Training Log Archive: Bash

Packing, drying, throwing out, giving away, napping, walking, chatting, eating, drinking coffee, eating more, cheering MBR at the closing ceremony... Another delicious dinner and great conversation with our Canadian "family" as we celebrated our terrific experience in this spectacular area.

Sadly, no accommodation available on Easter weekend so we spent our final night sleeping on the gritty floor of the TA area and using washrooms that Mr. Funderstorm declared "unfit for terrorists".

TIERRA VIVA
6-day expedition adventure race, part of the AR World Series
Villa Traful, Northern Patagonia, Argentina
March 26-31
Team Tree Huggers - Paul Hingorani, Chad Spence, Vince Trudelle, Barb Campbell

I was researching March backpacking trips in Patagonia when Tierra Viva came onto my radar. My criteria for international adventure races include spectacular scenery, no silly race disciplines, and minimal risks from infected ticks or poisonous snakes. This race fit the bill. Also, the timing was perfect since I'd be home in plenty of time to prepare for the 168-km Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc in August.

Warning: This race report is detailed so I can refer back to it. Unless you're an adventure racing afficionado - or my parents - you may prefer to just scroll through the photos. :)

To summarize for the photo scrollers, this was a beautiful region of Argentina, the organizers treated us very well, the central camp race format simplified logistics considerably with the trade-off that it felt more like a stage race, the treks were tough and spectacular, some of the biking was very scenic but the bumpy roads rattled our bodies, and the paddling was beautiful with simple navigation on very long lakes. Our team completed the majority of the race - about 450 km - but stopped on the 5th day when the weather turned and a teammate was feeling rough. I'm grateful for the experience and look forward to spending more time in Patagonia.

And now the more detailed version...
________________________________

As the cliché says, getting to the start was half the battle, and I've already written up that half-battle with photos. Part 1 of my report finished a few hours before the race.
http://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_920/per...

Here's the landscape around the quiet village of Villa Traful where the race started and finished, and where the central camp was located. It looked like we might have to climb some hills. :)





This one's for you, Sally.



Race HQ was in the middle of the village.





Our central camp area was in a building half a kilometer away. Very civilized.







On the eve of the event, we got a general overview of the course. There would be five stages and we would return to the central camp after each one.

1) Kayak 36K

2) Bike 60K, Trek 35K, Bike 60K

3) Bike 80K, Trek 36K, Bike 84K, Kayak 32K, Trek 20K, Bike 55K

4) Trek 45K

5) Bike 14K, Trek 30K, Bike 14K

Some of these numbers proved more accurate than others but since I haven't measured our real distances, I'll just go along with them. We received our Leg 1 map of Lago Traful without CPs marked. They would be finalized on race morning based on the weather, thus we couldn't do any map work before the race. This, along with our two days of race preparation plus the easy logistics of the central camp, meant that we had little else to do but try to get a decent sleep. As an orienteer accustomed to getting my maps on the clock, I was happy. The race was set to start at 12 noon, and as a night owl, I liked this too. :)

LEG 1 - PADDLE, PADDLE AND PADDLE SOME MORE
Kayak 36K

An hour before the race, a master map with CPs was posted at Race HQ, and we drew them on our maps. It worked this way for every leg. There were no written instructions but we got verbal instructions from race staff, and these varied a lot depending on who happened to be around. Our paddle started at Villa Traful near the southeast corner of the map and went counterclockwise to pick up CPs.



Leg 1 would not require any real navigation since all 20 teams would stay within sight as we paddled to the CPs. With slow plastic sit-on-top kayaks, it would be a hard physical effort though.

Paul was in the stern of my kayak, and Chad paddled in the stern for Vince.



The Milton Basement Racers were ready.



We had perfect weather and spectacular scenery.





A few minutes before the start, the instructions changed. We now had to take our paddle gear bags with us. Ugh - we'd crammed them with extra food, dry socks and bottled water for later in the race. After ditching the water, we strapped the duffel bags onto our kayaks. Extra ballast!

The start of a long race is always a little surreal. You know you're about to enter a completely different world where basic needs like sleep and bathroom breaks will become a subject of negotiation, both with yourself and with teammates. You know you'll get too hot at some point; you know you'll be too cold. On this side of the start line lies my normal, comfortable, independent life. On that side of the line, I will instantly become part of a little family that is always together, always moving forward and thinking about how to spend every minute. Naturally, I spent a few of these precious minutes taking photos. :)



Here's our boat.



And here's Vince.





The boys were outpacing us so Paul and Vince changed places at the second CP, which evened things out. I put up our Windpaddle sail when we started heading east but we would have needed a strong wind for it to help much. We tried it for awhile, and I was able to paddle awkwardly behind the sail but we eventually hauled it down. Most of the teams around us tried their sails too but no one seemed to have much success, regardless of sail area or shape.

This was our rig.



Triangular shapes were also popular. They would interfere less with the bow paddler - if they didn't fall on his or her head when the wind died!



There were conflicting sets of instructions at the finish of the paddle. We were told to complete our transition to mountain bike gear at the central camp before sending someone to check in at Race HQ and get the next set of maps. Other teams did it in the reverse order. As a result, our paddle ranking should have been higher - somewhere in the middle third. The Milton Basement Racers are actually *proud* to have been the second last team off the water since it shows how well they performed for the rest of the race!

LEG 2 - BACK TO VILLA LA ANGOSTURA
Bike 60K, Trek 35K, Bike 60K

We started Leg 2 around 6 p.m. with a couple of daylight hours left.





The 60K bike ride would take us back to Villa La Angostura where we'd stayed before the race, following the same hilly roads our bus had taken yesterday. This map includes the entire race area so it's good for context. We went west on a rutted gravel road, then headed south into town, eventually reaching a paved road.



Perhaps now is a good time to describe the Typical Tierra Viva Bike Ride. We did 320K of riding like this so there is no need to describe it each time:

1) Climb, climb, climb.
- 1a) Or sometimes climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb.

2) Descend on washboard roads with every body part getting jackhammered, feeling grateful that no one on our team plans to expand their family since that may no longer be possible.

3) Repeat.

There was no trail riding but between the mountainous terrain and the poor road surfaces, we needed our technical skills. There was very little flat terrain.



We had to carry trekking shoes when we biked, and we were always out for a long time so our packs were heavy. This is one of our friends from the Italian team carrying a typical-sized load.



The scenery ranged from quiet roads surrounded by trees to spectacular mountain vistas. Because our team did most of our riding at night, we seldom knew which was which - although it often appeared that the shoulder of the road dropped off into a black abyss so I steered clear of the edge.



The race staff warned us about dangerous drivers; Argentina has a high rate of traffic accidents. I am famously afraid of road biking but nearly every vehicle that passed us showed great respect, reducing their speed and giving us lots of space. Back home, I'd estimate that maybe 5-10% of cars are as cautious. The main problem with the traffic was dust. The fine volcanic ash that settled over this area two years ago got stirred up easily and hung in the air. I've never done so much riding while holding my breath!

About 40 minutes into our ride, the Milton Basement Racers flew by us and stayed ahead for the rest of the race. Good on them! (I think this photo may show a different team but it's close enough. :) )



Compared to the guys on my team, biking was my weak discipline. If I do another southern hemisphere race during the Canadian winter, I'll have to train differently. Since all of our biking was on roads, and my teammates had 29ers, they rolled faster anyway. On top of that, I had three sleepmonsters episodes in the race, all on the bike, which I'll need to figure out .

Chad and Vince were amazing for the first couple of hours today, pushing and towing to keep us all together. It felt like a 24-hour race pace to me though so I enjoyed it thoroughly while it lasted but we didn't end up towing much in the rest of race! Paul was often the hero who stayed and motivated me when I dropped back. It was fun today since the teams hadn't spread out yet so we had people to chase.

We rode into Villa La Agostura around 9:45 p.m. and dropped our bikes at the CP at the La Barrica cafe in town. Most food places were closed but luckily we found the Empanada Lady getting ready to shut down. We bought all her remaining empanadas (baked ham turnovers) after a battle of hand signals over fast microwave heating (us) vs. proper oven heating (her).

We trekked on the highway out of town then took a trail north into the mountains. The first CP was on an open hilltop right on a trail bend so it would be a good warm-up before some of the famously tough Patagonian bushwhacking. The problem was, the trail didn't go anywhere near the hilltop but it did keep going up toward a higher summit, which took awhile to figure out in the darkness.

There were no passports or SI cards on the treks. Each team had to get photos showing all four team members beside the CP sign, usually in two groups with different photographers and preferably on two cameras just in case. This meant that we usually took four photos per CP. The CP signs were small, reflective on one side only, and easy to miss if they were tucked behind a rock.



Then we crashed down to the trail through a kilometer of truly nasty bush. Young bamboo is now on my blacklist! We were aiming for an indistinct trail so we weren't even sure when we were done. We followed the wrong trail for awhile before descending farther to the right trail. Cattle make lots of informal trails in this region just like the deer in Palgrave so it's not uncommon for a faint trail to just peter out.

We trekked through the forest for the rest of the night, often losing the trail and fanning out to look for it. Shortly before dawn, we stopped for a 20-minute nap, then we climbed up to the next CP high on a mountain ridge. The scenery was magical as the light of the full moon shone on the fine volcanic dust - like the surface of the moon - and then the sky turned purple and pink as the sun neared the horizon. The ridge was sandy with loose rock, and it got cliffy in a few places - a little scary.







It was mandatory to wear bike helmets on the treks because of all the loose rock - not that they would help if the rock was much bigger than a golf ball.





From this CP, we just needed to head back to the highway to Villa La Angostura, past the Cerro Bayo ski area.



It was a steep descent with loose rock, a thick layer of volcanic ash and occasional cliffs but at least we could see where we were going now.



It's hard to tell but this was the view down a very steep slope. It was autumn in Patagonia, which felt wrong since we'd come from the Canadian winter. Check out the volcanic dust - like ankle-deep sand.



