such adventure, much blog, many words, wow.
- Thread starter axcxnj
- Start date
axcxnj
Hipster Keys
so they say adventure begins when things dont go as planned...i guess that could be applied to this past race.
John and I made the 6 hour drive out to deep creek MD to race the inaugural Black Bear 12 hour. This was my first time in this area, but for the most part, its typical east coast terrain…so I knew what to expect there.
we arrive at 7 pm and meet up with our 2 other teammates: Dave and Britt. They already registered and had started looking over the maps, so we parked the car and dove into route planning. I firmly believe that for adventure racing, the race really starts when you get the maps, not at the actual start of the race. The rules for this race were rogaine style, which meant that we could get any checkpoint in any order. This REALLY opened up the possibilities for some strategic choices to be made.
The one thing we noticed right away, is that the large, main map had A LOT of detail missing. All of the topography lines were there, but it must have been an old map, because barely any of the roads were there. We went back and forth a few times, working out a strategy of when we would paddle, vs when we would mountain bike and hit the other various bike/trek legs. After what seemed like hours of measuring and cross-referencing the roads on google maps with our phones, we finally found a strategy that cut 6k of distance out of all of the other obvious routes. We felt very confident and finally called it a night.
the overall process of the course had us run a short 1 mile prologue, then bike to the long paddle section, then bike over to a IMBA trail system where we would work our way through a series of checkpoints, over to a small area where we would get some on foot (A), then hop over to swallow falls state park, where there were some more foot points waiting for us (B), then take a mix of trails and road over to the C area where we had the largest density of points to get on foot. After that, we planned it so we would have a huge downhill ride, and then a small uphill just before the finish.
the course seemed very clearable. We were confident that we could get everything we went after with a fair amount of ease.
6:30 AM we started, a short run and then we hopped on our bikes to get onto the water as quickly as possible. We elected to paddle first, being on such a large open lake, we wanted to be done with the paddle before winds and waves picked up. The total length was about 16K and we had one of the fastest paddles of the day (thanks to a very nice borrowed kayak). Even though we were fast, we were still in the boats for 2 hours, paddling nonstop. By the time we got to the end of the paddle leg, the lower half of my body was completely numb. I tried to get out and drag the boat to shore and almost collapsed…I felt like a newborn giraffe using its legs for the first time. Capers, I don’t know how you can enjoy paddling so much…
the feeling eventually came back to my legs, and we began the first big climb of the day. Even though my legs were awake, they felt like crap climbing that first hill. We made it to the top and saw a few other teams coming out of the mountain bike trails, headed to the paddle. We felt confident now that our strategy was paying off.
The trails at Deep Creek are pretty fun, I would describe them as similar to raystown, but with more tech and less flow. So not as fast, but quality stuff. Here is where we had our first hiccup though. We were heading towards CP8, which should have been at a trail/creek intersection, at an elevation shown on the map. As we went through the area it was supposed to be, we didn’t see anything. So we started searching the surrounding area and going back and forth, up and down and all throughought the woods. We rechecked our distance from the last intersection and ended up spending about an hour looking for the point but not finding it. In the end it turned out that the map grid lines were off by about 200 meters, so many of the points were incorrectly plotted on the map, and the point we were searching for was on a different trail. Some teams found it by accident. We decided the point was misplaced and moved on. This was a pretty big blow to team morale early in the race. Not getting a checkpoint AND wasting so much time looking for it. It basically put the rest of our race in limbo. Our placement would be a factor of other teams having the same issue, or the race director realizing he made a mistake and making that checkpoint not count…but there was nothing we could do at that point..so we moved on.
The rest of the checkpoints in the bike and the foot section A we found without much trouble, though some were still misplaced, we just happened upon them when we weren’t looking for them. Other teams however weren’t as lucky as we were. We moved on to the next biking section and went to the waterfalls at swallow falls state park. These points we found easily, because they were located at cool waterfall features that the race director intended us to visit. With section B done, we refilled our bottles at a public restroom and hopped back on our bikes.
It was approaching 1 pm now, and we were making good time, but it was also the hottest part of the day. I was trying to drink as much as I could, but the intense humidity and heat was creeping up on me badly. I kept on top of my electrolytes and did what I could to avoid the dreaded bonk. We made it to the westernmost section of the race at the Pine Swamp, to pick up one more point. The map showed it at a streamhead at the edge of a swamp. So we found our bearings and got to that area. After 10 minutes of fruitless searching, we decided to apply the same error we found some of the other points to have, and re-plotted the point on the map. Bingo. There it was. At least this time we only wasted ten minutes and not a whole hour.
back on our bikes, and a gravel road climb to the “C” area. The first two points were at trail intersections and we found them easily. Then went to find CP 19…. In the end, only 1 team found CP19, and they found it by accident after giving up looking for it. The clue was “hilltop”. We easily found the hilltop we were looking for. It was a grouping of large sandstone boulders with a dense forest of rhododendron growing all throughout It. I don’t know if anyone has ever tried to bushwhack through rhododendron, but its horrible. Its like a huge cobweb made out of wood, we could barely see 5 feet past our faces it was so dense. Once again, we spent over an hour crawling in, out, over and under every inch that we could fit ourselves into. At once point I found the highest boulder with a tree on it, and then began climbing the tree, just to get a bearing and glimpse at where this damn point could be! It was at that point that a thunderstorm erupted over us and I decided that a checkpoint was not worth getting hit by lightning for, so we once again decided that the point had to be misplaced and we cut our losses and moved on.
the rest of the points in this section we found with ease, probably because there was no more rhododendron, even though one was slightly misplaced, but we were used to that by now.
after finally getting the last point in this section, we hopped back onto our bikes and started the last section home. It was mostly road biking, with a huge screaming downhill on wet, fresh pavement. It was pretty exciting.
we crossed the finish line just a few minutes before the 12 hour mark (the race had a 14 hour cutoff). Overall, we felt pretty crappy about the race. We were definitely fast….if the points had been where they were supposed to be, we would have been the first team to clear the course, but since at least 2 points were grossly misplaced, we were down 2 checkpoints. At this time, with 2 hours left, we could have and probably should have gone back out to look for CP8, after hearing that other teams found it. But I think we were just a bit too soured from the experience and didn’t have much desire to.
in the end, we placed 3rd in our division. I have kind of a “meh” feeling about that…as I know things should have gone better..but didn’t. It was a great location, and fun area…but the race director should have been a bit more detail oriented with the point placement. That was prettymuch the consensus among all the teams too.
oh well..chock that one up to experience! Ive got to get ready for another race this weekend!
John and I made the 6 hour drive out to deep creek MD to race the inaugural Black Bear 12 hour. This was my first time in this area, but for the most part, its typical east coast terrain…so I knew what to expect there.
we arrive at 7 pm and meet up with our 2 other teammates: Dave and Britt. They already registered and had started looking over the maps, so we parked the car and dove into route planning. I firmly believe that for adventure racing, the race really starts when you get the maps, not at the actual start of the race. The rules for this race were rogaine style, which meant that we could get any checkpoint in any order. This REALLY opened up the possibilities for some strategic choices to be made.
