October 3rd 7:30pm
It’s the night before the AXS Moab Final as my teammate and
I study our topo maps and prepare our gear for the next morning’s adventures. Derek
and I have had our individual race successes but this will be our first race
together as teammates. Feeling confident we have accomplished our discussion of
race goals, avoidance of arguments over navigational choices, and realizing we
are in complete agreement we will approach this race with a 100% effort and
positive attitude, we finally focus on sleep! What! Sleeping before an
adventure race……….
Miles of sun soaked red rock landscapes await us at the race
start October 4th, 9:00 am!
The first leg of this race was a short run to our kayaks to begin
a flat-water, 13-mile paddle down the Colorado River. Expected river
temperatures were warmer than anticipated as we set our rhythm and began to
chatter incessantly like giddy, recess bound school children. The 6,500 cfs
water levels aided in the avoidance of the typical sandbars riddling this
stretch of river.
Having passed several teams on the river, we arrive at the
transition area and quickly change into our biking gear to set out on our
mountain bikes.
Images just do not do this portal climb justice with a few
thousand feet of elevation gain in only a few miles. I may or may not have
heard a few expletives coming from Derek’s general direction!
Once we reached the top spirits were high and it was on to
the trek/rappel section of the race. One of the many memorable sites in this
race was the mass of mountain bikes surrounding a lone motorcycle (photo credit
thanks to the AXS volunteer staff). Up to this point we had navigated easily
through the course and checkpoints. It was a surprise to hear a few other
well-known teams had been delayed by several hours due to navigational issues,
so Derek and I didn’t feel at all hesitant to give away one of the checkpoint
locations, as we have all experienced our share of discouraging setbacks in AR.
I know, you are saying, “Why” well, sometimes the question isn’t “Why” it just
“It is what it is” and exhibiting good sportsmanship may just turn out to be a
saving grace one day.
I have to say I was a little nervous once we got to the top
of the rappel. I am really laughing out loud right now, because I have no fear
of heights and absolutely love to free rappel, which is what this next section
of the course had in store for us. However, I had recently purchased a new
racing harness, suggested to me by one of my AR idol’s Jari
Kirkland and I was about to use this tiny little device weighing only
94-gram to rappel over 150 feet. Well the good news is, I made it and the even
better news is I am in love with the Camp Alp Racing
Harness and will never go back to wearing another cumbersome device again.
Thanks Jari!
Reaching the bottom of the rappel we were invigorated and
ran full speed back to the transition area. However, I do remember thinking it
is about time for a new pair of Salomon’s, as my feet were on fire once we ascended
our next trek section. Derek was primary navigator and I have to say he did an
absolutely amazing job with this section of trekking. We were able to quickly
reach Gold Bar Arch with ease and what an amazing site it was.
With no time for lingering we were in route to the slot
canyon checkpoint as shown in this picture above (not me, also photo credit to
the wonderful volunteers at the race). This section involved swimming to the
other side of this slot canyon to reach the checkpoint and with temperatures in
the 80’s I volunteered to be the first one in. Derek laughs at me on a regular
basis, because I am not so eager at night to offer up this enthusiasm when it
comes to cold water ;)
A quick run back to our bikes and we are off to descend the
non-portal section of Poison Spider. Derek began to struggle with some cramping
at this point in the race and we discovered his new go to “Tums”. I have always
found pickle juice or V8 to be my go to, but everyone is different and this
worked like a charm, so Tums it is! We descended in the dark, but found our Lupine Lights and the moon made
it seems as though it was daytime. Reaching the bottom, we were back on Potash
road, biked back the transition area, and prepared ourselves to jump in our
kayak again.
Moonlight, 6-mile paddle ahead, it was time to turn off the
Lupine’s and stealth paddle for a while or at least as long as it took to see
another paddlers green glow stick (mandatory gear) J What an amazing night
to be on the river. We pulled up to the takeout quickly as the temperatures
were beginning to drop. There were a great number of boats all tied up against
the shoreline as we made our way to a mass of sleeping bags and several cold
AXS race assistants. No warning of the massive burr field that evilly
anticipated our arrival.
Wet and slightly cold we pulled up our long socks, threw on
our running shoes, and headed off onto a bushwhacking adventure like no other.