We started following a creek down but it was taking us the wrong way and getting cliffy, which was something Sacha had warned us about, so we climbed out of the gully and bushwhacked down through open forest to the main valley where we hit the river and a major hiking trail to the ski resort.







Even though we wore gaiters, we had to shake the volcanic ash out of our shoes after the long descent.





Back to La Barrica to pick up our bikes. It was early afternoon and we ordered a quick meal before riding back to Villa Traful. We were going to be riding on roads for most of the night so there was no urgency to make use of daylight. The roads were less dusty at night because there were fewer cars, and the bike nav was straightforward, even in the dark.

We got to enjoy some views from the highway this afternoon although the traffic was heavy.



Suddenly, I yelled and hit the brakes hard while Chad was right behind me. The poor guy just missed crashing into me - sorry! :) A long section of the pavement ahead of me was littered with broken beer bottles. I wonder how many teams had to stop here. Vince escaped disaster but Paul's tire went flat instantly.



My feelings were torn between, "Oh, that's too bad" and "What a nice, soft place for a nap. I hope they're not too quick."

We went through an extensive, dusty construction zone on the highway - less fun in the daylight with workers running machinery and traffic rumbling past.



Then we were back on the familiar, hilly 27K road that followed Lago Traful back to Villa Traful.

LEG 3 - ARE WE THERE YET?
Bike 80K, Trek 36K, Bike 84K, Kayak 32K, Trek 20K, Bike 55K

Vince and I checked in and picked up the Leg 3 maps.



This time we would ride east to Confluencia then north across a high mountain pass, Paso Cordoba, before arriving at a camp on the banks of Lago Filo Hua-Hum. We would do a trek from there, then ride around to Lago Falkner for trek and kayak sections that we could do in either order, then we would bike back to Villa Traful - and yes, we would ride that same 27K section of jackhammer road we knew so well. We'd be gone for at least 2 days.



We arrived at the central camp at dusk, packed for the next leg and set a 2-hour alarm. Between the lights in the building and a sudden urge to Leukotape my feet, I only slept for about 75 minutes but the boys did better.

We left before 10 p.m., knowing we would spend most of the night on our bikes. As we left town, I heard footsteps beside us and heard Chad gently scolding an animal, "OK, that's enough. You go home now." I turned to see a horse trotting along beside him! This was a change from the cattle we sometimes met in the road.

I started seeing occasional large spiders on the road. As one must always do with such things, I confirmed their existence with a teammate to ensure they weren't hallucinations.



Although we didn't get to see it until our bus ride to the airport, the scenery along the lake was spectacular. All we knew was that we were continually climbing up and down big hills as moonlight sparkled on the water below.

Vince was out in front when he suddenly stopped partway up a hill. His light pointed back toward us. Strange. Then Chad halted abruptly, and Paul and I pulled up beside him. "Rockslide!" he said in awe. Sure enough, good-sized rocks were pummelling the section of road between us and Vince, sending up a big dust cloud! Paul and I had the same thought at the same moment... Let's get out of here! We rode back 30 m and watched the finale from there.

Vince was wide-eyed when we rode up. "A wild boar came out of the forest right beside me!" We'd been warned to steer clear of these ill-tempered beasts. Luckily for Vince, this boar wanted nothing to do with him and dashed up the crumbling slope, setting off the big rockslide.



The road got flatter as we followed Rio Traful to Confluencia, then we turned west onto the road toward Paso Cordoba. In case anyone is wondering, it was mandatory to go all the way to Confluencia and illegal to swim the river as a shortcut to the road leading to the pass.

We started hitting stretches of volcanic dust that grabbed our wheels like sand. We wove around constantly looking for the best track. We were riding along the boundary of Lanin National Park and even in darkness, the full moon revealed wild volcanic rock formations all around us. I would have loved to do this ride in daylight like MBR did - although we were lucky to do most of our treks in daylight so it was a fair trade.

My photo below was from the bus ride to the airport where we travelled south of this park on a different road. I've also "borrowed" this wonderful photo by Martin Papalia.





We climbed steadily - gently at first, and then we started going up switchbacks with steep hairpin turns. We finally reached the lookout at the top - which we only knew because there was a parking lot by a wooden deck - then we flew down the other side. It was a loose gravel road with tight turns, a bumpy, rat-a-tat-tat washboard surface, and steep drop-offs alongside so I kept my speed in check. This would be a bad place to crash or skid off the edge, especially in the dark.

After awhile, I saw the boys in the middle of the road with their packs off, putting on warm layers with numb fingers. We wore nearly everything we had. The air temperature was in the low single digits, and the wind chill on the descent made it crazy cold. We seemed to go down forever, which would normally be a nice reward after such a big climb but the road rattled our bodies so much that we just wanted it to be over. Sitting on my bike saddle had become less pleasant, and I overheard the boys sharing a few private comments about their nether regions.

We entered the park and arrived at the CP on Lago Fila Hua-Hum. These aren't my photos; we got there well before dawn.





This camp was a luxury resort by adventure racing CP standards. As soon as we arrived, a volunteer ushered us to a table for four and asked if we would like hot pasta and bread. Oh yes, we would! She pointed out the washroom building next door, which had showers. Some racers were sleeping on the floor in the dining area; others gave us weary smiles as they scarfed down their food. We checked the timesheet and were thrilled to see how well MBR was doing.

Leaving some gear behind with our bikes, we followed the road west from the camp. We had to visit two CPs above the treeline southwest of the lake, about 1000 meters higher than the camp. There were many route choices and I'd picked one close to the camp that minimized bushwhacking since we'd seen how slow that could be. It looked steep on the map but the terrain looked steep everywhere.

First light came just as we arrived at the planned starting point so we could see that we wouldn't be cliffed out - at least not on the first part of our ascent. It was steep and we had to grab tufts of vegetation as handholds while trying not to kick rocks onto one another.



It was like going up a staircase so we gained elevation quickly.



It was Day 3, and the racing was starting to take its toll. Amongst our team members there was a sore knee and assorted foot blisters. The boys had forgotten sunscreen for Leg 3, and I only had a small supply that wouldn't last everyone for two days. It got quite warm - mid-20s - but I stayed fully covered with long sleeves, the same Windstopper tights I'd worn during the cold night, trekking gloves and a brimmed hat to fend off the sun. I was warm but it wasn't as bad as I would have thought, and I survived better than usual in the heat.

After a few hours of climbing, we reached the treeline.





Then we emerged onto a mountain plateau with incredible views. It reminded me of our last trek at the Apex Race in Switzerland. We still had some distance to go across the plateau.











After 5.5 hours, we reached our first CP. It was tucked away on a forest edge, a little hard to find.



We emerged from the trees and purified drinking water at a stream (possibly the one that gave a couple of racers giardia!) Two other teams arrived, both of whom had left the camp before we did so I knew our route had been efficient. The Italian navigator asked me how we had come up since he didn't want to return to the camp by the same stream valley route they had taken. I explained what we'd done and as both teams headed into the trees to look for the hard-to-find CP, I wanted to get some space between us so we wouldn't have to show other teams the specifics of our route. We're not a fast team so we have to capitalize on small opportunities.

We made good time to the second CP on a rocky knob almost 3K away.













There were several route options to the road 1000 meters below with unknown difficulty in terms of bushwhacking and cliffs. All we knew for sure was that we'd reached the first CP faster than two other teams, and at least one of them wanted to descend by our route rather than returning the way they'd come. When we saw both teams approaching along the ridge, I made a quick call to stick with the same route down - relatively easy terrain that was familiar to us even though it was about 1 km longer and spent more time off-road. If we hurried, we could avoid showing others the good lines we'd found through the trees.

This didn't work out well. I didn't realize that my teammates weren't merely uncomfortable in the sun like I was; they were suffering. I felt energetic and wanted to use this opportunity to be strategic and try to move up the rankings but this meant moving quickly across the open plateau. Under the circumstances, a shady route with bushwhacking - no matter how slow - would have been better for the team.

The Italians caught up easily as our pace slowed on the plateau, and our teams ended up chatting and going down most of the way together since one of their team members was feeling the heat too. Paul felt light-headed for the last part of the descent. When we reached the road, Vince ran ahead to the camp and returned with cold Cokes - the most delicious drinks anyone has ever had. :)

We arrived at the camp after dark, and they were making fresh pizza. Yum - gooey, cheesy goodness. :) I was thinking we might need an extra long sleep here to revive Paul but it only took one slice of pizza and a Coke to return him to normal!



We took our second "long" sleep of the race after dinner - about 2.5 hours. Two teammates awoke on separate occasions before the alarm and thought it was time to get up. Given the trouble I have falling back asleep, I didn't get much rest. I think we left around 1:30 a.m.

The bike ride to the camp on Lago Falkner was shorter than advertised and nobody was complaining. We arrived in the dark. (Not my photo.)



Just a reminder. The camp was on the road between Lago Falkner and Lago Villarino.



From here, there was a kayak leg and a trek leg that both finished at the camp. We could do them in either order and we chose the mountain trek first so we would have daylight. Shortly before sunrise, we headed up, up, up.



There was a trail until we got above the treeline then we picked up the first CP by a stream, and it was mountain scrambling from there. In this pic, we were on our way up and over the ridge in the distance.



We were baking in the sun so we ducked into a tiny piece of shade while we waited to get the team together.





I was nervous on this climb with all that loose rock and sand. When I've been with mountain guides in areas like this, they've made us travel in parallel to avoid rockfall accidents but with other teams around, we didn't have that luxury. One teammate kicked down a large rock and fortunately, there was no one below. I took a slow, circuitous route to the top to avoid walking below any of my teammates. Or at least I *thought* I did but this photo proves that I didn't always succeed!



There were some race safety staff on the ridge, including Nuna the rescue dog. That's Lago Falkner down there, where we had started our day.