The one thing we noticed right away, is that the large, main map had A LOT of detail missing. All of the topography lines were there, but it must have been an old map, because barely any of the roads were there. We went back and forth a few times, working out a strategy of when we would paddle, vs when we would mountain bike and hit the other various bike/trek legs. After what seemed like hours of measuring and cross-referencing the roads on google maps with our phones, we finally found a strategy that cut 6k of distance out of all of the other obvious routes. We felt very confident and finally called it a night.
the overall process of the course had us run a short 1 mile prologue, then bike to the long paddle section, then bike over to a IMBA trail system where we would work our way through a series of checkpoints, over to a small area where we would get some on foot (A), then hop over to swallow falls state park, where there were some more foot points waiting for us (B), then take a mix of trails and road over to the C area where we had the largest density of points to get on foot. After that, we planned it so we would have a huge downhill ride, and then a small uphill just before the finish.
the course seemed very clearable. We were confident that we could get everything we went after with a fair amount of ease.
6:30 AM we started, a short run and then we hopped on our bikes to get onto the water as quickly as possible. We elected to paddle first, being on such a large open lake, we wanted to be done with the paddle before winds and waves picked up. The total length was about 16K and we had one of the fastest paddles of the day (thanks to a very nice borrowed kayak). Even though we were fast, we were still in the boats for 2 hours, paddling nonstop. By the time we got to the end of the paddle leg, the lower half of my body was completely numb. I tried to get out and drag the boat to shore and almost collapsed…I felt like a newborn giraffe using its legs for the first time. Capers, I don’t know how you can enjoy paddling so much…
the feeling eventually came back to my legs, and we began the first big climb of the day. Even though my legs were awake, they felt like crap climbing that first hill. We made it to the top and saw a few other teams coming out of the mountain bike trails, headed to the paddle. We felt confident now that our strategy was paying off.
The trails at Deep Creek are pretty fun, I would describe them as similar to raystown, but with more tech and less flow. So not as fast, but quality stuff. Here is where we had our first hiccup though. We were heading towards CP8, which should have been at a trail/creek intersection, at an elevation shown on the map. As we went through the area it was supposed to be, we didn’t see anything. So we started searching the surrounding area and going back and forth, up and down and all throughought the woods. We rechecked our distance from the last intersection and ended up spending about an hour looking for the point but not finding it. In the end it turned out that the map grid lines were off by about 200 meters, so many of the points were incorrectly plotted on the map, and the point we were searching for was on a different trail. Some teams found it by accident. We decided the point was misplaced and moved on. This was a pretty big blow to team morale early in the race. Not getting a checkpoint AND wasting so much time looking for it. It basically put the rest of our race in limbo. Our placement would be a factor of other teams having the same issue, or the race director realizing he made a mistake and making that checkpoint not count…but there was nothing we could do at that point..so we moved on.
The rest of the checkpoints in the bike and the foot section A we found without much trouble, though some were still misplaced, we just happened upon them when we weren’t looking for them. Other teams however weren’t as lucky as we were. We moved on to the next biking section and went to the waterfalls at swallow falls state park. These points we found easily, because they were located at cool waterfall features that the race director intended us to visit. With section B done, we refilled our bottles at a public restroom and hopped back on our bikes.
It was approaching 1 pm now, and we were making good time, but it was also the hottest part of the day. I was trying to drink as much as I could, but the intense humidity and heat was creeping up on me badly. I kept on top of my electrolytes and did what I could to avoid the dreaded bonk. We made it to the westernmost section of the race at the Pine Swamp, to pick up one more point. The map showed it at a streamhead at the edge of a swamp. So we found our bearings and got to that area. After 10 minutes of fruitless searching, we decided to apply the same error we found some of the other points to have, and re-plotted the point on the map. Bingo. There it was. At least this time we only wasted ten minutes and not a whole hour.
back on our bikes, and a gravel road climb to the “C” area. The first two points were at trail intersections and we found them easily. Then went to find CP 19…. In the end, only 1 team found CP19, and they found it by accident after giving up looking for it. The clue was “hilltop”. We easily found the hilltop we were looking for. It was a grouping of large sandstone boulders with a dense forest of rhododendron growing all throughout It. I don’t know if anyone has ever tried to bushwhack through rhododendron, but its horrible. Its like a huge cobweb made out of wood, we could barely see 5 feet past our faces it was so dense. Once again, we spent over an hour crawling in, out, over and under every inch that we could fit ourselves into. At once point I found the highest boulder with a tree on it, and then began climbing the tree, just to get a bearing and glimpse at where this damn point could be! It was at that point that a thunderstorm erupted over us and I decided that a checkpoint was not worth getting hit by lightning for, so we once again decided that the point had to be misplaced and we cut our losses and moved on.
the rest of the points in this section we found with ease, probably because there was no more rhododendron, even though one was slightly misplaced, but we were used to that by now.
after finally getting the last point in this section, we hopped back onto our bikes and started the last section home. It was mostly road biking, with a huge screaming downhill on wet, fresh pavement. It was pretty exciting.
we crossed the finish line just a few minutes before the 12 hour mark (the race had a 14 hour cutoff). Overall, we felt pretty crappy about the race. We were definitely fast….if the points had been where they were supposed to be, we would have been the first team to clear the course, but since at least 2 points were grossly misplaced, we were down 2 checkpoints. At this time, with 2 hours left, we could have and probably should have gone back out to look for CP8, after hearing that other teams found it. But I think we were just a bit too soured from the experience and didn’t have much desire to.
in the end, we placed 3rd in our division. I have kind of a “meh” feeling about that…as I know things should have gone better..but didn’t. It was a great location, and fun area…but the race director should have been a bit more detail oriented with the point placement. That was prettymuch the consensus among all the teams too.
oh well..chock that one up to experience! Ive got to get ready for another race this weekend!
axcxnj
Hipster Keys
generally a phone is a piece of mandatory gear, but only for emergency use. if we used the map/gps function it would disqualify us. however, before the race, its fine to cross-reference other maps, although some races strictly say no outside maps allowed.
axcxnj
Hipster Keys
The Longest Day 2014
This is my 2nd to last AR of the season. Every year the course designers put together a stellar and challenging course through areas of NY. Usually we are in the catskill mountains or the Minnewaska area, but this year they brought us across the Hudson to race near Peekskill and the Taconic range. The team was myself and john (lead navigator) and 2 members from the American Adventure Sports team, who were last minute looking to join up and form an elite division coed team. Doug and Julie are both talented veteran racers, so we were glad to get a chance to race with them.
prior to the race, all we knew about the course is that we were going to finish in the Taconic, and this image that the race directors shared
Saturday Morning at 6am we registered and received our maps. We only needed to about an hour to look over the course it seemed. It was very straight forward, with a lot less off-trail travel than I am used to seeing in this race. At 8 am we loaded onto busses and got shipped over to Blue Mountain for the 9 am race start
Prologue
each team got a packet at the beginning of the race with 2 identical maps, and 2 different punch cards. We were to split up into 2 groups and go after a series of different points, on foot, and then meet at the opposite end of the park to get our bikes for the next leg. Our team made short work of the foot orienteering course, and we met again at the parking lot at blue (the one that most people start from when riding) where our bikes were waiting.
