Patagonian Expedition Race

Well, we were ready for the midnight start on bicycles, but almost immediately the team got split up and by the time we were together we had lost the lead group. We continued on through the dark near some other teams ´til a flat tire put us in the back. The fix was complicated by the fact that it was a tubeless tire and we couldn´t get the valve stem out easily. Back on the bikes we forged on, eventually passing one team. The km were sort of like monopoly miles. We had 108 total to go. Things got rougher around twilight as we started up a series of hills. We were going too slowly. As dawn broke and we neared the park entrance the view was spectacular, but we needed to pick up the pace if we were to make the 8:30 cutoff. We started towing on the levels and slight grades and managed to pick up our pace to where we would probably make the cutoff, but at the cost of our legs. With about 20 minutes left it looked like we would make it when Taz bonked. I stopped to help draft him, but he was too unsteady. With the tow rope we were back up to a ¨barely make it¨pace when we hit a hill. We walked the bikes up as fast as we could. I was almost cramping up. Then a nice downhill and a level run to the checkpoint that was 1.4 km farther than my bike odometer suggested. Taz asked if we could slow down, but the answer was an emphatic NO. We made it to the checkpoint with 57 seconds to spare. Then Sam and I collapsed into useless heaps.

The transition took just over an hour and with some food Taz had recovered. We loaded up the packs and set off up the trail. The first 13 or 14 km were on a trail and then we headed cross country with a stream crossing and some scrambling before we got to checkpoint 2 with a whopping 38 minutes to spare. There we strapped on our crampons and headed out onto the glacier. This was a 10 km crossing (this was just on a tongue of the great southern ice field, but it was still massive). When we started weaving around crevasses we were going much farther. Then we hit a more smooth patch and made good time. Unfortunately it was also getting dark, and starting to rain, and the wind was picking up. Some gusts were strong enough to knock us off balance - I am guessing up to 60 mph. As we neared checkpoint 3 we hit a very broken and jumbled area of the glacier and had to turn back repeatedly. We saw a flashing light at the checkpoint but were unable to head towards it because of the jumbled ice. Eventually we lost sight of it either because of lower visibility or the geometry of the glacier. A little after 11 when the cutoff for pc3 was (that we probably could have continued on even if we missed) we joined up with a Chilean team and found a sheltered spot (which was unfortunately very wet). We set up the Chileans 3/4 man tent with some ice screws to anchor it down on a spot that we slightly leveled and trenched with our crampons. Then we all piled in except for me. I was stuck outside heating water with a jetboil (which worked like a champ) for both our Alpine Aire meals and the dehydrated food the Chileans had. Getting out of the wind and outside of some warm food was a big morale boost. As the last one in I didn´t get much room, in fact it was one of the least comfortable nights of my life, but it wasn´t too cold and I survived.

a slightly worried looking Taz in front of our camp the next morning

The next morning we wandered around the jumbled ice to a number of dead ends before deciding to head down the clearer ice in the center of the glacier farther south and then turn to the checkpoint. This was a good plan, and we saw others walking towards us. It turns out this was all the people  at cp3 as well as the teams that made it there that morning and were heading back. We were within 20 minutes of it at that point when we turned back for another 5 plus hour trek across the ice. It was really cool and impressive, but we were ready to be off it.

Back off the ice we proceeded back down to the river crossing where we camped that night. More hot food and 9 plus hours fully horizontal on our klymit mats made a big improvement in our energy level. I was starting to become a zombie before that.

After a slow morning we crossed the river, enjoyed the rainbows but not the rain, and hiked back to the cp1. On the way we detoured to Pingo Falls which  was pretty impressive.  Back at cp1 we waited for a number of hours. Then we waited some more. At 9 we got onto a bus that took us to a Chilean Army base where we took over a barracks room. By the time I got to the gang shower it wasn´t really warm enough but after I dried and warmed back up it was nice. Then I got another good number of horizontal hours. I think I fell asleep with the lights on and a bunch of people speaking Spanish.

The next morning we packed up and walked to the end of the drive where we were picked up by a bus that took us back to Punta Arenas.

It was an awful lot of effort, time, and expense for 24 hours of racing. By the time we got back to Punta Arenas the 11 teams had been whittled down to 3 still going. We obviously needed to be faster, but even so, Sam thought the cutoff pace was much faster than the previous years.

