By Barrie Adsett
How long does it take to kayak about 20 kilometers in the ocean, then trek up a 16 km canyon over boulders, swimming through the creek at places, then pick up a horse as your fourth teammate and while two of the human team members walked one got to ride another 16 km, then leave the horse, mount bikes and ride on washboard roads for 36 km before doing a 4 km hike-a-bike up a canyon and along ridges (which took 90 minutes), then ride about 22 km (when 12 Km would have been the preferred route), then trek about 8 km with a huge 65 meter rappel (that’s over 200 feet) and 50 meter pull-line swim at the bottom of the rappel, topped off by a 35 kilometer bike ride to the finish line?
It took Team Equinox – Kristine Gillis, Devlin Rambo and Barrie Adsett – 22 hours and 38 minutes. We think we meandered about 157 kilometers or almost 100 miles. Had we not taken a few wrong turns (only 2 really), and had to double back for missing a checkpoint, we probably would have finished some 3 hours earlier and shortcut about 30 km. But part of an Adventure Race is the ADVENTURE, and Baja Xtreme always guarantees adventure.
Our regular comrade, Steve Moore, was crew for this race as his knee was giving problems, so for substitution we twisted Devlin’s arm and he joined us. Devlin became the workhorse towing me on the bike and carrying extra stuff for Kristine and myself. But Devlin enjoyed himself and we thank him for joining a slower team than he is used to.
We completed our goal, which was to finish this race, something which has alluded us the past couple of years. Plus, along the way we accomplished a few good things like being first in the kayak, not bonking and not having to sleep during the race.
This years Baja 24 was a loop course from Baja Seasons Resort about 80 Km south of the US/Mexico border. The race went north on the ocean then inland via canyons and farmland all the way to the Baja Wine Country, before turning south then west and returning to the coast.
The 8 AM kayak start was at Puerto Salina Marina as there was a chance of huge waves if we had a surf entry. Rather than demolishing a few teams at the beginning, the organizers decided on a calm start. As teams left the marina I never looked back, so I only saw Team DART and Stride off to our left (heading toward Seattle and the Canadian border – which is where they are each based), and to our right was Big Bear Adventure Racing. The other teams were tight behind us. The map showed the finish of the kayak was at Primo Tapia, which we know as “the sand dunes” along that stretch of the coast. So we had some local knowledge to head for the landmark. After 30 minutes of racing in an approximate direction we were able to see the dunes and were on-course with Big Bear beside us. Ahead of us but still paddling too far out to sea were the northern racers. After almost 2 hours paddling Big Bear went past the pull-in while they checked their maps. We happened to look at the opportune time and saw the CP crew waving a flag at us, so we dipped to shore with both our boats beaching between waves, thus having a more than successful kayak section. No tip-outs, first place, life was good!
Our transition was fast, basically just changing clothes, as we had fresh packs for the next section. But we are middle of the packers (and proud of it), so as we walked the first 5 km up the gravel road the teams who were expected to be in front of us took their places ahead. When we were in about 6-7-8 th place we settled into a pace where we saw teams at TA’s and occasionally on the course.
The first canyon was interesting in that it was easier than I anticipated, other than a couple of places where we had to climb up a slot and crawl over boulders. There were a few places we had to swim through pools as there was no other way to travel and we had been advised of this. The rock formations were really interesting and one day I would like to race with a geologist who can explain the terrain as we travel. All we could do was admire how rocks could be vastly different when such a short distance apart.
CP1 was good to get to as it was the hint of where to exit the canyon and follow a well worn cow trail up to a mesa where the horse section began. On the map we were in the middle of nowhere, with a hill to the east and a road going south. As we wanted to go east we climbed the hill and in the distance saw the road we meant to take. I took a compass bearing and we headed toward it. What I failed to do (in hindsight) was note the distance we were away from the road, and I also failed to use the compass at the next intersection. Our shortcut across the hill had the road we saw being in the distance, and not the road we first reached. This meant that when we came to an intersection and the left road (the east road) looked like a minor road, we went on the right road which took us SE. First blunder. We continued for about 3 km when we came to another intersection which had an east road and a SE road. This time we used the compass and determined we were in the wrong place. As we turned around to backtrack a safety vehicle came up the road and confirmed we were on the wrong road. We discussed our plan to shortcut cross-country and were shown a trail we could use which helped us locate a road leading to the road we should have been on.
