Discussion: WPER 2012

The Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race kicked off early this morning in Punta Arenas, Chile with a relatively easy 5 hr bike ride along the coast to the kayak put-in where teams will paddle across the Strait to Tierra del Fuego. I'm already jealous.
What's everyone think of the course this year? The 147 km trek looks like 'fun' to me.

Hope the weather is OK for the kayak sections. Course looks fun to me, but anywhere down there would be fun. That big treck will be hard having to take big packs for the food you will need always makes things hard.

FYI it is the Patagonia Expedition Race this year. No Wenger which is to bad. The first team is out all ready.

It was the big trek in the Darwin Range that caught my (envious) eye as well. Looks amazing!

From the small map I see, the monster ~150K trek follows much of the same route back in 2011 (from CP12-17 looks the same). Most teams (like us) estimated 3 or 4 days max to do that 'short' of a trek but almost all the teams ran out of food as it was at least a full day longer than expected. I think some teams were out there a week. I recall the 2nd place swiss team being dangerously out of food for over 30hrs. As expected most of the team withdrawals were on this trek as well.

Returning teams from that race, like YS/GJ, East Wind and Toumas from Ulkoilun Maailma, will know which passes to push for during daylight and which ones to just bed down until light. None of the Addidas team from 2011 is there now. That knowledge could be key in the late stages of the race.

I am sooo jealous! Most incredible race I've ever done by far. Can't wait to follow along and see those great PER photos.

I was thinking that with 10 CP's along the long trek one of them would have a team gear bin with food. Of course if you under-estimated how long it will take to complete and failed to put enough in the bin to begin with its not going to help.

I would doubt a drop off. I know there is a remote rappel at CP11 and then a river crossing (tyrolean traverse) at CP12. CP12 has the possibility of a drop, I believe there is a road somewhere near there. After CP12 back to remote mountain valleys and passes all the way to the TA. Our trek was almost identical with no drops. Our 40L packs were completely stuffed and weighing a massive amount for the trek due to food.

The lack of GPS tracking and the poor quality of updates to the website, facebook and twitter is really starting to get to me!

Does anyone have links to any blogs or anyone on the ground tweeting about the race?

Sleepmonsters for the daily update as well as the PER twitter and facebook sites. Four Continents and the Finnish team both have facebook sites as well but I think they're just summarizing info on their teams from the same sources.

There was a mid-trek bin drop at CP11 supported by a boat last year I think. When we were stuck at CP10 they shuttled the Danes and Eastwinds bins up to us there via 'copter. They would have brought ours too but it was too big to fit on board.

I found this one: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Asw-h...

Nice find...

A member of NorCal has forgot to pack their trekking shoes for the long trek from CP9 to CP19 and will have to do it in bike shoes. With any luck their feet are numb by now.

Must have only brought one pair and left it at CP8 TA. I hope they aren't rigid racing shoes or it will be a very painful (and likely short) trek.

From what I can tell the race has been pretty clean and straightforward so far. Biking seems to be on roads and the first trek not too difficult. I always envision this race as a slow moving battle to keep going (similar to RTNX last year). Doesn't seem like they have had much of that this year. Maybe the long portage. Guess all of that toughness is packed in to this upcoming trek.

Anyone else think its odd that teams will cover more distance on foot than on their bikes?

I think the foot travel is usually longer than bike travel for this race. There just isn't that many roads there. I would agree it does 'seem' pretty straight forward so far.

The Dancing Pandas are very close to missing the cut-off at CP8 according to aadaa's spreadsheet link and the cut-offs published on one of Rob Howard's updates at Sleepmonsters.

Rigid shoes may be mitigated somewhat by soft ground. If it's like our long trek I felt like I was walking in a bouncy castle for 3 days... with no bounce, just sink... unlike the other time I spent 3 days in a bouncy castle that had rebound :-)

I'm surprised by the number of checkpoints. Has that become the norm? In 2009 both the 55 km trek and the 120km trek had no CP's just a start and finish.

Must be the norm now, when we did it in 2010 the trek was near identical to this years; a few less CP's but still 7 or 8 during the monster 4 to 5-day trek.

I couldn't imagine doing that trek in bike shoes with some of the passes we had to make...

Any post race personal accounts out there?

Thanks, rderunner, that was a great read.

Gear Junkie/Yogaslackers
http://gearjunkie.com/patagonian-expedition-race-r...