Bike-Orienteering
With the prologue completed, John mounted the next map onto his map-board and we were off to find more points that were scattered throughout blue. The trails were nice and dry. Ive only ridden here a handful of times, but its always been fun riding, and this did not disappoint. The race directors know the park well, so they designed the course to encourage some of the fun and flowing trails of blue. Thankfully we had no mechanicals or wrecks and we were through this section without much hesitation. We then rode down through town to the waterfront park in Peekskill to transition to the paddle leg
Paddle
we were all a bit intimidated by the paddle leg shown on the maps. It took us 12 miles up stream on the Hudson. And we were paddling crappy sit-on-top kayaks, which glide about as well as a brick. At this point we were the 2nd team to get onto the water. We were all surprised at how warm the water was, which was a nice turn of events. Also the tide was moving with us, as well as the wind. What we were expecting to be a 3+ hour paddle, turned into only a little more than 2 hours! We were able to take some straight lines through some of the curves in the river and catch up to the lead team by the end of the paddle leg. At this point the rain had begun and was coming through in waves. We were warm while paddling, but once we got out of the boats the breeze chilled us quickly. Thankfully at this next transition area, we planned to have dry clothing to change into. It was pretty amazing how well that worked to warm us up. Even though we were wet again in 10 minutes from the rain, being able to reset yourself a bit with a warm dry clothing change is great. With trekking shoes on, we began a steep climb up the AT for the next section.
Mountain Trek
This was a relatively short section of the race, but still required a bit of skill. We began on the AT, climbing up to find a checkpoint at a beautiful overlook point….well, it would have been beautiful if it wasn’t raining and everything wasn’t shrouded in clouds..but we were able to picture it in our heads. From here we broke away from the trail to bushwhack a few kilometers to find 2 more checkpoints at the summits of adjacent peaks. This was a constant back and forth part of the race for ourselves and the other lead team. We would see eachother in the woods, then take a slightly different course, only to reconvene at a later clearing or checkpoint, both of us trying to get the lead with a more clever route choice. It looks like we won in the end. Descending the mountain to find the next transition area, and our bikes; we were informed that we were in the lead and the first team to arrive! A quick transition consisting of changing shoes and putting on a helmet, and we were off to the next leg of the course
Mountain Biking
This was a fairly short leg. Once on the road, leaving the TA, we took a planned stop at a gas station, where we filled our camelbacks up with water, I filled a water bottle up with hot chocolate, and John and I split a warm egg and cheese on a bagel. A little bit of warm food and drink while we are soaking wet really helped us out. The 5 or so minutes we took to stop was definitely worth it. A few more K down the road and we turned off onto a multi use trail. I think it should have been a “nobody use trail” because the entire thing was just a big washed out fire road…terrible for trying to bike. Baby heads for miles…I hate baby heads…maybe this is why I have no desire to have kids. I digress. We got through the section of trail which dumped us onto a nice dirt road which we quickly descended to get to our next TA. Once again we were the first team to pull in, looks like our gas station top didn’t hurt us at all. We dropped bikes, changed to trekking shoes and made sure that our headlamps were accessible, as this would be a long section. It was close to 5 pm now and we would not be finishing this in the light.
Foot Orienteering
So we were off onto the next foot section. We were in the north end of Clarence Fahnestock state park. A slew of well marked trails helped us navigate to each CP which was then somewhere off the trail. The rain was still steadily falling at this time. Being wet was just part of the deal. We were told that the rain should stop for good around 8PM. While it was nice that there was an end in sight, it sucked that it would still be raining into the dark. This park is split by highway 301, with the Taconic outdoor education center in the southern half, which was also a later TA and our finish line. there were points spread throughout the whole park, and we were free to get as many or as few as we wanted. Because we still had some light left, we decided to go for all of the points in the northern half, and one of the points in the southern half. This made for some pretty intense bushwhacking down some steep faces, but we made it to 301 to go find one of the points in the lower half of the park. By now we were more than halfway through this foot section, but only had about 20 minutes of light left. We ventured across the road and into the next section of woods. John was doing a great job of keeping us on point with our navigation and we actually found the CP without much trouble at all. Now all we had to do was get back to the road and start heading north back to our bikes. We took a different route back to the road. With the sun now gone, and our headlamps guiding us, we found ourselves crawling on our bellies through a marsh, because the rhododendron and brush was too thick to stand up…have I mentioned that I hate rhododendron? We were making terribly slow progress, all while being soaked by the rain from above and the spongy earth from below. We adjusted our course west, to get out of the marsh as quickly as possible. Crawling through, one of the branches caught my camelback tube and yanked it out of the bladder. So here I am, in the pitch black, trying to crawl through a swamp. Its raining on me, and my only drinking water is now pouring down the back of my bike shorts. If I had to pick a low point for the race, this would be it..no doubt. I had to awkwardly scramble to connect the tube back to stop the hemorrhaging. But by the time I did it was too late and my water was empty, it was all now being held in my chamois.
We somehow managed to get out of there and head back north. It had stopped raining from the clouds, but the breeze through the woods kept a steady fall of rain drops on us from the trees. It was now about 10 PM and we passed a campsite with 3 guys sitting around a fire, enjoying some beers and strumming on a guitar. I was so so so tempted to take a 5 minute break and dry out/warm up…but I have a rule about campfires while adventure racing – No Campfires While Adventure Racing. Flames and heat have this strange way of turning “just 5 minutes” into a 45 minute nap…and we were racing….goodbye warmth and comfort, we want more cold tree rain. We worked our way back to the TA where our bikes were waiting for us and made it at about 11 pm. I had a coke stashed in my bag, so I drank that, and also some of the now cold hot chocolate…mmm mmm. I managed to dry out my clothing somewhat on the final bit of trekking back to the bikes, from my body heat. So we put on dry warm clothing that we had saved in our packs, and changed our warm, wet trekking shoes, for cold, wet bike shoes. Helmets on, lights on and we are off into the long bike leg of the night.
This is my 2nd to last AR of the season. Every year the course designers put together a stellar and challenging course through areas of NY. Usually we are in the catskill mountains or the Minnewaska area, but this year they brought us across the Hudson to race near Peekskill and the Taconic range. The team was myself and john (lead navigator) and 2 members from the American Adventure Sports team, who were last minute looking to join up and form an elite division coed team. Doug and Julie are both talented veteran racers, so we were glad to get a chance to race with them.
prior to the race, all we knew about the course is that we were going to finish in the Taconic, and this image that the race directors shared
Saturday Morning at 6am we registered and received our maps. We only needed to about an hour to look over the course it seemed. It was very straight forward, with a lot less off-trail travel than I am used to seeing in this race. At 8 am we loaded onto busses and got shipped over to Blue Mountain for the 9 am race start
Prologue
each team got a packet at the beginning of the race with 2 identical maps, and 2 different punch cards. We were to split up into 2 groups and go after a series of different points, on foot, and then meet at the opposite end of the park to get our bikes for the next leg. Our team made short work of the foot orienteering course, and we met again at the parking lot at blue (the one that most people start from when riding) where our bikes were waiting.