That was about a 5 km error and put is an hour behind. But making mistakes is good as you are then much more observant for some time, and when the last part of the horse section (about 4 km) had no trails on the map to follow, we were attuned to looking for cow trails through the hills. They all led to a creek which dropped down to the end of the leg.
Next was a long, bumpy, bike leg on back-roads. It led from the hills of La Zorra over to Valle de Guadalupe and the town of El Porvenir, then to the start of a hike-a-bike. Our original plan had us through the town about 8 PM so we figured on stopping for a beer and nachos. But despite our mistake on the horse leg we were ahead of time and racing darkness to the hike-a-bike. Decisions, decisions, do we enjoy the race and stop for food, or do we charge to the hike-a-bike section to look at the terrain with some daylight left. The racing thoughts outweighed fun thoughts so we went beerless and with Devlin towing me and Kristine jamming on her bike we made it to the start of the hike-a-bike as the sun set. It allowed us to see the canyon and the ridges either side and get an idea of what we were in for.
Toward the end of a trail on the map we saw a large cow-trail (not on the map of course) leading toward the canyon. It looked well traveled and we used it to start up into the hills. To my surprise the trail just kept going up, up, along the sides of the canyon, appropriately over the small ridges and toward where we wanted to go. There were side-trails but they all looped together and we had an easier than normal climb (at least for a Baja hike-a-bike). Though it was easier than normal it still took us 94 minutes to cover about 4 km with 1200 ft of ascent. At the top of the trail we came upon Team Stride with a team member suffering and catching some rest to be able to continue. They did not need assistance so we proceeded to the CP. The CP was only about 300-400 meters away and the worker was on his way to assist Stride as we got there. Told of the fire to warm up, they were soon back in the race and on our heels.
At this CP we were shown a trail and advised that it was the route recommended by the organizers. About 400 meters down the trail, being bucked off the bike a couple of times, we questioned if we wanted to “race” and hence go back to the CP and take the road we originally intended to take, or remain “in the spirit of the event” and take this difficult single track. I’m now laughing that our 20 second discussion and decision cost us more than 2 hours of race time. Our decision was to be “in the spirit”, so we continued down the single track, able to ride some places, but walking others. The trail was downhill so that made it easier. But when the trail turned uphill we got concerned, reviewed the map, used the compass and attempted to bushwhack along the ridge to get down to a valley below. After 36 minutes (yeah, I note these things while we race) we decided the route sucked and we were going to plan-B. That unfortunately meant we had to hike-a-bike back up the hill to the CP. I was happy when we got back to the CP that we had wasted only 1 hour (we hike-a-biked back up the hill faster than we went down, though going down we were stopping to make decisions).
At the CP we took off down the road to the east expecting it to turn south then west (at least that is how I was reading the map). After 15 minutes of fast downhill, still heading east and looking down on Valle de Guadalupe and the lights of El Porvenir we stopped and questioned our direction. We realized we were turned around on the map. The road marked on the map was the trail we had taken earlier, the road we were on was the suggested location of a road from the pre-race meeting. When we thought we were in the road we were on the trail and vice versa. So we trudged back up the hill to the CP for the third time. And again we made the wrong choice. We could have continued on the road (not marked on the map), but we took the suggested route, this time looking for a right turn which Devlin had seen when we were there 90+ minutes earlier. This route got us to the road at the bottom of the valley, but it was more difficult single-track and we could have ridden down a perfectly good road if we had stuck to our original plan.
After that debachal the remainder of the bike ride was uneventful for us, but very challenging in that the road twisted and turned more than the map showed. But it kept going in the general direction and the little town on the map was there, so we successfully made it to the next TA and the short run leg with a rappel. I mention the leg was uneventful for us, but Team DART had a bike purposely run over by a motorist, and another team had drunk people drive by opening doors at them. All this was in the little town of Ejido Santa Rosa, it is not the place to race as the bars are closing. But back to the race...
