Adventure Race (Expedition Oregon) 16:00:00 [3]
Leg 1 - Snowshoe.
The race started with a 32km snowshoe leg and as expected, teams were tightly packed in a Conga line heading up the mountain. We managed to go without snowshoes on the packed snow up until Check Point (CP)1, on the frozen / slushy lake, and then opted to throw them on.
Weather was absolutely perfect. Sunny, no wind. A great day to be in the mountains. As we approached the top of Maiden Peak, the view began to open up and what a view it was!
Even though we were not necessarily the fastest descending the peak in snowshoes, we must have taken the right route as the teams that were ahead of us, now were passing us again. Descending was a combination of glissading and bum-sledding. After a couple broken trekking poles, we made it to the bottom and were able to throw our snowshoes on our packs. By this time, I think most of us were either out of water or very close to it and were fully exposed in the sun heading up the manzanita-jammed hillside. Oh the fun we had… But having said that, manzanita has nothing on rhododendron bushwhacking... Once at the top, had a quick chat with Around the Bend Racing and then headed down to replenish our water before making our way to the pack rafting Transition Area (TA).
Leg 2 - Pack raft / Trek
We left the TA in the pack rafts knowing we would have a couple hours of daylight and hoped that we could get a couple of the CPs in the lava field before it got dark. The wind picked up a little bit while crossing Davis Lake but landed the pack rafts just before dark. Let’s just say that moving along the lava field with huge packs on our backs was less than ideal… you never knew if a rock was going to shift when you stepped on it. We did get a couple CPs before darkness set in and then the long slog to CP 9 began. Words cannot describe how agonizing slow going this was. Every few minutes you would hear someone stumble or fall and it would be followed by a ‘Are you okay?’… I did not envy Mike having to navigate this portion. It was featureless and can only imagine that is would be similar to navigating on the moon… actually the moon may be more hospitable. We overshot it a little bit but Mike and Anna worked together to relocate us and we ‘quickly’ doubled back to pick it up and finally made our way off the lava field. Let’s just say that lava rock is a great exfoliant because by the end, a layer of skin had been worn from our fingers along with a thousand micro cuts.
After a short trek along a nice, flat gravel road, we were now facing Wikiup Reservoir just before the sun came up and it was cold! We were quick to put on warm gear and our dry suits before working on the packrafts. The TA took a little longer as the pack raft valves were frozen and needing some ‘coaxing’. We launched just as the sun was coming up.