Training Log Archive: Mr Wonderful

Event: Proud Lake Adventure Day
 

Event: Wilderness Traverse
 

Casual ride up to the start for the 2013 Wilderness Traverse with MarkVT and Double M and Greg VanTol.

Mark VanTongeren is a BEAST!

Some notes:

20 m contour intervals mean there are next to no lines on the map.

Only 8 CPs!

C • What happened? 20

If we had any doubts about this not being our standard type adventure race...CP1 was ~30 km from the start.

Navigation was interesting - for most of the trail junctions, I never saw the other part of the junction. So you'd go around a bend, but not see the third thing that should be there. Plus the Scalex can underestimate a bit (at least with this operator), and with no topography on the map, keeping track of position was a challenge.

We stopped to worry about overshooting the turn off, and it doing so, were inadvertantly exactly at the correct trail junction, which most of the field had overshot. At some point, my teammates tell us Tecnu flew by from an earlier trail choice issue, blazing the way into the grassy trailhead. So if the race was 90 miles shorter...look out! That trail point was slightly shorter tall grass leading to a rocky rooty rocky bumpy mess. It was a mad house as faster teams all tried to get by to compensate for their nav error. Some very pretty sections, like the crossover between some ponds.

Eventually we got to the powerlines, where would spend a lot of time. It was very exposed, and I got warm, so I dropped down to just the race bib. It was also relentless - bouncing and bumping. I went to take a drink from a bottle and then saw trouble ahead, tried to put the bottle away, and ended up hitting something and going over the bars. I was very, very fortunate not to hit the rock, and instead only get my thighs scraped up on gravel.

Meanwhile, Mark was getting flats all over the place. He started tubeless but that punctured, so we put in a tube. Then that popped. We tried cleaning tire and rim, but couldn't find a cause.

Especially after my fall, I got really gun shy about not getting unclipped, so I kept walking hills, which had to be annoying. Also, my chain was skipping teeth, so I could only use the big ring, which didn't make for easy climbing.

I'm not sure if it was faster, but we shortcutted the big loop of trail at the train tracks by going straight and walking over a dry swamp and back up to the powerline elevation.

We were very glad to see Barbara at CP2. Paramedic Jackie called me out for looking a little flush. We left there, Mark towed me a bit (the terrain was finally started to get conducive to me being comfortable being towed without such rigorous obstacle work) and then Mark flatted again, so he just rode on the rim but luckily it was just sandy to TA1.

Lessons learned:

* I should bike more
* I should bike harder terrain more
* Get my drivetrain sorted
* Carry more patches and duct tape
* Really watch distance, and maybe practice with the Scalex to see if I can get more accurate

C • 3 things 7

The team was agreed we would avoid swimming unless required, so we left the marina via trail and starting working through the trail network to #4. Bugs got a little fierce, but it went well. I almost chose the wrong trail, but Mark talked me out of it. We saw the trail that the swimmers were trying to hit - it was just a ride of fewer trees and lots of ferns - good luck noticing that!

I believe the pro line was probably to swim, coasteer, swim.

We did find a nice sort of trail along the lake to CP4, which was a good section. Caught up to a team that swam and tried to find that fern trail - it took them a couple hours they said.

Exiting to find the trail we wanted to take to 5, we either never saw it or missed south. We hit some lakes for a back stop, and changed our plans to use them as a shortcut. It worked well. Then we got to a long bushwhack on a bearing. No thorns, but thick in spots - very slow going. We determined that our accuracy was not spectacular - we aimed off by 500 m, and ended up 800 m above the junction. And we were lucky to see the junction - again, a grassy bit of fewer trees. Then it was quite interesting climbing up rock to get over to the point. We missed the lake end a bit north, but were caught by the stream. Then we couldn't figure out if we wanted to stay on the coast or go high, so we did both.

To 6 we had a great line, over the peninsula, a good bushwhack over the plateau, then along the coast and then finding a beaver dam to cross the narrow section just past the cabin. Woo hoo! Unfortunate that was the end of our brilliance. We then believe we crossed the trail, and ended up in an very generalized mess of swamp and large tiring reentranty bits - not large enough to be represented on the map, mind you. One swamp had us going very slowly. I felt bad for Maria and Greg, wondering what the nav team was up to. Finally we decided to shove east and find the lake, and while climbing, we happened to pause on the trail, which was an area of ferns and reduced tree volume.

We thought we might make the cut off, but for some reason travel was much slower on that trail, and again we could not find the junctions on our map, and the trail and compasses...I'm not sure. We lost quite a lot of time at one open area, trying to figure out the correct exiting trail. Several stalled out or turned up. We crossed a "bridge removed" bit; I'm not sure where that was on the map. We ended up on the right trail, I presume by luck. On one map it appeared to be the 401, but it was labeled C, and C was not shown going that way on the 1:150k supplemental map. I was very confused. But we were comforted by lots of footprints and found TA2 and Mark's flat tired bike.

C • 2 things 7

Checked in, grabbing a bite.

Bash was perhaps too busy to notice my AP handle shirt.

C • so there will be some live ... 2

Swag bag flyers printed and cut, ready to drop off today. Equipment acquired from Mary. Next up:

* Select the ten nicest flags, update map with their codes
* Print maps
* Give Jeff equipment tomorrow at work
* Decide whether or not to make up discount coupons as prizes
* Add dry erase board to equipment pile. And markers, if they still work.
* Maybe make up an email list signup sheet

Thought about trying to get laptop, then decided maybe it would be easier for the hosts not to worry about it, and find power for it, etc.

It should all work out in time. Should.....

Good company, but not a super productive mission. White and green map colors were not great predictors of vegetation. I am shooting for an "all awesome, all the time" style of control placement, and my carefully chosen spots were about 25% okay, 75% nope. :|

That "four hours max" to scout comment on one of the threads is a joke, unless you have the park dialed or your woods are all awesome.

I may have to go back, just go on a long hike, and look for the things I want, rather than starting with any sort of plan.

Also I was a bit sloppy and off my game; hopefully Saturday goes more smoothly.

C • If you are using the same m... 2

And here I thought USGS maps were hard to work with - the ARWS race in Brazil is using 40 year old 1:100k maps with 40 m contours.

Funny story - so I ended up at a remote site for work today, and my trip home will put me within a few hundred meters of the start for my o meet, only I don't have a map or suitable pants and shoes.

C • i am at the edge of my seat.... 5