You can read another account of our race here with some pics:

http://yogaslackers.blogspot.com/2013/03/how-exploding-tires-and-gravel-roads.html

http://yogaslackers.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-trek-to-magnificent-glacier-and.html

http://yogaslackers.blogspot.com/2013/03/sleeping-on-ice.html

There are also a heap of pics on facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.317735468329192.1073741829.231825653586841&type=3

It doesn´t look like you need to log in to see those pics.

later: I finally got my race trip report mostly finished:

http://www.electricant.net/grundyman/per2013.html

Morituri te salutamus

If I remember my Latin correctly, that is what the gladiators said before the games. (we who are about to die salute you). That is how I feel now. I got a good night's sleep, the food is packed, most of our stuff is ready, we get a last supper tonight, then at midnight we start from Puerto Natales with a 108 km bike ride. Then is is ON for the next 10 days (or less if we finish early or drop out). 701 km total, 288 are trekking/bushwhacking, 66 via sea kayak, and the rest are biking (I think).

Our location should be trackable on the Yogaslackers Adventure page...

http://www.yogaslackers.com/adventures/2013-the-patagonian-expedition-race

There should also be a delorme link somewhere and the patagonian expedition race page - and their facebook page which is more likely to have some updates and pictures.

http://share.delorme.com/patagonianexpeditionrace

We should be yoga2. the other yogaslacker team is yoga1, you can see how much faster they are than us.

http://www.patagonianexpeditionrace.com/

https://www.facebook.com/PatagonianExpeditionRace

Also Taz made a facebook page for Team 4 Continents...

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-Four-Continents/171910019496323

Sorry this isn't a better post with pics etc. But I am working off of someone else's computer with limited time.

Hopefully I can have a complete write up after all the suffering is over.

Wish us luck.

Packing for Patagonia

It has been a busy week plus. First I packed up at home and then to the OR show in Salt Lake City. There we tried to get all the last minute gear and food we could - mostly successfully. Then we sorted and packed and built bike boxes and ordered last minute things we hadn't gotten yet. The bike boxes were a bit of an experiment. We built them with 3 mil corrugated plastic, gorilla tape, velcro, some hardware... We made it so both bikes could fit inside one box nested in the other. Then for the race we will have a bike in each box without having much assembly and dismantling which should speed things up a bit we hope. It is a cool material, but our boxes are definitely somewhat experimental.

Things were pretty crazy. We got our last shipment of stuff around 5 pm and were planning on heading out at 9. However we were running on YogaSlacker time and didn't get out 'til after 10. At the airport we got all our boxes checked in - for the bike box coffin they thought it was overweight (it was, but only a few pounds, not 20) and they wanted to charge us an extra $75 beyond the $150 bike fee. The check in guy re-read the rules and we passed. They also thought it was way too big, but it was within 1/2 an inch or so. A few pounds over covered almost all our bags - I think one was 49 lbs and the others were 51 or 52 lbs. I won't even go into our 55 lb carry on bags. The flight was 12:50, so we actually had time, and managed to get onto the flight standby. On the way we were able to send out our location with the DeLorme inReach satellite communicator. It is pretty slick.

In Atlanta we rushed to international terminal to check in, then a friend picked us up so we could sleep at her place before the evening flight. I think it might be easier to actually sleep at night and be awake during the day.

Hopefully tonight we can get on our way down to Santiago.


LATER

We did get on the flight to Santiago that night. I even got in first class, which is a very civilized way to travel. Now we are in Santiago visiting with Jorge and Catalina and trying to figure out how we are going to get to Punta Arenas - either buying a car and driving or shipping our gear and flying or taking a bus. I think the logistics of getting all our gear together and to the race might be more of an adventure than the race itself... Of course I haven't done the race yet, so I could be very very wrong.

Thanksgiving and so on

For Thanksgiving I went to Flagstaff for the traditional Ethiopian feast. Lots of good food and interesting conversation with a mix of scientific types - from Linguists and Astronomers to a herpetologist. I continued to eat lots of deliciousness for the remainder of my trip there.

While there I did some climbing at the Pit with Dawn. Here she is hamming it up on True Value. I even managed to get an on-sight - Sling Fest (it didn't have bolts before).

Speaking of hamming it up - here I am in an egregious gratuitous double toe-hook bat hang in Joshua Tree from a while ago.

Here I am sending Go Granny Go at the Buttermilks. 