Bike-Orienteering
With the prologue completed, John mounted the next map onto his map-board and we were off to find more points that were scattered throughout blue. The trails were nice and dry. Ive only ridden here a handful of times, but its always been fun riding, and this did not disappoint. The race directors know the park well, so they designed the course to encourage some of the fun and flowing trails of blue. Thankfully we had no mechanicals or wrecks and we were through this section without much hesitation. We then rode down through town to the waterfront park in Peekskill to transition to the paddle leg
Paddle
we were all a bit intimidated by the paddle leg shown on the maps. It took us 12 miles up stream on the Hudson. And we were paddling crappy sit-on-top kayaks, which glide about as well as a brick. At this point we were the 2nd team to get onto the water. We were all surprised at how warm the water was, which was a nice turn of events. Also the tide was moving with us, as well as the wind. What we were expecting to be a 3+ hour paddle, turned into only a little more than 2 hours! We were able to take some straight lines through some of the curves in the river and catch up to the lead team by the end of the paddle leg. At this point the rain had begun and was coming through in waves. We were warm while paddling, but once we got out of the boats the breeze chilled us quickly. Thankfully at this next transition area, we planned to have dry clothing to change into. It was pretty amazing how well that worked to warm us up. Even though we were wet again in 10 minutes from the rain, being able to reset yourself a bit with a warm dry clothing change is great. With trekking shoes on, we began a steep climb up the AT for the next section.
Mountain Trek
This was a relatively short section of the race, but still required a bit of skill. We began on the AT, climbing up to find a checkpoint at a beautiful overlook point….well, it would have been beautiful if it wasn’t raining and everything wasn’t shrouded in clouds..but we were able to picture it in our heads. From here we broke away from the trail to bushwhack a few kilometers to find 2 more checkpoints at the summits of adjacent peaks. This was a constant back and forth part of the race for ourselves and the other lead team. We would see eachother in the woods, then take a slightly different course, only to reconvene at a later clearing or checkpoint, both of us trying to get the lead with a more clever route choice. It looks like we won in the end. Descending the mountain to find the next transition area, and our bikes; we were informed that we were in the lead and the first team to arrive! A quick transition consisting of changing shoes and putting on a helmet, and we were off to the next leg of the course
Mountain Biking
This was a fairly short leg. Once on the road, leaving the TA, we took a planned stop at a gas station, where we filled our camelbacks up with water, I filled a water bottle up with hot chocolate, and John and I split a warm egg and cheese on a bagel. A little bit of warm food and drink while we are soaking wet really helped us out. The 5 or so minutes we took to stop was definitely worth it. A few more K down the road and we turned off onto a multi use trail. I think it should have been a “nobody use trail” because the entire thing was just a big washed out fire road…terrible for trying to bike. Baby heads for miles…I hate baby heads…maybe this is why I have no desire to have kids. I digress. We got through the section of trail which dumped us onto a nice dirt road which we quickly descended to get to our next TA. Once again we were the first team to pull in, looks like our gas station top didn’t hurt us at all. We dropped bikes, changed to trekking shoes and made sure that our headlamps were accessible, as this would be a long section. It was close to 5 pm now and we would not be finishing this in the light.
Foot Orienteering
So we were off onto the next foot section. We were in the north end of Clarence Fahnestock state park. A slew of well marked trails helped us navigate to each CP which was then somewhere off the trail. The rain was still steadily falling at this time. Being wet was just part of the deal. We were told that the rain should stop for good around 8PM. While it was nice that there was an end in sight, it sucked that it would still be raining into the dark. This park is split by highway 301, with the Taconic outdoor education center in the southern half, which was also a later TA and our finish line. there were points spread throughout the whole park, and we were free to get as many or as few as we wanted. Because we still had some light left, we decided to go for all of the points in the northern half, and one of the points in the southern half. This made for some pretty intense bushwhacking down some steep faces, but we made it to 301 to go find one of the points in the lower half of the park. By now we were more than halfway through this foot section, but only had about 20 minutes of light left. We ventured across the road and into the next section of woods. John was doing a great job of keeping us on point with our navigation and we actually found the CP without much trouble at all. Now all we had to do was get back to the road and start heading north back to our bikes. We took a different route back to the road. With the sun now gone, and our headlamps guiding us, we found ourselves crawling on our bellies through a marsh, because the rhododendron and brush was too thick to stand up…have I mentioned that I hate rhododendron? We were making terribly slow progress, all while being soaked by the rain from above and the spongy earth from below. We adjusted our course west, to get out of the marsh as quickly as possible. Crawling through, one of the branches caught my camelback tube and yanked it out of the bladder. So here I am, in the pitch black, trying to crawl through a swamp. Its raining on me, and my only drinking water is now pouring down the back of my bike shorts. If I had to pick a low point for the race, this would be it..no doubt. I had to awkwardly scramble to connect the tube back to stop the hemorrhaging. But by the time I did it was too late and my water was empty, it was all now being held in my chamois.
We somehow managed to get out of there and head back north. It had stopped raining from the clouds, but the breeze through the woods kept a steady fall of rain drops on us from the trees. It was now about 10 PM and we passed a campsite with 3 guys sitting around a fire, enjoying some beers and strumming on a guitar. I was so so so tempted to take a 5 minute break and dry out/warm up…but I have a rule about campfires while adventure racing – No Campfires While Adventure Racing. Flames and heat have this strange way of turning “just 5 minutes” into a 45 minute nap…and we were racing….goodbye warmth and comfort, we want more cold tree rain. We worked our way back to the TA where our bikes were waiting for us and made it at about 11 pm. I had a coke stashed in my bag, so I drank that, and also some of the now cold hot chocolate…mmm mmm. I managed to dry out my clothing somewhat on the final bit of trekking back to the bikes, from my body heat. So we put on dry warm clothing that we had saved in our packs, and changed our warm, wet trekking shoes, for cold, wet bike shoes. Helmets on, lights on and we are off into the long bike leg of the night.
axcxnj
Hipster Keys
Mountain Biking
we started off on a long dirt road descent. The extra layers I put on helped keep the chill away from the wind. Once at the bottom of the descent, we headed north to circumvent a few climbs…adding a few K to save our legs from hundreds of feet of climbing. But we weren’t free from all the climbing just yet. We made it to Miller Hill Road, which now that im looking at it on a map, doesn’t seem that bad…but for all I knew we were climbing the Pyrenees in the TDF. Granny gear grinding was my life now. My legs were cramping, but we just had to get to the top, then we could go back down. Right when I was about ready to explode in a huff of curse words, we reached the top of the climb. Its on strava if anyone wants to check it out. “miller hill frontside climb”
From here we descended south and into a campground with a multi use trail system. The riding here was really nice as long as it was flat. The doubletrack flowed nicely, but anywhere the trail pitched, it just became a washed out scree field. So it was ride, hike up, ride, hike down, repeat…for a WHILE we had one FAR OUT point to get, which after what seemed forever, we made it to, from there we exited the trail system and took a series of roads and dirt roads which climbed back to the taconic outdoor education center, which was our next TA and eventual finish line.
Foot Orienteering
At just before 6 AM we rolled into the TA and got ready to head back out for more points. We had 3 hours until the cutoff, but looking at the map, we knew we could not get the remainder of the points, there were just too many. We set back out on foot with the dark sky slowly turning blue. It had been a clear night and the morning was looking to be just as nice. We were moving a bit slow at first, but we were on point and accurate. As the sun came up over the horizon it just illuminated the forest. The dew drops and lingering mist became prisms and mirrors for the light to bend it every which way. The air was cool, and a light breeze was flowing in and out, blowing away my terribly stench of BO, and letting me smell the fresh incoming autumn. Once again I was reminded of why I do these things. Why did I have to crawl through cold mud and muck, with water pouring down my back? So I could make it to here, this moment where my legs and back stopped hurting. I was being bathed in sunlight instead of rainwater and I felt refreshed in a way I don’t think I could have imagined. Our team went from a slow weary shuffle, to an all out run. Its amazing how much these little moments really affect you. We were totally recharged with the beautiful morning, and things just clicked and flowed. We were able to maintain a decent pace, and ended up leaving only 4 points out on the course, finishing with about 20 minutes to spare. This was good enough for a well earned 3rd place finish. The top 2 teams took a different strategy to the large foot orienteering course that was split by the bike leg, and theirs paid off where ours fell short. But we were all very challenged and felt great about how we performed.