The pass was well worth the climb. We took a lunch break in the shade.







Here's what we had to go down. Once again, I stayed back and took a different line - this time to avoid kicking rocks onto people's heads.



As we approached the CP, we had a rare sighting of the Milton Basement Racers. They had already done the kayak section so they were well ahead of us. They looked good and it was great to see them!



They were doing the CPs in a different order so they'd spent some time looking for this one, which was tucked low behind a rock. Our verbal instructions had been more helpful than theirs since we were told to look beside rocks near the stream.



This is the pass we had come down from.



And this is where we were going next - to the right, skirting the base of the cliffs.



After that, we were treated to some of the most open forest we'd seen in Argentina.



We met another team at the next CP - a communications tower - and got a rare full team photo.



If you look *really* closely at this photo, you might see the other team's four lime green bike helmets as they trek across the plateau. And check out those clouds! Clearly, the weather was about to change.





A couple of teammates purified water for the long trek back to the camp.



The kayak section was a pair of out-and-backs. We paddled 12 km from the camp to the end of Lago Falkner and down a small river into Lago Nuevo where the CP was located at the far end. Then we paddled back past the camp and another 7 km through a river into Lago Villarino and down to its far end. It was close to 40K of paddling. Here are some helicopter views of Lagos Falkner and Nuevo.





Here's the view from the camp.



More professional pics. We didn't see much of this in daylight.





The funky clouds we'd seen earlier must have been a warning of the heavy wind that hit us shortly after we got on the water. It was hot when we started paddling in late afternoon but it would get below freezing overnight with wind chill so we were prepared with lots of warm clothing.



Luckily, the wind was at our backs, and this time the sail made a big difference. I just hung onto it for awhile as Vince paddled in the stern. Paul and Chad had their sail up too. The wind was strong enough that we worried about making progress upwind on our return paddle but on the bright side, we got to the end of the lake in no time.



When we landed on the east shore of Lago Nuevo, our first priority was to pull on our warmest paddling-at-night layers, even though we still had a few minutes of light to search for the CP. I was wearing neoprene vest and pants, light and expedition weight polypro tops, paddling jacket, rain pants, neoprene socks, Goretex shoes, toque, neoprene cap and thick neoprene gloves.

The wind died instantly when we started our return paddle, and the water stayed calm after that. Chad got chilled and I asked if he'd like to detour to the camp for a warm-up between the two lakes. He thought he'd feel better if he switched to paddling with Vince so we did that for the Lago Villarino portion. When we got to the far end, Chad was still chilly so Vince ripped arm and head holes in his emergency bag to make a fashionable foil robe for him.

In my boat, Paul was warm and paddling well as always until he started suffering from sleepmonsters in the last couple of kilometers. No matter what, it's difficult to make a big plastic sit-on-top kayak go where you want it to. Now try doing it when the person in the stern is incoherent! I talked non-stop for 30-40 minutes, trying to keep him awake and explaining in excruciating detail exactly what he had to do as we meandered toward camp. "We need to go to the right to avoid hitting that rock, which means you need to paddle harder on the left. Left. Left! LEFT!!" It turned out Vince was in the same situation with a sleepy Chad in the stern. I could relate since biking made me sleepy in this race!

As soon as we arrived at camp, Vince helped Chad get into his warm sleeping bag indoors while I took all the gear off both boats and started packing up. Paul got a nap too, and I got everyone bowls of hot pasta before we rode off on our bikes into the dark again.

The adrenaline that had fuelled me when two teammates were struggling vanished as soon as I started pedalling. The next couple of hours felt like endless climbing with my eyelids at half mast. At one point, I said (probably with a slur), "I'll need a quick nap at the top of the hill." I meant the hill I could see just ahead but it turned out the hill kept going as the road curved, and the guys kept on riding. I contemplated lying down right where I was, wild boars and all. But at last we hit a high point and collapsed on the volcanic ash. I don't think anyone set an alarm but we weren't there long since we were awakened by the lights of a passing team. :(

I still felt foggy after the nap but it helped when the sun rose and when Vince stayed with me on the familiar gravel road back to Villa Traful. We finished Leg 3 mid-morning on Day 5, just as Adidas Terrex crossed the finish line at the end of Leg 5 to win the race.

LEG 4 - YAY, NO BIKING!
Trek 45K

We picked up our maps for a long trek south of Villa Traful. Adidas Terrex came over to share information about the leg. It was great to meet world class racers who were so friendly and generous. They suggested that we tackle the three CPs in the reverse order of what they did because we might be able to see a better line into the second CP if we came from the east. That made sense. They warned us that it had been really slow going off-trail.

Volunteers told us to expect a 24-ish hour trek, which meant we would have no chance of doing Leg 5 before the cut-off the next afternoon. Even Leg 4 would be tight. Nobody could tell us whether completion of Legs 1-4 would be considered a ranked short course or whether we were already doomed to a DNF. I think we were about 9th of 20 teams at that point, and we just wanted to finish as much of the race course as possible.

We followed the back roads of the village to find the trail leading to the summit of Cerro Piedritas 1000 m above the village. What we didn't know was that the trail did not start in the location shown on the map, and the trailhead was, in the words of a top racer, "impossible to find" with the information we had. Some other teams received detailed directions to the trailhead with their maps but we weren't one of the lucky ones this time.

We picked up some trails that headed roughly south, then we went for a heinous, unplanned bushwhack. We should have bailed to the village right away and tried something else but it seemed so harmless at first. "I can see the summit we're headed for right up there, and the forest gets thinner as we go higher up. For now, it's easier to keep climbing but soon it should be easier to head east to the trail." I figure we'd lost 1 hr 40 min by the time we joined the trail partway up the mountain.



This is when the sunny weather we'd enjoyed all week ended abruptly. We'd been promised a cold, wet night and as the rain started, we pulled out our Goretex jackets for the first time in five days. Paul's neck was killing him from biking the bumpy roads, and it eventually got so sore that he tried carrying his pack on his chest. We each took some weight but he was still hurting. Until I saw this photo, I didn't realize how bad his neck must have felt.



We climbed a short distance above the treeline in blowing rain on a trail coated with hailstones. The summit was still well above us. Another team marched past us.



Vince stopped and, drawing on his emergency services experience, pointed out that we appeared to be making a classic mistake by heading deeper into the mountains for another 20 hours when night was falling, the temperature was dropping, we were wet, and a teammate was hurting already. Maybe we could visit the two CPs on trails, he suggested, but Adidas Terrex had warned us that the off-trail CP had taken them many hours - and we'd be doing it in the dark.

Until that moment, I was completely in the mindset of moving forward, helping teammates and dealing with any obstacles that stood in our way - but as soon as he said it, I knew he was right. I also believe that if one teammate has a serious concern about safety, that trumps everything. So there wasn't much debate. I may have shed a few quiet tears on the way down but, unlike our Apex experience, I felt that our team had raced well, and we were smart to stop when we did so there was no regret. The guys on our team have 8 kids between them so the most important thing is for them to go home healthy to their families.



After more than three hours of climbing, we turned back toward Villa Traful, which we could still see below us. We may have been out of the race but on the bright side, tonight we would sleep in a warm bed and eat a restaurant dinner.





We went down on the trail we should have taken all the way up from the village and realized that we would *never* have located the trailhead without specific directions from someone. It doesn't start where it's shown on the map, and it just looks like a minor side trail with a log blocking it off.

We got a finish line photo. No, we hadn't completed the course but this was our 5th day, and we'd raced 450 km. That had to be worth something!



Just as we arrived at Race HQ, Vince's adorable children ran up with huge smiles and hugs for Daddy. His wife Cathy had just arrived with them for a post-race vacation.



As it turned out, there were no warm beds to be had on Easter weekend so we spent the next two nights sleeping on the gritty concrete floor at the central camp - but we did have a couple of nice dinners out, and we got showers at Vince and Cathy's motel.



We spent hours packing. Paul had a little trouble closing his bike box at first.





During that first night of half-sleeping on the floor, I heard the Milton Basement Racers arrive, so I got up to congratulate them on their incredible 4th place sprint finish. They were just 10 minutes off the podium - what a great job! I was really excited for them.



You've come a long way, Tiny!



Here they are at the closing ceremony.



Final thoughts... I'd recommend Tierra Viva for people who are flexible enough to enjoy an expedition race that isn't a point-to-point journey. In fact, it would be a great first international expedition race to try because the central camp makes logistics so manageable. It's a beautiful part of the world, and the organizers treat international teams extra well. For a top team aiming to win, the inconsistency in verbal instructions could be frustrating so it might be worth chatting with organizers in advance about how to solve this problem. It should be easy enough. If you go, learn some Spanish since there were many occasions when we had to communicate with non-English speakers.

I was happy with my preparation for the paddling, mountain trekking and navigation components of the race. I needed more bike-specific fitness to ride all those hills, and I also need to solve the problem of biking putting me to sleep! That hasn't been a big problem before, and I'm thinking we probably just needed more sleep in the race.

I was happy with my gear choices. It's hard to single out any particular winners since I used so many items. Just to pick a few... My BashBlaster light worked perfectly - thanks, 'Bent. My Salomon WindStopper tights worked for warm days and cold nights. My Black Diamond UltraDistance trekking poles were essential for all the climbing we did. My Salomon XA Sky 30 pack held a ton of stuff inside and in its outside pockets. Long-fingered mountain bike gloves helped with gnarly bushwhacking. I'm still not tired of Honey Stinger Energy Chews. Etc.!

As with every expedition race, there were highs and lows but it was an amazing experience, and I am looking forward to the next time! :)

Tierra Viva 6-day expedition adventure race in Villa Traful, Argentina. Part of the Adventure Racing World Series.