Jen appears to be a closet member of team color-coordination - here she is on Smooth Shrimp

Bouldering Season is upon us

That's right, cooler temps means it is time for the little rocks. (I suppose it has been bouldering season up at higher elevations, but I mean down in the Valley - the volcanic tablelands and the buttermilks among others).

It is still a little toasty for sending in the sun, but that makes for nice warming up and relaxing in the sun in between burns in the shade. I'll have to take more pics, but here are a few for a start.

My fingers feel pretty weak and my skin is so soft and tender. I am working on that though and hopefully soon I'll be back in sending form.

Sorry I have been neglecting the blog, but such is life.

Jill focuses on Wills Arete

gratuitous moonset over Mount Humphreys

It is the season to nap in the shade

the conditions up higher are more "exciting"

Evolution Traverse - attempt or scout

We (Sean, Kim, and I) prompted by Kim decided to try the Evolution Traverse. This would be a big undertaking for us, but we thought we'd check it out.  Kim had hiked in to the base once, and then bailed due to the enormity (and weather I think). Sean hates bivying, so we decided to try to do it in a push, which would make things even harder. We started shortly after 2 am and hiked in to the start (actually we probably started a little east of where you are supposed to start). By then it was light, so that was nice. We busted up onto the ridge and on to the summit of the first peak (Gould). Then on towards the next with some creative scrambling and a short pitch of climbing where I regretted not bringing the nut tool. A bunch more scrambling over false summits brought us to the summit of Mendel. From there we had a nice ridge descent for a bit before things got spicier with some raps down to the notch before a long scramble up to Darwin. I was no longer keeping up with Sean, but we were still moving right along. It was 1:30 pm or so and supposedly about 40% through the business, although the hardest technical stuff was just ahead. We decided that if we continued on there would be unpleasantness - more unpleasantness than we wanted. This would take the form of a long cold uncomfortable bivy or climbing through the night with headlamps with route finding problems. Also we weren't sure we were up for meeting the technical challenges at the speed required to see us through. So we lounged on the summit longer and then headed back. Well after the pass Sean reverted to his normal mode of mountain transportation - running - and Kim and I continued to stumble down the trail to get out before 9:30 - over a 19 hour push - which was probably enough.

The theme of the day was "MEAT" according to Kim which she would yell out from time to time - prompted by trying to eat a bunch she had before it went bad. I am not sure we succeeded, as part of the reason Sean left us was intestinal distress.

We were trying to go light and fast, so I didn't even bring my camera! It did make the hiking and scrambling quicker and easier, but I didn't get many pics. We had a single skinny 50M rope as well as a set of nuts and a bunch of slings. We all brought rock shoes, but I was the only one who wore them (for the one bit I led).

Here is the spot track.

http://www.findmespot.com/spotadventures/index.php/view_adventure?tripid=314886

Kim on Gould with the ridge to Mendel behind her

Here I am on Darwin with the rest of the traverse behind me

This traverse has teeth and isn't afraid to bite

All of these pics are from Kim's camera. Thanks Kim.

Disaster - sort of - good thing it is a Pentax

The unthinkable happened, while pulling my camera out of the case I had strapped to my chest it caught on something and popped out of my hand and out of the case and dropped from chest height onto a granite slab. CRASH. I said a choice word (or 2 - loudly) and picked it up. The flash had popped open but otherwise it was in one piece, except for the large cracks across the front of the lens - luckily they were just the clear filter on the front. I turned it on and it seemed to work, although it had trouble focusing with the cracks across the front. Still, the pics appeared to be ok and with a different lens it seemed to be 100%.

This looks like a good place to drop a camera - NOT

resulting in this

the cracks actually didn't degrade the image as much as you'd expect

especially with a larger aperture and zoomed in a bit

It took 4 hands and a skeletool to get the busted filter off the next morning, but then that lens (Pentax DA* 16-50mm) seemed to work fine too. That is good because I would have been extra super grumpy to have both busted my camera and to be carrying an extra 12 or so pounds of useless dead weight on a 3 night backpack trip. Thanks for building such a solid tool Pentax (the K5 and 16-50). Needless to say, after all the trouble getting the camera out of the case I went to the Cotton Carrier shoulder strap carrier the next day. Not only was it easier to get the camera out and back but it had a backup attachment so even if I fumbled it the camera wouldn't hit the ground. It still sucks to have fumbled my camera and to break an expensive filter, but it is so much better than it could have been.

luckily the camera seemed to still work fine (taken with different lens)