. Do we trust our instructions and hope there is not a 500 ft drop or even a water fall (which we could hear) on the other side of that fog? We had to. We had no other choice. Those first few steps through that fog bank were the scariest moments of my life. I still get chills thinking about it. Once we could see into the gulley we realized it was steep as shit! Walking down (on snow) would be dicey. So we tried a controlled glissade. That worked…kind of. First Melissa slipped and slide FAST into Mike and they both spun out of control until they could self arrest. Holy shit how are we going to do this safely, I thought! Then I slipped and sped towards the wall of the gulley, slammed into the wall and dropped into a crevasse/crack between the snow and the wall. Feeling OK, I was able to crawl out and we all slowly then proceeded down to the exit point. We then trekked until we got cliffed out…AGAIN! Again, as team we pulled together and supported each other and eventually made it out fine.
- Another epic section was the kayak portage. After a short paddle, we had to portage our two inflatables 6 or so miles through some tight trail, but mostly bushwhacked through rolling terrain and then descended down some sketchy rivers and ravines. If that wasn't enough, we decided to deflate the boats and rig some sort of backpack system. Will and I each carried a boat on our backs…for EIGHT hours!! Simply torture.
- Overall, the trekking was unbelievable; the paddling was amazing; the biking was OK. The navigation was very challenging and the weather was constantly shifting and challenged us in various ways.
Lastly, I want to thank my teammates for supporting the team and me. Melissa's toughness when dealing with some painful injuries late in the race was balls out! And her enthusiasm and spirit is unmatched. Mike's leadership and experience proved to save our lives during Trek #1 and was invaluable throughout the entire race. I'll never forget it. And Will's navigation and creative thinking was awesome!!
- brian
This race was the most insane thing I have ever done. Someone summed it up by saying that to be a good adventure racer you just have to be hard to kill ... they tried really hard to make us good racers! We all found religion after 48 hours with no food, and Mike officially retired about 17 times. 3 people were air lifted off the mountain and only 4 teams completed the entire course, that should give you an idea of the intensity of the race.It's hard to explain the feeling of traversing a 45 degree snow cliff in running shoes, or watching your team mate sliding down a glacier with no ice axe, or bush wacking through dense forest for 8 hours and moving 4 miles.
The highlight for me was the incredible team work and courage we all displayed. Several teams completely fell apart but the Dirty Avocados put on a very proud show and maintained a sense of humor when all we wanted to do was crumple into a heap and burst into tears. I know it's not just me who felt like that!Now that the race is over, life is slowly getting back to normal. Brian is looking forward to a visit from Dave The Rave, a Charlotte Island resident who befriended us and let us use his shower. The trade off is that he'll be visiting the Bay Area in the not too distant future and is hankering for a space on Brian's couch. Mike looks like the Swamp Monster with a very attractive rash in some very attractive places. Will got super sick and sounds like a 90 year old on dope, or maybe it was his nightingale singing that did that. I'm faring well with a couple of cuts and bruises but we're all looking forward to racing together again soon.
Awesome job team, I'm proud to have been part of it.
- melissa
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