I say it every year, that this is my favorite race of the year. The course designers really put a ton of effort to make a challenging course that is also enjoyable.
sorry for the lack of pictures, there was no photographer covering this event unfortunately, so you will have to use your imagination. But now I get to recover some more, as I have just about 1 month until my last race of the year.
we started off on a long dirt road descent. The extra layers I put on helped keep the chill away from the wind. Once at the bottom of the descent, we headed north to circumvent a few climbs…adding a few K to save our legs from hundreds of feet of climbing. But we weren’t free from all the climbing just yet. We made it to Miller Hill Road, which now that im looking at it on a map, doesn’t seem that bad…but for all I knew we were climbing the Pyrenees in the TDF. Granny gear grinding was my life now. My legs were cramping, but we just had to get to the top, then we could go back down. Right when I was about ready to explode in a huff of curse words, we reached the top of the climb. Its on strava if anyone wants to check it out. “miller hill frontside climb”
From here we descended south and into a campground with a multi use trail system. The riding here was really nice as long as it was flat. The doubletrack flowed nicely, but anywhere the trail pitched, it just became a washed out scree field. So it was ride, hike up, ride, hike down, repeat…for a WHILE we had one FAR OUT point to get, which after what seemed forever, we made it to, from there we exited the trail system and took a series of roads and dirt roads which climbed back to the taconic outdoor education center, which was our next TA and eventual finish line.
Foot Orienteering
At just before 6 AM we rolled into the TA and got ready to head back out for more points. We had 3 hours until the cutoff, but looking at the map, we knew we could not get the remainder of the points, there were just too many. We set back out on foot with the dark sky slowly turning blue. It had been a clear night and the morning was looking to be just as nice. We were moving a bit slow at first, but we were on point and accurate. As the sun came up over the horizon it just illuminated the forest. The dew drops and lingering mist became prisms and mirrors for the light to bend it every which way. The air was cool, and a light breeze was flowing in and out, blowing away my terribly stench of BO, and letting me smell the fresh incoming autumn. Once again I was reminded of why I do these things. Why did I have to crawl through cold mud and muck, with water pouring down my back? So I could make it to here, this moment where my legs and back stopped hurting. I was being bathed in sunlight instead of rainwater and I felt refreshed in a way I don’t think I could have imagined. Our team went from a slow weary shuffle, to an all out run. Its amazing how much these little moments really affect you. We were totally recharged with the beautiful morning, and things just clicked and flowed. We were able to maintain a decent pace, and ended up leaving only 4 points out on the course, finishing with about 20 minutes to spare. This was good enough for a well earned 3rd place finish. The top 2 teams took a different strategy to the large foot orienteering course that was split by the bike leg, and theirs paid off where ours fell short. But we were all very challenged and felt great about how we performed.
I say it every year, that this is my favorite race of the year. The course designers really put a ton of effort to make a challenging course that is also enjoyable.
sorry for the lack of pictures, there was no photographer covering this event unfortunately, so you will have to use your imagination. But now I get to recover some more, as I have just about 1 month until my last race of the year.
SpartaBard
Well-Known Member
You guys are freakin crazy.
axcxnj
Hipster Keys
THROWBACK THURSDAY!!
maybe this should only apply to facebook..but im doing it here. in 2013, John and I attempted Mt Rainier as a 2 man team. I wrote an account of it, but never did anything with it..so i figured id post it here...because this is a blog..and thats what you do with blogs. I hope you enjoy!
Prep
So before I get too far into anything, I just want to clarify that the disappointment of not summiting was far offset by how amazing this trip was. Not just being on rainier, but exploring half of Washington with Aly. We had 10 days of sunshine there..totally unheard of, I got to see the pacific ocean for the first time, camped in an incredible old growth forest..had views for days..etc. the worst part about this trip is that I will have to work so freaking hard to plan one that can top it, I don’t know if it can be done =].
Anyways, Rainier has probably been in the works for the past few years. Little bits of research here and there, but a lot more planning and prep happened in the past 3-4 months. There are numerous routes to climb rainier. I had originally wanted to do a more substantial, more committing route, called the liberty ridge, but my common sense won out on me, and we went with the most common, most popular route on the mountain, called the Disappointment Cleaver. This route sees the most traffic, and since this is our first time climbing such a big mountain as a 2 person team, it is the safest route in case of an emergency and accident. Not that I wanted to rely on anything or anyone else besides our own know how and skill. But it gives a little sense of security knowing that there are other people in close proximity.
So leading up to the climb I read lots of trip reports, researched and purchased final bits of gear, got guidebooks and maps, practiced crevasse rescue multiple times with John, and planned 2 alternate climbs on different mountains if weather did not cooperate. Aly knows how much I stressed out about this beforehand lol. But I figured that I needed to know everything I could about the route and current conditions to maximize our safety. The plan is to have 3 days on the mountain. The route should be able to be climbed in 2 days. The 3rd is for weather/any other unforeseen circumstance. Day 1 is going from the paradise parking lot (about 5k elevation) up to camp miur (about 10k). Total distance is about 5 miles. Summit day starts at midnight, and climbs from camp miur to the summit at 14,411 and then all the way back down to paradise. It’s a long day
Heres a map giving you an idea of the route
Monday
So Monday morning comes. John was supposed to arrive in seattle Sunday night, but his flight got cancelled, and he is getting in at 11 AM. The original plan was to be at the mountain around 6 AM, that’s not happening. I pack all of my gear at the hotel and set aside some gear and food for john to carry. We get john at 11, and drive over to rainier, arriving at about 1:45. Go to the ranger station to get our climbing permits, check aly in to her hotel and pack our bags one final time,
Aly, John and I start up together at about 3:15. Aly comes with us for the first 20 mins or so, when she decides to head back. I wanted her to come up to camp miur with us, but she wasn’t having it lol. I am very appreciative of all she put up with for me to get to here, I owe her bigtime. So then starts a 5 hour long slog up the miur snowfield. It’s a looong low angle slope that has permanent snow year round. It was really deceiving how long it would take to do this portion. And gaining 5k feet of elevation doesn’t help. As we climb with our heavy packs, we’re really starting to feel it. John a bit more than me (I had acclimated a bit from backpacking with aly over the weekend) After what seems like forever. We are about 100 feet from camp Miur. Theres a bunch of people sitting up there, watching us..and john has to take a break….he is feeling the elevation hard. Im feeling a lot better than he is, so I continue up to camp, drop my pack down and then come to get his and walk up the last bit with him. We get there at 8 pm. Its obvious at this point to us, that we are not going to go for the summit tomorrow. We needed to acclimate more, and its way too late in the day to try and rest in order to get up at midnight.