It's a cliché but it's true... Getting to the start of a big adventure race is a huge part of the challenge. You need to line up teammates, book flights, find accommodations, figure out ground transportation, change currency, collect mandatory gear, decide what other gear you need, test it all, coordinate which teammate is bringing what, buy a compass that works where you're going, watch weather forecasts, check out maps, find an international phone plan, get a plug converter, tune your bike and take it apart, charge batteries, choose a few favourite race foods to take, make arrangements to be away from home, weigh your bags, take out gear and weigh your bags again, etc., etc.

Oh, and if any time is left, you need to train enough to be able to race for 500+ km through mountainous terrain. It would also help if you could log some extra hours of sleep in the weeks leading up to the race. Good luck with that.

There's never enough time but at least it's the same for everyone. The Tree Huggers arrived at Pearson Airport on Friday, March 22. I was short on sleep but otherwise as prepared as I could ever be.



Paul Hingorani, Barb Campbell, Vince Trudelle, Chad Spence

We had a nice flight routing to Argentina that included a dinnertime stop in Miami where we had Cuban food. I got my first chance to practise my limited Spanish with the servers. Had I known how little English we'd encounter in Argentina, I would have started brushing up my Spanish much sooner!



Naturally, Paul ordered the "I Love Lucy" special - not that he had any choice.

The long leg of our flight was Miami - Buenos Aires, and I got a few hours of decent sleep. One nice thing about travelling to South America is the lack of jet leg; we only turned our watches one hour ahead. We arrived in BA early on a Saturday morning and had to collect all our bags (4 bikes + 5 big duffel bags) and transfer from the international airport to the domestic one. Travellers are advised to allow 4 hours between flights since this is not an easy process. To make things simpler, I had sent our luggage dimensions to an airport limo company. They said they had reserved us a private mini-bus. It seemed a little expensive at $75/person but we really had no idea, and we wanted to stay all together with our luggage in a city with a reputation for crime.

It turned out they had reserved us a full-sized 48-seat bus! Lots of room for the transfer, which took the better part of an hour once we got going. All that room to spare and Paul *still* put his feet up on my row of seats while he was snoozing! ;)



The domestic airport in Buenos Aires is right in town by the ocean. We'd been cooped up indoors for the past day so we headed out to a small park across the road. The fishermen were busy.







The final leg of our journey was a 2-hour flight from Buenos Aires to San Carlos de Bariloche on the edge of the Andes. It was hot when we arrived and I worried that I'd packed the wrong stuff but it turned out that my cold weather gear saw plenty of use in the race.



The terrain looked dry and the mountains looked fairly tame with minimal vegetation. We were going to be OK.



During the drive from Bariloche to our accommodation in Villa La Angostura, the vegetation got thicker and the mountains got pointier. Uh oh, maybe we flatlanders were out of our league.



The race organization spoiled the international teams with two nights of free accommodation outside of Villa La Angostura, a resort town in the lakes region. The main Race HQ would be 60 km away in Villa Traful but it was only Saturday afternoon and we didn't need to be at HQ until Monday night.





We saw the Milton Basement Racers on their way into town to get some bike parts, and we made fashionably late dinner plans. After settling into our beautiful lakeside suite, we assembled our bikes. We would need to take them apart again for the trip to Villa Traful but this was a good place to test our bikes post-flight since there was a local bike shop if we needed it. I'd gotten some snafus out of my system at home so my bike went together easily, as did Vince's. Chad's bike was not working well after getting a new chain a few days before we left. Paul's chain arrived as an origami puzzle that took awhile for him and Vince to sort out.



While the boys played with bikes, I went for a short ride on dirt roads near the hotel. Thankfully, everything worked just fine.



We had our first of several dinners out with the Milton Basement Racers on Saturday night. I can't say enough about how great it was to share our Tierra Viva experience with friends; we were like a little Canadian family. Most of us were on the same page when it came to sharing bottles of Argentinian Malbec and drinking good strong coffee so we enjoyed several very nice restaurants together. :)



Chad Spence, Tim Grant, Barb Campbell, Andrew Reeder, Mike Simpson, Audrey Kelly, Vince Trudelle, Paul Hingorani

It was wonderful to wake up on Sunday morning and enjoy the lake view from the balcony with a cup of coffee (from my emergency stash of Starbucks Via) while the boys all slept until 10 a.m. There was a tree full of noisy birds nearby.



The balcony was a good place to be because as soon as I awoke, I covered my bed with piles of gear.



Our first priority on Sunday was to take the sample race kayak out for a short test paddle from the resort. Other teams were lining up for the kayak so we needed to be ready to grab it at the first opportunity. The boats were small so we wanted to practise attaching our big packs (in dry bags) to them.



Our MEC kayak seats clipped in as if they were made for these sit-on-top Atlantikayaks. Awesome! They're big but it was worth hauling them down to Argentina. I'd also brought foot straps made of webbing since built-in plastic foot rests don't always allow me to brace myself properly so I can paddle with my core.

After seeing how cold we got in sit-on-top kayaks at night at Apex, I was planning to wear neoprene this time. It's hard to get too overheated sitting in cold water while your teammate flings water at you with his paddle.





A brief stint in the stern of this kayak showed me that I probably shouldn't paddle stern in this race, which was unfortunate since I was probably the teammate with the most experience in the stern. The kayaks were slow and tracked poorly so if I were in the stern, I'd need to use a lot of upper body strength to steer to allow the bow paddler to focus on providing power, and with my bad rotator cuff, that would wreck me if I did it for hours on end.



Like most teams, we had brought sails in hopes of using them on the long lakes. Our gadgeteer Vince figured out a system of carabiners and webbing that would allow the bow paddler to use the sail and still do a little paddling.



Another team came down as we were testing the kayaks. Through some Spanish miscommunication, we thought they were Columbia Vidaraid but I can see now this was Karen's Aventura, a team from Colombia. On the right in this photo is Sacha, a young adventure athlete and outdoor store operator who did an awesome job as liaison to the English-speaking teams.



Having completed our kayak testing, we took the bus to town for lunch and food shopping. Unfortunately, the good grocery store wasn't open on Sundays so we didn't have great selection. Also, the good bike store wasn't open either, which was disappointing because Chad's bike had become unrideable, and we only had until Monday at noon to get it resolved. Some shops were open today but a lot of them were guarded by weekend security staff.



To my surprise, Villa La Angostura has a Salomon brand store! And yes, I bought something I'd never seen in Canada. :)



We had another great dinner with MBR on Sunday night. Stuffed lamb for me after a big steak the night before - and more Argentinian red wine, of course. There aren't a lot of vegetables here but it's a great place for a carnivore.

On Monday morning, Chad took the first bus into town so he could be waiting when the good bike store opened. Fortunately, they were able to sell him a new rear cassette that should work with his new chain, and Sacha was kind enough to install it. Chad was able to ride 9 km back to the hotel on hilly roads - phew, crisis averted.

At noon, the international teams were asked to be outside the hotel with all our gear.



I asked MBR to put on their "competitive tough guy" faces for this photo but apparently Andrew doesn't have one.



Then they posed "normally" - if one can ever say that about adventure racers. :)



Our team doesn't do "tough" at all!



We went to Villa Traful by mini-bus - lots of hills and plenty of opportunities to look at the forest. Sacha had warned us about a few things. Vegetation on the west side of hills was often easier for bushwhacking since thick bamboo tended to grow on the east side. He mentioned that some teams tried to follow creeks to avoid bushwhacking but that waterfalls often made the creeks impossible to follow for long, and the maps weren't detailed enough to indicate their locations. We'd read race reports that talked about the thick forest so we were prepared for some serious slogs.

The eruption of the nearby Puyehue volcano in 2011 had dropped a thick layer of dust-like ash on everything in the area. Sacha recommended lycra gaiters to keep the dust out of our shoes and suggested that we not use foot lube. Although we noticed the volcanic ash on our treks - like walking on a sandy beach - it was a bigger factor when we were biking on gravel roads since we would sometimes hit a section of ash that grabbed our tires like fine sand and made us skid. When cars went by, the fine dust flew up and remained suspended in the air for awhile.

Villa Traful is a small mountain village on the shore of Lago Traful. It is popular with tourists and has only a few facilities. I would love to spend some time here and just explore.





The central transition area for the race was in a large building used for sports.



Each team was assigned some floor space with a wall and table. By adventure race standards, it was luxury - a single, secure indoor location to set up our gear, take naps, set out our food, assemble and test our bikes, etc. People who have been to the Chico Racing 24 Hours of Summer Solstice will know what I mean when I talk about the teams who get the sites with electricity - the ones who set up fancy campsites. The same thing happened here with local teams who had driven their gear to Villa Traful. They had pop-up tents, big air mattresses and stacks of coolers with ice.



By comparison, we international teams had pathetic-looking, spartan set-ups!



We assembled our bikes once again. My good luck streak ended; the valve had snapped off my front tube so Vince kindly changed it for me.



We walked a few minutes to Race HQ to register.



I haven't done it so often that it feels old... It is exciting to be part of an Adventure Race World Series event.



MBR was looking good.



Kinda cool that we got a custom "pasaporte" for our team.



Even cooler that the bike plates featured the team's national flag.



Then we visited the local coffee shop that became a regular stop - at least for me, since I can't live without my caffeine.



Coincidentally, most shops in this part of Argentina offer a huge selection of homemade chocolate too.



We went for a walk to buy water and to check into our beautiful 2-storey log cabin a kilometer from town ($73 for a cabin with full kitchen and living room that sleeps 5 people!) Too bad we weren't able to stay there after the race but accommodations were fully booked for Easter.



The time of the race briefing kept getting pushed back because they wanted it to be dark enough to show us a video of last year's race. After all the teams were introduced, we had a very primal "roast meat on bread" meal and enjoyed some good conversations with racers who spoke English, including Adidas Terrex.



Along with a general outline of each leg including disciplines and distances, we were given a map of Lago Traful for the first kayak leg. However, the CPs would be determined in the morning based on the weather forecast so there was nothing we could do with the map. As an orienteer accustomed to receiving my map on the clock, I was happy to just go to bed without feeling any need to be reviewing maps, choosing routes and marking things down. After a final e-mail to Richard on Tuesday morning, I shut down my phone and started the countdown to the race.

