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