We find an empty tent spot at the edge of the camp, with a great view down into the Cowlitz glacier. John pukes up all of the trail mix he ate on the way up. We get the tent setup, and john unpacks his sleeping bag and crawls in. I start melting snow and refilling our water bottles, waking john up so that he can take some ibuprofen and drink some water to help with the altitude. At this point its approaching 10 PM its still light out…but the camp is silent, and the air is perfectly still. I just stood there for a few minutes and listened to some of the craziest sounds I have ever heard. The giant rock walls surrounding us periodically send rocks tumbling down. It’s a frightening sound, knowing that part of the route will go under these walls, and the rocks fall pretty consistently. On the far side of the mountain, out of view, I hear a huge rumble…similar to the rockfall, but different..it gets louder and I can feel the impact of the huge chunks of ice tumbling down the glacier. The Cowlitz glacier, below us, is far more stable. I can hear a deep creaking sound coming from far within. Its probably the strangest thing ive ever heard. I just get this amazing realization that the entire mountain around me is moving and changing. I think that moment made everything real to me. Ok..im really here, and this is a real mountain..and I need to make the right decision, every time. No exceptions.
maybe this should only apply to facebook..but im doing it here. in 2013, John and I attempted Mt Rainier as a 2 man team. I wrote an account of it, but never did anything with it..so i figured id post it here...because this is a blog..and thats what you do with blogs. I hope you enjoy!
Prep
So before I get too far into anything, I just want to clarify that the disappointment of not summiting was far offset by how amazing this trip was. Not just being on rainier, but exploring half of Washington with Aly. We had 10 days of sunshine there..totally unheard of, I got to see the pacific ocean for the first time, camped in an incredible old growth forest..had views for days..etc. the worst part about this trip is that I will have to work so freaking hard to plan one that can top it, I don’t know if it can be done =].
Anyways, Rainier has probably been in the works for the past few years. Little bits of research here and there, but a lot more planning and prep happened in the past 3-4 months. There are numerous routes to climb rainier. I had originally wanted to do a more substantial, more committing route, called the liberty ridge, but my common sense won out on me, and we went with the most common, most popular route on the mountain, called the Disappointment Cleaver. This route sees the most traffic, and since this is our first time climbing such a big mountain as a 2 person team, it is the safest route in case of an emergency and accident. Not that I wanted to rely on anything or anyone else besides our own know how and skill. But it gives a little sense of security knowing that there are other people in close proximity.
So leading up to the climb I read lots of trip reports, researched and purchased final bits of gear, got guidebooks and maps, practiced crevasse rescue multiple times with John, and planned 2 alternate climbs on different mountains if weather did not cooperate. Aly knows how much I stressed out about this beforehand lol. But I figured that I needed to know everything I could about the route and current conditions to maximize our safety. The plan is to have 3 days on the mountain. The route should be able to be climbed in 2 days. The 3rd is for weather/any other unforeseen circumstance. Day 1 is going from the paradise parking lot (about 5k elevation) up to camp miur (about 10k). Total distance is about 5 miles. Summit day starts at midnight, and climbs from camp miur to the summit at 14,411 and then all the way back down to paradise. It’s a long day
Heres a map giving you an idea of the route
Monday
So Monday morning comes. John was supposed to arrive in seattle Sunday night, but his flight got cancelled, and he is getting in at 11 AM. The original plan was to be at the mountain around 6 AM, that’s not happening. I pack all of my gear at the hotel and set aside some gear and food for john to carry. We get john at 11, and drive over to rainier, arriving at about 1:45. Go to the ranger station to get our climbing permits, check aly in to her hotel and pack our bags one final time,
Aly, John and I start up together at about 3:15. Aly comes with us for the first 20 mins or so, when she decides to head back. I wanted her to come up to camp miur with us, but she wasn’t having it lol. I am very appreciative of all she put up with for me to get to here, I owe her bigtime. So then starts a 5 hour long slog up the miur snowfield. It’s a looong low angle slope that has permanent snow year round. It was really deceiving how long it would take to do this portion. And gaining 5k feet of elevation doesn’t help. As we climb with our heavy packs, we’re really starting to feel it. John a bit more than me (I had acclimated a bit from backpacking with aly over the weekend) After what seems like forever. We are about 100 feet from camp Miur. Theres a bunch of people sitting up there, watching us..and john has to take a break….he is feeling the elevation hard. Im feeling a lot better than he is, so I continue up to camp, drop my pack down and then come to get his and walk up the last bit with him. We get there at 8 pm. Its obvious at this point to us, that we are not going to go for the summit tomorrow. We needed to acclimate more, and its way too late in the day to try and rest in order to get up at midnight.
We find an empty tent spot at the edge of the camp, with a great view down into the Cowlitz glacier. John pukes up all of the trail mix he ate on the way up. We get the tent setup, and john unpacks his sleeping bag and crawls in. I start melting snow and refilling our water bottles, waking john up so that he can take some ibuprofen and drink some water to help with the altitude. At this point its approaching 10 PM its still light out…but the camp is silent, and the air is perfectly still. I just stood there for a few minutes and listened to some of the craziest sounds I have ever heard. The giant rock walls surrounding us periodically send rocks tumbling down. It’s a frightening sound, knowing that part of the route will go under these walls, and the rocks fall pretty consistently. On the far side of the mountain, out of view, I hear a huge rumble…similar to the rockfall, but different..it gets louder and I can feel the impact of the huge chunks of ice tumbling down the glacier. The Cowlitz glacier, below us, is far more stable. I can hear a deep creaking sound coming from far within. Its probably the strangest thing ive ever heard. I just get this amazing realization that the entire mountain around me is moving and changing. I think that moment made everything real to me. Ok..im really here, and this is a real mountain..and I need to make the right decision, every time. No exceptions.
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axcxnj
Hipster Keys
Tuesday
So today turned out to be a rest/acclimation day. The wind picked up like crazy last night and shook our tent all night long…half the night the tent was flexing so much that the wall was pressed into my face. The 5:30 am sunrise wakes me up for good, so I start making hot water for some breakfast, then we can get on with our day. The plan is to fix our tent site, so that the tent sits lower, and we can build up the wall to block the wind, also we need to better secure the tent with the small tent stakes we have, instead of the climbing gear that we will need. The big problem here, is that its so warm and sunny out, that the buried tent stakes are constantly being melted out. So we need to periodically shovel more snow on top of the stakes to keep them buried so we don’t lose our tent.
Once the tent is secure, we head over onto the miur snowfield to practice self arrest (how to stop yourself in case you fall and start sliding down the mountain) and building anchors for pulling a partner out of a crevasse (we didn’t have a good practice session for this because of the lack of snow). After we get through this, we head back to the tent for an early lunch. Its important to stay well fed and well hydrated. That will help a lot with the altitude. John is feeling WAY better at this point, back to his normal self, which is good news.
After lunch, we get roped up to go on a practice hike, which will take us over cathedral gap and up to the ingraham flat campsite. We just want to get a bit more familiar with the glacial terrain and have a feel for what the summit route is going to look like. Its getting very warm and hot out, and the snow is getting very slushy. That is why its important to start so early in the day for a summit bid. Hard packed snow is safer to climb on and more predictable, it also gives you more time to climb before a possible change in weather rolls in throughout the day, as well as keeping the rocks more secure. Our trip over to the ingraham glacier is pretty awesome. We finally start to see some really big crevasses up close, and all the features of the maps I had been looking over for months im getting to see in person. It takes us about an hour to get over to the campground, where we take a break and look over the route up the disappointment cleaver, for tomorrow morning. I don’t want to go up there now.. its too warm and too late in the day to risk the increased chance of rockfall.