These next entries were made when I was down there.
_____________________

Yay!! Wokitoki was able to buy a rear cassette this morning and our amazing, versatile local contact Sacha installed it for him. We are loading trucks to send gear to Villa Traful. There may not be cell service there, depending on whom we ask so I'll say goodbye for now! :)

We are in Villa Traful. The scenery is spectacular and we have found free wifi for now. Our transition area is a huge indoor area where each team has an assigned area with a bench and tables. My bike finally had a problem - a broken tube valve - but that was quickly fixed.

The race briefing and maps were going to be at 5, 6, 7 and now... probably dark since they want us to see a video outdoors. After this, we'll ride our bikes to our cabin at the edge of town. We could sleep in the transition area but the race won't start early - maybe 10, maybe 12. :)

This is a really well organized event if you're patient and just trust that things will work out. We've been treated like royalty by AR standards. We're the first Canadians to do this race. I'm amazed that no U.S. team is here. I'm looking forward to seeing the maps! :)

Our team took a few short spins on the sample race kayak. It's a sit-on-top so we'll be wet but it's more comfortable than the ones we used at the Apex Race, especially with the MEC kayak seats we brought (which attracted interest from Team Columbia Vidaraid).

The front seat probably wouldn't fit anyone over 5'8" so Wokitoki is stuck in the back for the whole race. Too bad because these boats hate going in a straight line so the stern paddler will be working extra hard. This isn't great for our team since I'm the most experienced in the stern but have the weakest upper body and flimsiest rotator cuff.

We tested our new Windpaddle sails and they should work well.

We got to see the wide range of weather that Patagonia is famous for - heavy rain in the morning followed by scorching sunshine and a clear, chilly evening.

We took the bus into the lovely mountain village of Villa Lo Angostura for lunch and food shopping. The only grocery store open on Sunday had very limited selection. I always eat crap when I race but this time it will be *really* crappy.

The nervous-making news for our team is that Wokitoki's freshly tuned-up bike is unrideable. It looks like the new chain won't work with the old rear cassette. He'll be on the bus to town tomorrow to hit the bike shop when it opens at 9 a.m. We are being transported to Race HQ in another town at noon, so time is tight.

Other than that, all is well. We went out for an even nicer dinner with MBR tonight. We're having a good time testing (very thoroughly) Argentinian red wines. Our Spanish is improving although we all lapse into French at times.

After dinner, I took apart my bike for the 3rd time in 5 days. It's become a very smooth process after all the practice!

Test ride in Villa Lo Angostura after rebuilding my bike. It's all good. Unfortunately, we have to take them apart again for transportation to Race HQ in Villa Traful on Monday. There is no bike shop in that small village so everyone is checking their bikes here post-flight.

One of the race kayaks is here. It's a pig, as we had already seen in the photos but our MEC kayak seats fit perfectly, and we've got foot straps so we can paddle using our core. We'll do a test paddle tomorrow. The lake outside our hotel is incredibly beautiful.

We saw MBR and they've gone to town now, then we're having dinner with them later. It's absolutely spectacular here; hopefully someone will post the photo of the view from our balcony. I'm eating Argentinian chocolate out here since we missed lunch. :) Only the glass of wine is missing but I'll fix that later.

Relaxed day of rest and preparation tomorrow then we move to Villa Traful on Monday to set up Central Camp and get the maps for Section 1. Weather forecast is near-perfect for the week.

All 8 Canadians got here safe, smiling and with their luggage. So far, things couldn't be better! :)

Made it to rainy Buenos Aires with 4 bikes and 5 big bags. We all slept on the flight from Miami except for Wokitoki. Now we're enjoying the results of our first Latin American snafu. We need to transfer to the domestic airport for our next flight, and our pre-booked " private minibus" is a full-sized bus. I thought it seemed expensive ($72 each) but the agent had all our baggage dimensions and chose this one. Hmm... In the meantime, we're all enjoying the comfort of 3 rows per person. :)

To do on the plane (Toronto - Miami - Buenos Aires - San Carlos de Bariloche):

1) Spanish lessons on the iPhone.

2) Learn lyrics to keep team awake during long night treks.

It's Tierra Viva time! The Milton Basement Racers go today and the Tree Huggers fly out tomorrow. I'm streamlining my luggage today, removing items previously thought essential until I weighed it all.

The race website is here. We've received no info about live coverage and there was no mention of GPS trackers in the race info but it is an ARWS event so I would expect something.

The Attackpoint discussion is here - often the best place to follow a race where Attackpointers are competing.

The race starts on Tuesday morning and the last teams finish on Sunday at 4 p.m. (They are an hour later than Toronto time.) The race consists of 4 sections, each of which starts and finishes at a Central Camp in the small resort village of Villa Traful, Argentina.

Each section can include any or all of the disciplines (trekking, mountain biking, big lake kayaking) and in some places, we will have the opportunity to make strategic decisions by doing disciplines - or CPs within a discipline - in the sequence of our choosing. We only get maps for one section at a time so it will be fun when we start getting sleepy.

I've just decided to leave my netbook behind due to high crime rates and high luggage volume. :) This means that I can't post photos to Attackpoint and can't upload any photos from my camera, only from my phone - which I'm supposed to avoid displaying in public. Double_Downon11 has graciously agreed to post any pics I send him to the main AP thread. I have no idea what kind of communications we will have. I know Simpy ordered a SIM card so at least one of us should be able to talk to the outside world before and after the race. If I have access, I will try to check e-mail, texts, Facebook stuff directed at me, my AP log and the Tierra Viva AP thread. However, that may very well not happen, and we will be in pre-race mode soon after arriving.

Wishing everyone a very happy first week of spring! :)

Snow has been falling all day so I promised myself a quick ski break in Palgrave West if I got enough things done. As always, everything is hitting the fan right before I go away. (E-mail: "Your credit card expired. We will be shutting down the Orienteering Ontario website." "No! I called you with the new expiry date two weeks ago!" "Right. You can ignore that e-mail.")

Beautiful ski in a winter wonderland with snowflakes swirling down. My skis were bricking up in the wet snow but any ski on the second day of spring is a special ski - especially since I was mountain biking dry single track in January this year. I'll be flying into autumn tomorrow, having just missed summer by a couple of days. Hard to wrap my mind around that.

Got my bike all set up for Tierra Viva then took it apart and packed it up. One of my bike travel rules is that I have to take it out and rebuild it at home, ride it, then pack it a 2nd time. This ensures that I have all the right tools and that it all feels familiar and easy at my destination.

Good thing I tried. I'd forgotten the crucial step of shimming my hydraulic disc brakes. Ugh. They'd both slammed shut and 'Bent was already in bed. Google suggested that most people should go to a bike shop rather than risk damaging the brakes. So much for my last minute pre-travel schedule. :(

When I woke up this morning, 'Bent announced that he'd fixed them. Yahoooo!! Thank you!! :)) I'm sure going to miss having him on our team. And just in general, of course. :)

I feel heartsick about the outpouring of Twitter support for the Steubenville boys who raped an unconscious girl at a party and were sentenced for their crime this week. How can these attitudes still exist in 2013? Mind blowing and really, really discouraging. Nice turn of phrase by the Globe writer.

A number of Tweeters rounded up here were convinced the girl brought it on herself by drinking too much, and that she should have been more thoughtful of the teenage boys around her before putting them in the apparently unfair and difficult position of having to rape her. “Be responsible for your actions ladies before your drunken decisions ruin innocent lives,” wrote @THEkayla_jeter. “They did what most people in their situation would have done,” said @zJosiah.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button...

For those of you running CCC this summer, you will be going around the east side of Mont Blanc from Courmayeur to Chamonix. In this video, Kilian Jornet takes the shortcut over the mountain. If you're wondering what the start line in the town of Courmayeur might look like, check out the beginning.

Damn you, Hansel and JayXC and your good ideas. As tonight's blizzard swept into Palgrave, I headed out to the yard for Test #4 of my Tierra Viva sleeping system, this time with my new -1C Marmot Cloudbreak 30 sleeping bag and the slightly thicker short sleeping pad that the guys on our team will be using. It was -2C, windy and snowy so it was a pretty good test for the worst Patagonia is likely to offer at this time of year - with the exception of rain, which won't be much fun in any bivy bag. I wasn't overly toasty but my hands were freezing by the time I got inside, and they warmed up after awhile, so it seems to work. At this point, I've probably spent more time testing my TV sleeping system than I will actually use it in the race!

'Bent is out tonight and I had a bootie call. Hingo and his 3-year-old son dropped by to borrow 'Bent's neoprene kayak booties for the race. ;)

Just another typical evening around our place... At midnight I was sitting in the snow in our front yard wearing all my Tierra Viva paddle gear, trying to figure out if I needed to beef up any layers. Given that it was -12C and it's actually worse to sit in cold water than on cold snow, I'm not sure how good a test it was - but it was something. Decided to upgrade to winter-grade Sealskinz socks. We will be in sit-on-top kayaks so we will be sitting in water and splashing one another with our paddles for hours on end in temperatures ranging from 0C to 22C. Our upper bodies will be working but our lower bodies could get ch-ch-chilly if our experience in sit-on-top boats at Apex is anything to go by.

Attack the Trax Ski-O race at Highlands Nordic

'Bent, Goose, Coach LD and I drove up to the race together and ran into snow north of Hwy 89. By the time we got to Stayner, it was a full-on blizzard with huge snowflakes blowing around. The forecast had said "flurries" so I was a little worried about the light clothing I'd brought. I had no alternative outfits due to the need to wear green on St. Patrick's Day.

Tarno and Mrs. Tarno gave us maps, then we could go to the start control when we were ready. We had Map 1, Map 2 and a "Matrix" map where all controls were mandatory but they could be done in any sequence. The Matrix could be done after Map 1 or Map 2.

