Trekking race 6:15:00 [4]
shoes: Brooks Cascadia 8 grey-green
WT - Trekking (approximate time, unsure of distance). Had to drop from race due to safety and location issues :( :( :(
The all female team left the TA about 5 minutes ahead of us. We were the last team out of the TA. Took an alternate route to CP4. For some reason none of us noticed the marked trail on the Backroads map (wasn't on the 1:50,000) that led part of the way from the north to CP4. For the life of me I don't know how we missed it :(
All I recall from Friday night's map marking on the 1:50,000 map was that we didn't want to bushwhack all the way from TA1 to CP4, so decided to go quite a bit out of our way to use a southern access road to get us half way there, then bushwhack the rest of the way. Unfortunately, one of the access roads didn't seem to exist anymore, so we tried a different one that was marked on both maps as ending just south of Owl Lake. We decided to make our way east by swimming about a 20 yard water channel and we should have been able to make our way up to CP4 with maybe some swamp stomping with a possible swim towards the end. To our surprise we hit more water about 10 minutes later. Um, this was not supposed to be there and realized we were not where we thought we were. The fact that these maps really were horrible started to sink in and that we could not trust some of what was on it. I'm now thinking the maps were just a general "guide" of the terrain :( We knew for a fact that we were surrounded on 3 sides with water and a possibility that there was a lake south of us, and would need to trek south to see if there was a way around. The sun was going down, unsure of exactly where we were, and thunder in the distance, with multiple possible swims ahead of us, we needed to make a decision on whether or not to take our chances with additional water crossings at night with rain. We briefly thought about making our way back to TA1 and attack from the north, but decided that it wasn't a good idea for the same reasons we did not continue on with the attack from the south. Sadly, we decided that it was best to make our way back to the roads and call it a day.
Come to find out later (after DNF) it appeared that both maps were mis-marked as that access trail was actually north of Owl Lake. I know not to always trust the map, but both maps being wrong? Hmmm.... Lot's of lessons learned with this trek. I'll be trying to sort this one out for quite some time.
Added note: Huge props go out to my teammates OM, Becky, and Coach ld. They had such amazing attitudes throughout the entire race no matter the situation, and ultimately that's what it's all about. Great times with wonderful people. I am grateful for having them as my "teamies". I'll have some great memories of this race forever :)