So we head back and have a pretty uneventful afternoon in camp. We end up taking down our tent in the evening and sleeping in a public shelter that is built at the camp, this way we don’t have to worry about the tent melting out and blowing away tomorrow while we are on our climb. The wind is really blowing. We had reports of 60 mph gusts up near the summit. 5 pm we start making dinner and sit out on a bench overlooking the miur snowfield. A big guided group is making their way into the camp. One guy is lagging behind hard…he makes it to the same point, just a hundred feet away, than john did yesterday, and stops, bends over, and starts puking. Me and john just look at eachother and get a laugh that he was that guy yesterday. Glad he is feeling better , and we start getting ready for a 6 pm bedtime and 12 am wakeup.
Unfortunately the wakeup never comes for me, because I never actually fell asleep. The wind was howling the entire evening and night. I had tons of thoughts going through my head about how it would be up high, and earlier in the day we got a report that 1 person punched through a crevasse up at 13,800’ and dragged the 2nd person in with them. Thankfully they were roped in with more than 2 people..maybe 4 or 5, so they were able to stop the fall and get everyone out….but I just kept playing that scenario over in my head, if that happened to john and I. would either of us be able to stop the fall? If not, and we weren’t injured, how would we get out of the crevasse….did I bring enough ice screws? Is there enough distance between us on the rope? Are there enough knots in the rope? Yeah, its hard to sleep with all of that going through your head.
So today turned out to be a rest/acclimation day. The wind picked up like crazy last night and shook our tent all night long…half the night the tent was flexing so much that the wall was pressed into my face. The 5:30 am sunrise wakes me up for good, so I start making hot water for some breakfast, then we can get on with our day. The plan is to fix our tent site, so that the tent sits lower, and we can build up the wall to block the wind, also we need to better secure the tent with the small tent stakes we have, instead of the climbing gear that we will need. The big problem here, is that its so warm and sunny out, that the buried tent stakes are constantly being melted out. So we need to periodically shovel more snow on top of the stakes to keep them buried so we don’t lose our tent.
Once the tent is secure, we head over onto the miur snowfield to practice self arrest (how to stop yourself in case you fall and start sliding down the mountain) and building anchors for pulling a partner out of a crevasse (we didn’t have a good practice session for this because of the lack of snow). After we get through this, we head back to the tent for an early lunch. Its important to stay well fed and well hydrated. That will help a lot with the altitude. John is feeling WAY better at this point, back to his normal self, which is good news.
After lunch, we get roped up to go on a practice hike, which will take us over cathedral gap and up to the ingraham flat campsite. We just want to get a bit more familiar with the glacial terrain and have a feel for what the summit route is going to look like. Its getting very warm and hot out, and the snow is getting very slushy. That is why its important to start so early in the day for a summit bid. Hard packed snow is safer to climb on and more predictable, it also gives you more time to climb before a possible change in weather rolls in throughout the day, as well as keeping the rocks more secure. Our trip over to the ingraham glacier is pretty awesome. We finally start to see some really big crevasses up close, and all the features of the maps I had been looking over for months im getting to see in person. It takes us about an hour to get over to the campground, where we take a break and look over the route up the disappointment cleaver, for tomorrow morning. I don’t want to go up there now.. its too warm and too late in the day to risk the increased chance of rockfall.
So we head back and have a pretty uneventful afternoon in camp. We end up taking down our tent in the evening and sleeping in a public shelter that is built at the camp, this way we don’t have to worry about the tent melting out and blowing away tomorrow while we are on our climb. The wind is really blowing. We had reports of 60 mph gusts up near the summit. 5 pm we start making dinner and sit out on a bench overlooking the miur snowfield. A big guided group is making their way into the camp. One guy is lagging behind hard…he makes it to the same point, just a hundred feet away, than john did yesterday, and stops, bends over, and starts puking. Me and john just look at eachother and get a laugh that he was that guy yesterday. Glad he is feeling better , and we start getting ready for a 6 pm bedtime and 12 am wakeup.
Unfortunately the wakeup never comes for me, because I never actually fell asleep. The wind was howling the entire evening and night. I had tons of thoughts going through my head about how it would be up high, and earlier in the day we got a report that 1 person punched through a crevasse up at 13,800’ and dragged the 2nd person in with them. Thankfully they were roped in with more than 2 people..maybe 4 or 5, so they were able to stop the fall and get everyone out….but I just kept playing that scenario over in my head, if that happened to john and I. would either of us be able to stop the fall? If not, and we weren’t injured, how would we get out of the crevasse….did I bring enough ice screws? Is there enough distance between us on the rope? Are there enough knots in the rope? Yeah, its hard to sleep with all of that going through your head.
axcxnj
Hipster Keys
Wednesday
The 12 am watch alarm goes off, and I hop out of bed..not tired…I guess im used to being up for long stretches of time from adventure racing. This is just going to be another long push. I go outside to have breakfast and get geared up, and am greeted with the most amazing night sky ive ever seen. The wind is still howling, but its crystal clear, and the whole milky way stretches across from one horizon to the next. Theres no moon out, and the stars are brighter than Ive ever seen before. Id be happy just sitting here, looking up, not climbing, but its time.
There are probably 10 or so roped up parties, total. A handful of the larger groups are the guided climbs. We can see across the glacier, a bunch of headlights of people that got an earlier start, moving slowly along. We head over to the bootpack, and fall in between 2 big guided teams. It’s a slow start with everyone moving along..and not even 5 minutes into it we hear a massive rockfall coming off of the walls to our left. Everyone there freezes, and you can see all of the headlamp beams darting around, looking to see where the sound of tumbling rocks are coming from. Thankfully it seemed that none of the rockfall reached the bootpack, and the illuminated train of climbers starts back up.
20 minutes in, the guided group ahead of us stops, either to get a rest, or make an adjustment or something. Not wanting to be rude, I stop behind them as well, and the group behind us stops. We are prettymuch in the highest rockfall prone area right now…and I don’t really know the etiquette about passing..i don’t want to be a dick..but I don’t want to be in this zone for any longer than I have to. The guide behind john and I starts getting pissed, and yells for the team to keep moving. The drop down from the bootpack, and pass around us, so I take that opportunity to go around as well and get out of the danger zone.
We get up through Cathedral gap and to the ingraham flats without incident, and are able to pass 2 more teams by the time we get to the cleaver, to begin that section of the climb. Its still very dark out, and we can only see what our headlamps illuminate. The route traverses back and forth, switching back up the cleaver through snow and rocks. Its really steep here, and it feels extremely exposed, to the side, it just drops off into blackness. I got pretty nervous here. One step at a time, one step at a time.