I'd planned to ski classic to maximize fun - for someone who prefers classic, that is. I'd brought my skate skis in case I was struck by an overwhelming urge to be competitive but that didn't happen. With 15-20 cm of new snow on the trails, it wasn't going to be a fast day for anyone anyway.

Map 1 went pretty smoothly. I bushwhacked and cut between trails in a few places - another way to maximize fun. The snow stopped and the sun came out early in Map 2, I think. There was a long leg and I was congratulating myself on finding the perfect place to bushwhack to pick up the orange trail on my way from #2 to #4. I was a little surprised that nobody else had done the same thing. Then as I came out of #4, I saw 'Bent and Goose coming out of the Hawberry Loop. They should both be ahead of me. Hmmm.... So I looked harder at the map and noted that I should have gone from #2 to #3 and *then* to #4. Doh! So I got in some extra distance as I bushwhacked across the thorny expanse of the Hawberry Loop field, then skied all the way back to punch #4 for real. About 5 minutes lost there, says Mr. Garmin.

Last but not least, the Matrix was uneventful other than a little icing up when I skied through slush. Coach LD defended her Attack The Trax female masters title - well done! Goose was top masters and 2nd overall behind Sudden. Great job! Because Map 1 and Map 2 were so similar to the 2011 version of the race, I was able to compare my times. Considering that conditions were faster that year, and I skate-skied in 2011, which was faster, I wasn't too disappointed at this year's time - 1:30 vs. 1:17 for Maps 1 and 2 (excluding this year's Matrix). Maybe next time I'll even visit the controls in the right order.

So much fun!! I wish we could do this more often.

AngrySeagull hosted a paddle instruction and training session at the Mississauga Canoe Club paddle pool. Back in our early days of adventure racing, the Tree Huggers spent a lot of time at MCC with Coach Bill Trayling and it was great to be given this rare opportunity to go back. We really were lucky back then to have access to inexpensive, top quality paddle coaching every week and to have the chance to hang out with other adventure racers. That's where we became friends with Carbon before she moved out west, and it's where we met Shifty and the Terranauts and eventually raced with them. Sometimes we'd even rub shoulders with Famous Racers like Getawaystix and John Yip. It was awesome. I guess these days the O Cups provide similar "glue" for the AR community in the off-season although they are less frequent.

Today AngrySeagull did an excellent review of proper paddle technique. Between the mirror and his comments, I could see that in position 1, my back elbow needs to be at 90 degrees instead of my forearm leaning toward my head. Also, I sometimes jump the gun by starting to push the paddle before it's planted in the water, i.e. blending positions 2 and 3. It was so good to return to basics and to have the mirror to check. I could almost hear Coach Bill shouting at me, "Open your belly button RIGHT UP!"

Everything is a test these days. Today I put my new Epic 4-piece paddle in the water for the first time. I love it compared to my SRS 5-piece although it can be a little hard to take apart (just like the SRS but in a completely different way). Hingo went all out and tested his neoprene vest, pants and socks for Tierra Viva. Turns out he was still a little chilly so it was a useful test.

AngrySeagull gave us a few good drills and exercises to work on:
1) Straight-armed paddling - forces you to emphasize the rotation and circle of power.
2) Sit on floor with legs straight out and hands raised as if holding a paddle across your chest, then move forward, taking "steps" with your bum.
3) Bent-over row except with a rotation toward the side, as in paddling.

A bunch of us went out for pub lunch at the Crooked Cue afterward, joined by TheMinister and his Mrs. There was an extensive beer menu and we let Funderstorm pick for us. Great to catch up and say some goodbyes before the race. On the way home, we stopped briefly by Hansel's place for good luck and to hang out with their cute kids and friendly dog.

Fun day! And now the pre-race panic sets in...

Same ride as yesterday - to Airport Rd. and back on Finnerty Sideroad - but this time I wore my 22 lb backpack of golf balls. Oh, it is such a rude awakening when you ride up your first hill with a heavy pack after a winter on the bike trainer! It didn't seem so bad by the time I was finished though, and it only took me 90 seconds longer - although I worked harder.

It was up to +2C today so the mud was a lot messier, and only 5% of the route was ice-covered. I wore summer-weight Sealskinz over the same socks as yesterday and my feet were toasty. It's not quite as cold today but I think this sock combo should be sufficient for Tierra Viva.

Now I have to clean *everything*.

STORM has been coming up with some nice variations on this theme. This one was reposted to a wide audience today by the U.S. site, Explore. Compete. Live. Great stuff, STORM! :)

Excellent news on a subject that continues to embarrass Canada internationally. Federal Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault has been asked to investigate the muzzling of Canadian government scientists (the ones who still have jobs) in a request backed by a 128-page report detailing alleged systemic efforts to obstruct access to researchers.

While I'm in a political mood, maybe this is a good day to post this one.

Sulphur Springs 50-miler is almost sold out and I'm still undecided but have grabbed one of the last spots just in case. I know that I need one or two 80 km ultras before UTMB just to remind me how to deal with the structure of a race. The quandary with SS is the high number of aid stations, which means that I'm not forced to be as well prepared as usual. Anyway... it's a good event, the price is right, other friends will be there, and I don't have to travel very far. So it's tentatively on the calendar.

The Pope, wearing a fabulous vintage chiffon-lined Dior gold lamé gown over a silk Vera Wang empire waist tulle cocktail dress, accessorized with a three-foot House of Whoville hat and the ruby slippers Judy Garland wore in the Wizard of Oz, on his way to tell us it's Wrong to be Gay.

Actually, I kinda like the tone of this new Pope in spite of our disagreements. It's a tough job and I sure wouldn't want it!

My Specialized Epic returned from the bike hospital today where it survived unexpected fork surgery during what was supposed to be a routine tune-up. I should have taken a picture of it when it arrived home all clean and nice but instead I rode along Finnerty Sideroad to Airport Road and back. Everything east of Gore Road was mud. Further west, there were some big patches of ice so I avoided gathering too much speed.

Lots of hills to test all the gears; so far, the bike is riding well. It was -2C with bright sunshine and my toes were numb blocks of ice by the time I got home. It's not that this was any surprise, given that I wore regular bike socks in regular bike shoes. It's like touching wet paint... Sometimes I just have to try things to prove to myself what I already know is going to happen.

Now I need to put everything back on the bike - lights, map holder, Bento Box. And then I need to take it all apart and put it into the bike bag. And reassemble it just for practice and to make sure I have all the right tools with me. Then take it apart again.

I went for a sunset run to Glen Haffy to check out the condition of Finnerty Sideroad in anticipation of picking up my mountain bike from the shop tomorrow. There's thin layer of mud in most places with occasional ice patches but it's frozen hard underneath and should be decent for riding. I took a brief detour with thoughts of running on the Bruce Side Trail for part of the way but I started post holing immediately and decided that a hilly gravel road would be good enough.

I've been enjoying lots of other types of training this winter but not much running. When I get home from Argentina, I'll have 5 months to prepare for UTMB so running will have to take centre stage for awhile. I was pleased that everything felt fine today. Endurance seems OK but I can tell that some speedwork and running drills would be a good idea. I tried out some of the things that the Carbons have been talking about from their running coach.

After 45 minutes, my sunset run turned into a heavy snowstorm run. Cool! I came home and headed to the back yard to test my sleeping bag/bivy combo in my damp clothes for 45 minutes at -5C. It was OK but I'll be really grateful if it doesn't get that cold at Tierra Viva. It probably won't get any colder but it could get a whole lot wetter and windier.

Miscellaneous "getting into race mood" today:
- Packed Spanish/English dictionary.
- Bought Argentinian wine.
- Encouraged cardinals to elect Argentinian Pope.

America, you must not look away (How to finish off the NRA)

A powerful and disturbing essay by Michael Moore that is ultimately about gun control but makes the broader point that sweeping details and images of horrible events under the rug makes it easier for those things to continue. (Not just in America and not just guns.)

Hey, this training and recovery thing actually works. My forearms fatigued quickly when I paddled last week after all the poling at the Snowgaine, and I was convinced that I'd wrecked myself before Tierra Viva. But today I felt stronger than I did before the Snowgaine.
Exercise Physiology: 1
Worrywart Bash: 0.

1st podcast was Adventure Racing Radio where Mark Arnold interviewed Luke Osborn of Infiterra Sports. They talked about the infamously sketchy paddle section during a small craft warning on Georgian Bay at RTN Parry Sound, then they segued to Wilderness Traverse being hosted in Parry Sound this year and wondered about the paddle. Yeesh, it was hard to hear those two events linked together, and I hope nobody would be deterred from doing WT this year because of what happened a decade ago. Without giving anything away, GStix and I are working with locals to choose a safe, interesting paddle route.

2nd podcast was Dirtbag Diaries, a short segment by a paid ski patroller who got her job at a time when she couldn't really ski.

I can't imagine how anyone (including me) used to live in the boonies before online shopping and expedited Canada Post. My mail carriers must hate me with all the packages arriving before the big race but it is far too easy to locate and obtain cool stuff!

Fyi, there have been some changes to the OARPS (Ontario Adventure Racing Points Series) schedule for 2013. The FAC races are no longer part of the series.

Stars O Cup #6 Season Finale

Last O Cup of the year and Tiny wanted to give us an extra challenge. Instead of the usual O Cup Box where we can drop controls based on age/gender handicap, he put "dog bones" in the Box. Dog bones are pairs of controls that must be executed one after the other but can be done in either sequence.

Today's O Cup Box had 8 dog bones and except for the elite males, we could drop some dog bones based on handicap. For me, this meant 4 dog bones and there was no obvious best solution that I could see. David Baldock and I chose the same 4 dog bones (ABEC) but AdventureGirl! did very well with a completely different route. Combined with the relatively complex map, this made for a fun and tricky race where we really had to concentrate. Some very experienced racers inadvertently omitted controls.