What a rappel! It was at night which got the heart pumping. It was reputed to be 65 meters (which I initially had doubts about), and it terminated in a pool of water where we had to swim out 50 meters.
We had to trek in a little over 1 km to the start of the rappel. We got there just ahead of Team Stride, but they passed us on the rappel with their experience. And I was happy they did (for me anyway) as they gave me tips when I was rappelling. The initial drop was no problem, over the edge and down maybe 10 meters of rock face – just the little headlight shining on my shoes. Then WHAM. No rock face.
You were now suspended. Floating in space. And it was actually pretty cool. The rope twisted and I got a look at the shaft I was hanging in. Then I looked down. WAY DOWN. There were specks of light below. This was indeed a 65 meter rappel. My descent speed went from maybe 2-3 meters/second to half a meter/second. I was taking this very carefully. All the while listening to the directions of the safety people and the comments from Stride.
Once at the bottom the fun really began. We unhooked and climbed carefully over some rocks which were slippery, to another rope. We then had to climb up about 6 meters (18 ft), hook into another self rappel and go down to the water where we would swim out. Stride helped me a lot as I could listen to what they were doing. Kristine was way ahead, shivering as she had completed the swim, and Devlin was behind me so I was hanging around to tell him what I had been told. The swim out was very neat. You sat on this rock before getting totally wet and looked through a hole in the rock where you exited using a hand-line to pull yourself across calm water with just your headlight and a bit of moon to see with. I really liked it and would love to go back and do it in daylight. It’s difficult to describe as it was all so enclosed and you were almost going through tubes. Not for the claustrophobic or feint of heart.
From there we had to do another rappel to get down from all these rocks and into another canyon. This last rappel was difficult as it was on slippery rocks and it was in 3 sections. Devlin was lucky when a few rocks slid down and hit his foot, not his head, and I jammed my hand when the rope slid at one point, but we got through it OK. We then climbed out of the canyon via a shortcut Steve and I knew about. All through this section we had the worry of a lost passport. After the TA it did not slip into the bag correctly as we took off, so we were not sure exactly where it was. Fortunately they did not require it at the rappel, but they would require it at the next CP. If we had taken the intended route which was 2 km up the canyon then a steep climb to the CP we would not have a passport, but our shortcut took us by the TA and we were lucky that someone had already turned it in (or we were going to have to search for it in the dark).
After this section we had just a 25 km bike ride to the finish on a marked trail. The markings were chalk on the trail and green reflectors. We took off quickly from the TA and 1 mile down the road had to return because we forgot a race bib. Then we blasted back on the trail and 4 miles later realized we had passed a checkpoint without recording it. We were so concentrating on the finish line none of us even looked for the CP. As we returned to find it we met 4 other teams and none of them had located it either, in fact, like us, none of them was even looking for it. So all of us returned almost to the prior TA so that we could get a mileage to the CP location (yep, it was there, easy to find when you looked for it – though the orienteering tag had disappeared so it was not totally obvious). When we took off from that point a couple of the other teams were stronger riders and gained on us, but with about 5 km to the finish line we managed to catch one team in our division so had the satisfaction of really racing to the finish line.
For Equinox this was a fun race. We accomplished the goal of finishing, we had the elation of being first team to complete the kayak, and we ended up 4 th in the mixed 3 person division. A couple of other teams were also ahead of us, so I think we placed 6 th overall. That put us above the middle of the pack, so it was a successful race for us.
A big thanks to Steve for crewing for us, I know it was hard on him as he really wanted to be on the course. Thanks to Devlin for joining us and learning what it takes to be out on the course hours after he would normally be. Its always fun running with Kristine and we were super lucky that she has been a horse person for as long as she can remember, so we had no problems on the horse section. As always, our biggest thanks go to the volunteers for this and all races. For the Baja Xtreme races that is mostly the Rosquillas family and all their friends. We really appreciate the work they put into the Baja races and look forward to the next one.