We climb climb climb, and finally get past the mixed rock and snow of the cleaver, and make it to 12,500’. Here, all the teams that we were climbing near, take a break. So we do the same. After about 10 minutes though, im getting cold and want to keep moving to stay warm, so we follow the first team out. The bootpack now starts heading south, while ascending. On the horizon, we can see the red glow of the sun starting to creep up. Its only 3:45 am..so it will stay dark for a while, but its enough to give us a silhouette of the enormous seracs that are looming above us. The overall landscape has changed greatly. Instead of being on a relatively flat glacier, with big open crevasses, were climbing through a glacier that is sloping down the side of the mountain, totally disheveled. With 40 foot ice walls on one side, and totally open air, on the other. The route comes to a narrow bridge, which drops off on both sides into deep crevasses. John and I both stopped and just took that whole situation in. Each footstep across here was placed very carefully, until we both got to a more stable section of the glacier.
The route brought us more towards the south side of the mountain, where we started switchbacking up towards the summit. The wind was super intense here. Pulsating between calm and then bursting at us, where it would pick up every last pebble of ice and bombard you. At this point we would stop climbing, bury the shaft of our ice axe into the snow, and hunker down until the attack was over. Then start climbing again. The team in front of us, which was 1 or 2 switchbacks above us, kicked a softball chunk of ice loose, which proceeded to tumble down into my leg. That was a nice unwelcome surprise of pain. I called up to the team, to please call out any ice or snow that they kick loose so that we get a warning next time. I got some grunts in return.
We keep going up and up and up…each lump that we come up over, presents even more and more of the mountain above us. It just keeps going. John is really starting to slow down here…painfully slow. I know something is up. We take a break and let some teams pass us. Then keep on up. Maybe 15 minutes later john sits down for another break..So I ask him how he is feeling. He has a headache, feels a bit nauseous, and his words are getting a bit slurred. Ok, yeah, those are definite signs of altitude sickness. I check my altimeter, and it shows 13,980’. I tell John to get up, because we need to head down now.
The sun is now fully up, and were heading back down everything we just climbed..its a lot easier going down. I was worried about some of the steeper sections, but doing it in the daylight actually makes it a lot more comfortable. We descend pretty quickly, and john is feeling better in no time.
Back at camp miur by 8:45 am Theres a large group of people down at camp. Apparently 17 people started up with the guided groups that morning, but only 4 went on to go to the summit. Everyone asks how our climb went and we told them what happened and why we turned around…so close to the top. But at the pace we were going, it would have taken 2 hours to climb that 500 feet, and things would have gotten dangerous. So I know that the right decision was made…it just really sucked to put so much combined effort into getting so close but not making it. Either way you cut it, it was a fantastic trip, and I learned a TON. Not only about glacier travel and climbing, but about being able to deal with situations as they come, and learning to trust myself and my decisions when they matter. So in that case it was a huge success. =]
The 12 am watch alarm goes off, and I hop out of bed..not tired…I guess im used to being up for long stretches of time from adventure racing. This is just going to be another long push. I go outside to have breakfast and get geared up, and am greeted with the most amazing night sky ive ever seen. The wind is still howling, but its crystal clear, and the whole milky way stretches across from one horizon to the next. Theres no moon out, and the stars are brighter than Ive ever seen before. Id be happy just sitting here, looking up, not climbing, but its time.
There are probably 10 or so roped up parties, total. A handful of the larger groups are the guided climbs. We can see across the glacier, a bunch of headlights of people that got an earlier start, moving slowly along. We head over to the bootpack, and fall in between 2 big guided teams. It’s a slow start with everyone moving along..and not even 5 minutes into it we hear a massive rockfall coming off of the walls to our left. Everyone there freezes, and you can see all of the headlamp beams darting around, looking to see where the sound of tumbling rocks are coming from. Thankfully it seemed that none of the rockfall reached the bootpack, and the illuminated train of climbers starts back up.
20 minutes in, the guided group ahead of us stops, either to get a rest, or make an adjustment or something. Not wanting to be rude, I stop behind them as well, and the group behind us stops. We are prettymuch in the highest rockfall prone area right now…and I don’t really know the etiquette about passing..i don’t want to be a dick..but I don’t want to be in this zone for any longer than I have to. The guide behind john and I starts getting pissed, and yells for the team to keep moving. The drop down from the bootpack, and pass around us, so I take that opportunity to go around as well and get out of the danger zone.
We get up through Cathedral gap and to the ingraham flats without incident, and are able to pass 2 more teams by the time we get to the cleaver, to begin that section of the climb. Its still very dark out, and we can only see what our headlamps illuminate. The route traverses back and forth, switching back up the cleaver through snow and rocks. Its really steep here, and it feels extremely exposed, to the side, it just drops off into blackness. I got pretty nervous here. One step at a time, one step at a time.
We climb climb climb, and finally get past the mixed rock and snow of the cleaver, and make it to 12,500’. Here, all the teams that we were climbing near, take a break. So we do the same. After about 10 minutes though, im getting cold and want to keep moving to stay warm, so we follow the first team out. The bootpack now starts heading south, while ascending. On the horizon, we can see the red glow of the sun starting to creep up. Its only 3:45 am..so it will stay dark for a while, but its enough to give us a silhouette of the enormous seracs that are looming above us. The overall landscape has changed greatly. Instead of being on a relatively flat glacier, with big open crevasses, were climbing through a glacier that is sloping down the side of the mountain, totally disheveled. With 40 foot ice walls on one side, and totally open air, on the other. The route comes to a narrow bridge, which drops off on both sides into deep crevasses. John and I both stopped and just took that whole situation in. Each footstep across here was placed very carefully, until we both got to a more stable section of the glacier.
The route brought us more towards the south side of the mountain, where we started switchbacking up towards the summit. The wind was super intense here. Pulsating between calm and then bursting at us, where it would pick up every last pebble of ice and bombard you. At this point we would stop climbing, bury the shaft of our ice axe into the snow, and hunker down until the attack was over. Then start climbing again. The team in front of us, which was 1 or 2 switchbacks above us, kicked a softball chunk of ice loose, which proceeded to tumble down into my leg. That was a nice unwelcome surprise of pain. I called up to the team, to please call out any ice or snow that they kick loose so that we get a warning next time. I got some grunts in return.
We keep going up and up and up…each lump that we come up over, presents even more and more of the mountain above us. It just keeps going. John is really starting to slow down here…painfully slow. I know something is up. We take a break and let some teams pass us. Then keep on up. Maybe 15 minutes later john sits down for another break..So I ask him how he is feeling. He has a headache, feels a bit nauseous, and his words are getting a bit slurred. Ok, yeah, those are definite signs of altitude sickness. I check my altimeter, and it shows 13,980’. I tell John to get up, because we need to head down now.
The sun is now fully up, and were heading back down everything we just climbed..its a lot easier going down. I was worried about some of the steeper sections, but doing it in the daylight actually makes it a lot more comfortable. We descend pretty quickly, and john is feeling better in no time.
Back at camp miur by 8:45 am Theres a large group of people down at camp. Apparently 17 people started up with the guided groups that morning, but only 4 went on to go to the summit. Everyone asks how our climb went and we told them what happened and why we turned around…so close to the top. But at the pace we were going, it would have taken 2 hours to climb that 500 feet, and things would have gotten dangerous. So I know that the right decision was made…it just really sucked to put so much combined effort into getting so close but not making it. Either way you cut it, it was a fantastic trip, and I learned a TON. Not only about glacier travel and climbing, but about being able to deal with situations as they come, and learning to trust myself and my decisions when they matter. So in that case it was a huge success. =]
Pearl
THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
STORY TIME!!
The Heckler
You bring new meaning to the term SUCK
hahahahahahha excellent.