I didn't omit controls as much as I sailed right past them because I never got a gut feel for the 1:7500 scale of the map. It's not that I didn't know about it or that I didn't appreciate how careful I needed to be; I just made a few bad estimates. Ironically, my biggest error of the day happened near the end when I was overcompensating and turned off on a trail to look for a control way too soon.

Thanks to sleep deprivation (I think), my focus went in and out during the race, resulting in a few small, silly flubs and the one major error on the last control in the Box. I can't remember the last time I veered toward a control on the wrong feature to read the control number and relocate - at least, I can't remember the last time before today. :)

It was a gorgeous, sunny late winter day - for those of us who like that sort of thing. (Not mentioning any names in order to protect the guilty...) That made us feel better about how tough it was physically - breaking through thick crust into fairly deep snow. What a workout! A lot of other people also had a tough time out there so I finished 10th, which is considerably better than I deserved. I can probably thank the crusty snow for slowing us all down, even the people who navigated properly!

Speaking of navigation, 'Bent *really* got his money's worth. Pat-hectic did the elite course (no handicap) in about 11.5 km. 'Bent, who had to go back and re-do the Box after discovering that he'd understood the handicap system incorrectly, ran over 16 km with a 2 handicap! He came in under the 2-hour time limit with seconds to spare.

Big thanks to Tiny and the Stars crew for an excellent O Cup finale event. Kudos to everyone - organizers and participants - for making this O Cup season particularly vibrant, varied and relevant.

'Bent and I went up to Highlands to enjoy our little-used ski membership for one of the last times this year. So glad we did... what a fantastic day!



No heat, no ticks, no snakes, no lightning, no FDFs, no broken derailleurs, no dust... Harps would have hated it. But it sounds like he got a head start on "patio" season this weekend so I'm sure he enjoyed himself.



It was spring skiing conditions, meaning that we started off on hard, crusty tracks. Even on waxless racing skis, I had to be sure to commit my weight fully to each ski before kicking or else I'd do a crazy Highland Fling. I avoided the steepest downhills today since it's only two weeks till Argentina, and I'm going to need my knees there.



'Bent bravely used wax and had some luck with it at the beginning. But when the temperature rose and the snow softened, he had to bail to the car and switch to skate skiing. I stayed up high where the conditions were nicest.



We ran into Goose and his crew a few times. The kids were making a music video on skis in between drills. I'm sure it will go viral and they'll all get rich. Just remember you saw it here first.

Here's the cool intro.



And then they leap up and dance!



Yes, you can do the moon walk on skis.



As a bonus, I found a pair of rental skate skis they were selling for the price of the Pilot bindings, and they worked perfectly for my weight. At last, I have rock skate skis and can play around in the woods on them! I've always thought I'd wait until my own skate skis turned into my rock skis but I don't use them enough to justify buying nicer new ones. So this is perfect. Shockingly, I can't even think of an (n+1) pair of skis after this - at least not until things start to get scratched up.

Congrats to Frankenjack on being named to the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association Hall of Fame.

"Jack Van Dorp, a cross country runner at Redeemer from 2003-2006, is one of Redeemer's most decorated athletes ever." Sounds like he's been kicking butt for a long time now!

Sunny snowshoe run/slog around Palgrave West. About half of it was trailbreaking in heavy, shin-deep snow and the other half was packed trail that was getting softer by the minute.

I haven't been doing much running lately so I wanted to try some of what the Carbons have been learning from their coach. One thing I realized is that if you "run low" as they are instructed to do, i.e. bend the knees and keep the lower body short, it's much easier to do a decent butt kick. And if you're wearing snowshoes, it's even easier!

I foolishly wore summer tights, socks and shoes to avoid getting my winter stuff wet on a short run in relatively warm weather. I'd underestimated how wet that snow was - I got soaked. My lower legs haven't felt that cold all winter!

6 X 1 min of 200-210 W after warm-up.
Endurance zone otherwise.
Ave 148 W

Today's podcast was "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me". Amongst other things, Martha Stewart explained how she would prepare Spam and confessed that she loved Velveeta. Forearms *still* feel fatigued. I guess it's from the tricky Snowgaine skiing but strange that I didn't notice it until two days after the event.

Attack The Trax, Sunday March 17
Ski-O at Highlands Nordic, 15K or 7.5K

Tarno is organizing this so you don't need to worry about being beaten by him. His young daughter Milla entered the 7.5K so if you do the longer distance, you don't have to worry about being beaten by her either. Also, the homemade cookies at Highlands are *really* yummy.

This was a super fun event last time and it's a fundraiser for Highlands' kids' programs so you'll be having fun for a good cause. It's suitable for XC skiers who don't do navigation sports since they only need to be able to read a trail map. Skate or classic are both fine. Please tell your non-AP friends and I hope to see you there!

Hard Core Live with Caron.

My balance stunk tonight. I hate to even say this but I seem to be teetering on the edge of a cold - again. At last month's physical, I had low white blood cells - either the cause or effect of all these colds. I sure hope my wimpy immune system is dealing with the travel vaccines properly.

Astronaut Chris Hadfield can do it all!

GREAT NEWS! I received a phone call tonight from John Hiller, caretaker of Camp Zerbe where the Snowgaine was held. He was the man who agreed to care for Buddy and try to find his owners.

Like us, John fell in love with this sweet dog. Like us, he wouldn't have been disappointed if he had to keep Buddy for good. When Monday morning rolled around, he didn't call the dog warden since he didn't want such a nice dog sent to the pound. His father came out today (I don't think John has a vehicle) and the two of them went house to house until they found Buddy's owner. It was Double_Downon11's clue that solved the mystery; the owner lived on Stone Hill Rd. in the first house south of Garcia Rd.

It turns out that Buddy's real name is Duke. His owner said the pooch is inclined to wander so he wasn't particularly surprised by this episode. I was impressed to learn that Buddy/Duke is 12 years old! For a Lab, that's 70+ in human years. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at how far he hiked in the snow since some of the best rogainers in the world are retirees.

Big sigh of relief. Many, many thanks to John for caring so much.

Getawaystix and I were up north today for some Wilderness Traverse planning. The Canadian Shield is still snowy but spring is in the air.



We celebrated a successful day with a short skate ski at Georgian Nordic. I sent GStix off on his own, which turned out to be a good thing since (to quote Ang) someone had put peanut butter on my skis. It was +3C and the trails were soft. It was a great workout though, and I didn't see any other skiers after the first two minutes. This was possibly the last skate ski of the season.

Rest in peace, Stompin' Tom.
1936-2013

The Mad Trapper race series has a new Python-esque style of marketing. Maybe adventure racing should try this...?

Stellar winter day - sunshine, plenty of snow, and warm enough that I seemed to be removing another article of clothing every 5 minutes or so. Luckily, I came indoors before it got indecent.

BulletDog and I toured the forest and climbed some hills. I sometimes follow animal tracks for awhile when I'm snowshoeing from home since it doesn't matter where I go. I love going back out to see that animals have followed my tracks too. Although we seldom see each other, we're connected.

Couldn't stop smiling.

While listening to a Fresh Air podcast - an interview with physician Sam Parnia, who works in resuscitation medicine. He has written a book, Erasing Death, about what he calls "after death" experiences, as opposed to "near death". Science has reached the point where in some cases, resuscitation can take place hours after someone has died, particularly if they have been kept cool. This is because not all the cells in the body die at the same time; it takes a number of hours to die completely. Interesting stuff.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-parnia-md-phd/re...

I was surprised that my arms felt fatigued but I used poles for almost 16 hours on the weekend, and when I was skiing, I used them a *lot*. I guess it shouldn't surprise me.

Good news - I got my 2nd hepatitis shot more than 24 hours ago and didn't experience any bad reaction this time. I hope the first one was just a coincidence. It sure shook up the travel doctor though. He made me sign a detailed waiver and insisted that I make my own decision about whether to continue with the series. Can't say that I blame him. One more shot to go and I'll be (mostly) immune to Hep A, Hep B, Typhoid, Cholera and e. Coli. I could probably drink water from a ditch now and I'd be perfectly OK. ;)

CNYO Snowgaine Day 2

After a great pub night with the Canadian contingent plus Arthurd and Ang, I put my map, pins and string on a board and stewed for awhile. I finally made a pre-bedtime visit to Arthurd's room to get her opinion as a super-experienced New York orienteer. The problem was the private property boundaries. Based on my interpretation of the map, the straight route from 66 to 26 was illegal - about 2 km of it passing through private property - and this made it complicated to plan an efficient route around the remaining controls. Arthurd not only confirmed this but produced a map from another rogaine where those areas were shaded in another colour to make it extra clear that racers must not go there.

She said that when you see boundary lines on a NY map, you can sometimes figure out where the private property is based on where the controls are placed and where the buildings are located. There were lots of buildings in this area, which is what caught my eye. So that meant I could only approach 26 from the north or the west. This led to a weird-looking route that wasn't very efficient but c'est la vie. In addition, we still had to pick up 48, the one we accidentally omitted yesterday. But given that MBR skipped 88 and had to plan an 18 km road run to pick it up today, I really can't complain! :)

'Bent and I were glad that we skied yesterday. In fact, I think we chose the right mode of transportation for yesterday's route in yesterday's conditions, even though we can't take credit for clever strategy since we just did it because we felt like skiing. We'd also brought our snowshoes and we decided to use them today. Dee commented that we were lucky to experience two different races, and that was true. Sunday didn't seem repetitive in any way.

However, that wasn't entirely good since it took us awhile to get our act together. My snowshoe pole broke five minutes before the start so at the last minute, 'Bent lent me his poles, one of which occasionally collapsed when I put weight on it. We had to take a break after a few controls when 'Bent's bladder hose froze. Worst of all, my brain took awhile to shift to snowshoe navigation, which is different, and to get used to the map in a different way.