Roughly a 500-foot section of trek that should have taken 10 minutes or so to
navigate turned into a 45 minute nightmare of military crawling through
tamarisk and burr bushes so thick we had to wear our glasses to protect our
eyes. We were happy to find out, following the race; it had taken other teams
at the most, 1 – 2 hours to get through this section and 1/3 of the teams
DNF’ed due to time limit constraints. Turns out our climbing experience came in
handy, as this was the only way out of the burrs. Once we reached the top we
could see Jacob’s (Jackson’s) Ladder towering in the distance and we set out
stealth trekking to the mouth of the ladders ascent, passing many teams as we
hiked along an empty wash.
Jacob's (Jackson’s) Ladder is an
old cattle trail hewn into the face of rock at the end of the Amasa Back trail
that climbs at a 60% grade 450 feet up for about a ½ mile. Note: these
pictures are of the ladder in the daytime; we climbed and descended this at
night K
Arriving at the top we could hear other teams in the
darkness exhaustingly arguing over navigational errors. Derek and I laughed a
little, as we both felt pretty lucky that we get super quiet when we are tired,
which aids in our ability to stay focused.
We trekked/ran Amasa Back to Kane Creek in the early hours
of the morning, the moon was behind the towering cliff edges of Jackson’s as we
made our way across a waist deep streambed. The water was cold, so Derek and I
decided we would chance it by balance beaming across a water line suspended
just above the streambed. What could we lose, we were gonna get wet anyway,
might as well. This was our entertainment for the evening giggling and poking
fun at one another as we each attempted to cross this wet circular pipe. Using
a walking stick we steadied ourselves and each made it across the streambed
without incident. We quickly grabbed some fuel and water to power us for the
climb ahead and began to ascend Jackson’s.
Extremely dangerous cliff exposure on Jackson’s was no joke,
with the moon still hidden from site. Once we reached the top of Jackson’s it
was time to descend down Jacob’s (Jackson’s) Ladder once again. We arrived back
at the kayak as the sun was about to rise and we were shocked to see how many
boats were still docked. Derek and I were instantly energized as the sun hit
our skin realizing we were going to make it back to the transition area before
any cut off times.
We had a short paddle to the Potash Boat Ramp, picked up our
scooters and were off like snails attempting to make it back to Gold Bar for
our final push up Longs Canyon on the bikes. OMG, I WILL NEVER USE A SCOOTER ON
ANOTHER ADVENTURE RACE!!!!!! Derek will also agree with this statement. We had
the option to use a kick bike, roller-blades, or scooters for this section of
the race. We weren’t able to get our hands on a kick bike for rental and the
cost to purchase a kick bike was in the $350 - $650 dollar range depending on
how fancy you wanted it. I haven’t owned a pair of roller-blades since the
early 90’s and didn’t plan to keep them in my racing arsenal, so this was out,
so since I had a scooter given to me by another adventure racer, I talked Derek
into purchasing one. I will probably never hear the end of how miserable this
was for him, but we got to the transition area in time to jump on our bikes.
We gained 2200 feet of elevation in very few miles on our
Longs Canyon adventure. It was still pretty early in the morning, but the
temperature began to rise quickly. I experienced some leg cramps like no other
on this climb and for the first time in my racing history had to be towed on my
bike. I was glad to accept the assistance and I was proud of my teammate for
being such a rock star on this section of the climb. We reached the top of
Longs Canyon and ended up being spit out on to the road on Hwy 313. Much to our
surprise, many teams were riding back and forth on this road appearing to be
lost. Derek and I took the opportunity to look at our map to orient ourselves
and as soon as the groups of racers turned down a dirt road (not going in the
correct direction) we raced as fast as we could around the corner and
descending down the 7-Up trail without being seen.
The 7 – Up trial was in the best condition I have seen it in
a long time. We quickly descended and jumped back on to Hwy 313 again for a
long road bike descent at top speeds (thank you tailwind) back to the Aarchway
Inn.
Hitting the finish line we realize we had gained time on
several other teams by as much as two hours, I would have never guessed we would
be sitting in 5th place, but as shown on our faces above, we were
quite proud of our efforts and standings.
Every racer has the list of coulda, shoulda, woulda, and
mighta’s, so here’s our list of thing we would like to do differently next
time:
- Wear less cloths for race start
- Shorter transition times
- Bring pickle juice
- Purchase a kick bike or roller-blades
- Do intervals of running and trekking
- Bring our second set of Lupine Lights
- Bring Leukotape for our feet
- Second pair of Salomon's
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