Yesterday's route was trail-based where possible but today was more like regular orienteering; we could travel more easily through the bush so it made sense to go in straight lines and cross more creeks. There was a feeling of freedom when we were bushwhacking or climbing hills but we felt slow when we were crossing lakes or going downhill on snowmobile trails. It was a nice contrast!

We started off with 18, 15, 22. This was only 2.5 km into the course and it took me that long to remember how to navigate on snowshoes. Then some beautiful forest trekking to 35 and 34, followed by a scenic lake crossing to 52. Filled with dangerous confidence, I messed up 83 because I wasn't paying enough attention since it seemed so easy. Famous last words. We agreed that we'd gone too far so we went back most of the way to the trail to relocate, then returned to the same point and realized that we hadn't gone quite far enough. From there, we did a major bushwhack to the snowmobile trail, then did the southeast group - 62, 67, 66. We ran into DoubleDown_on11 and Escondido, who mentioned that a black Lab had been hanging out with them. Escondido looked a little rough; I only found out later that he'd done a face plant through the ice into frigid water, and DD11 had hauled him out by the snowshoes! We also met Beez and Animal-O in here. I think they were having fun.



After 66, the private property boundary pushed us northeast so we did the 50-39-23 loop next. We ran into DD11, Escondido and their pooch at 50. We patted him and he happily joined our team. My heart sank a little, knowing that we wouldn't really be racing anymore, and we were only 4 hours into a possible 8-hour day. However, DD11 and Escondido had done their good deed, feeding him and keeping him out of trouble for a couple of hours, and now it was our turn. He really was a sweet dog - older with a grey muzzle but obviously fit enough to travel many miles through snow. Tail always wagging, big Lab smile. No tags, unfortunately, but he looked well fed and had a charming personality. He reminded me a little of ThunderDog before she became too old to do long hikes. We were in the middle of nowhere and he had been following the other team for awhile so we doubted he could find his way home. That trumped racing.



We got on a snowmobile trail on our way to 39. We could hear noisy snowmobiles coming but the pooch meandered into the middle of the trail, not hearing anything until they were almost on top of him. Apparently, the poor guy was mostly deaf. Thank God the snowmobilers swerved around him at high speed but they gave us The Look.

I was going to have to make more dog-friendly route choices from now on so we veered off the trail. In the woods, he wandered around happily, sniffing tracks and peeing on stumps. He couldn't hear us if we called him but if we happened to catch his eye and wave, he would come over. We weren't getting anywhere and we couldn't leave him there to die so I suggested that 'Bent convert our tow rope into a leash. This kept 'Bent occupied for the rest of the race since "Buddy" (as we named him) loved to pull 'Bent hard whenever he found tracks in the snow, and he wasn't concerned about whether 'Bent was getting dragged under low branches. Fortunately, BazingaDog has trained 'Bent well in that department so he wasn't too fazed. After 23, there was a tricky area of private property which we avoided at first but when we saw a building, we went over to see if any dog lover happened to be home. Nada.

Then we headed into 26 and even though I was pace counting well from a nearby attackpoint, we allowed Buddy to haul us along some snowshoe tracks and deluded ourselves for a few minutes until we finally smartened up and turned around. From there, we trekked to 36, then bushwhacked north about 1.3 km to the snowmobile trail, continually looking for places to cross the river.

By this point, I was getting nervous about the time remaining. We hadn't expected to have to worry about the deadline but we hadn't expected to add a teammate. We finally found a beaver dam with a chute of water flowing past at one end. It was tough to access with a diagonal log walk, a jump over the chute into a shrub, then a scramble to get better footing. I went first and succeeded. 'Bent let Buddy off-leash then proceeded to get a soaker when he came across. That left Buddy, who worriedly ran along the shoreline looking at different options and finding them all unacceptable. He made a couple of brave attempts but found it daunting when the snow at the river's edge gave way under his paws. At one point, he went right into the water and 'Bent tried to grab him but he scrambled back up on the side he'd started from. It took awhile to coax him using hand signals but he eventually came back on the log. I held tight to 'Bent's pack and 'Bent leaned forward to grab his collar when he went into the water. Success, finally! 'Bent got wet up to his thighs and poor Buddy was completely submerged in the chilly water.



Up to that point, we'd been able to convince him to drink when we found open water. Funny, after this, he had no interest! :) We stopped to share chips, crackers and cheese with him, and he sat down politely when he realized treats were coming - further proof that he comes from a good family.

We got 48 but kept our eyes on the time. I was stressed thinking about Dee waiting to ride home with us, especially knowing that we had to find Buddy a safe place before we could leave, which was going to take even more time. Then we got on the snowmobile trail and hurried north as fast as we could go. By this point, Buddy was taking more walk breaks and we could hardly blame him. We wouldn't take our own dogs on such a long expedition. But he was a trooper, hanging in there while we got 43 and 33, then we all ran along the road to the finish.

Yay, we cleared the course - first time I've ever done that in a rogaine! Our hope had been to place 2nd of the 7 Veteran teams behind Joe and Sony (who were 3rd overall), and that's how it turned out. Congrats to all the Canadians on their podium finishes - and also to Joe/Sony and Arthurd/Ang for their category wins.

The first hour after we finished was quite stressful as we tried to find a safe place for Buddy. We couldn't cross the border without his papers but we wanted to be certain that he was with someone who would feed him and let him stay indoors until authorities could help to sort things out and hopefully find his owners. While various people tried to come up with a plan, Buddy got a hamburger, then sprawled in front of the fireplace inside the building. Finally, the Camp Zerbe caretaker appeared, and he turned out to be a dog owner willing to take Buddy in and make the appropriate phone calls - phew. One day later, I've left a couple of messages to try to find out what happened. Sure hope our teammate is OK!

Thanks to Mark and Barb for all their hard work in putting on another stellar event. Maybe the Canadians can outnumber the Americans next year? :)

Event: CNYO Snowgaine
 

CNYO Snowgaine Day 1

Another fun weekend in NY! The Snowgaine provides incredible value for just $45 per person including two 8-hour days of racing and hot food at the end of each stage. It was great to go down there with a 16-member Canadian contingent, several of whom were first-timers. We had a fun birthday celebration for Leamer on Saturday night at LD's pub. Big thanks to DoubleDown_on11 for organizing that! At the end of Day 2, every Canadian team hit the podium including Getawaystix and Hermes, who took the overall and Coed wins, and Escondido and DoubleDown_on11 who won the Male category. Yay!

Although we had less than an hour to plan, I hauled out the string and pins for route planning. It quickly became apparent that the course was clearable, even by us, so the problem changed to: "How to design loops for two days so we can get all the controls?" We decided to head to the west side first and save the east side (closer to race HQ) for Day 2.

'Bent and I had always planned to ski on Day 1 - if not both days - because we really enjoy bushwhacking/ungroomed skiing, and there aren't many opportunities to do it in a race. We knew we couldn't be competitive in such a tough field so we might as well have fun. Looking at our route, I couldn't see any compelling reason not to ski, so we did the road run from the start with waxless touring gear in our arms.



The route to our first control (64) involved a good chunk of bushwhacking and showed us that trails would be a lot faster in some types of vegetation, even though the distance might be greater. The snow was crusty and we could often stay on top of it, which was great. However, the crust was slippery and the forest was full of big moguls, some of which had little puddles of open water between them and all of which had saplings scattered around them, so micro-route choice was paramount. My waxless skis like to track in a straight line so it was hard to stop or turn with no layer of fluffy snow to dig into. Stopping could be an issue, especially on the steep slopes near creeks. It was exciting to ski across a few creeks on logs with a foot of snow on top. I took off my skis twice during the day to execute difficult moves but that made me sink in so it wasn't effective. The second time, I went shin deep into a creek and gave myself a good soaker for the second half of the race - oops! Let's hear it for socks with neoprene.



In spite of all this, we had a blast. On some of the snowmobile trails, we did a bit of skating on our waxless skis, and the early downhills were fun. Once we hit the busier snowmobile trails in the afternoon, we couldn't enjoy the downhills as much because we decided to ski in complete control so we could dive off the trail if necessary. Some of those drivers are crazy fast over blind hills! The first time we tried skiing downhill more slowly, 'Bent caught an edge halfway down the hill and did a swan dive into the snowbank. I reminded him that we simply had to be *prepared* to dive off the trail but we didn't have to actually do it unless we saw a snowmobile. :)



Skiing was adventurous and fun and led to different route choices. Usually I went back out to a main trail using the track we had just come in on, then we'd ski along the main trail until it was time to attack the next control. This meant going a greater distance but we averaged a little faster pace on trail, so it balanced out.

These beautiful old stone walls were mostly visible and easy to use as handrails.



We started with 64, 56, 41 north of Hwy 104. Then we headed down to 47. It was early in the race and my orienteer's brain saw the "uncrossable" solid black line lakeshore on the map and instinctively thought, "Oh, we can't go there", even though it was by far the best route choice. So we went out the way we came in and added 2-3 km to our route to 85. Duh.

It was around this time that I remembered the state/county boundaries on the map, which is something we don't have to deal with in Ontario. In some NY races, it has been very clear where the private land is but on this map, there were cases where the property line represented the boundary between state and county land, both of which are public, so it was hard to know. From that point on, I tried to figure it out.



45, 37, 21, 46 (returning to the trail in between), 55, 65, 63, 88, 53.

Then I screwed up. We were homeward bound and had planned to pick up a few controls depending on how much time we had. I forgot 48 and went for 38 instead, leaving us a big out-and-back for tomorrow. Then 49, 42, 51, 43, Finish.

We stopped near a couple of later controls since I had promised an interested writer from the New York Times news wire that I would take a few pics this weekend.





Super fun day! I was especially impressed that Beez did this on skis when she has only been out about 10 times in her life. Even with years of skiing under my belt, there were some nervous moments and I even managed to run into a couple of trees.

Arrived in Pulaski, NY.