Feb 17, 2007
A sold out race (31 teams 80 racers), a new location, some new tricks and a FUN TIME! A big thanks to Sierra Adventure Sports (Rick and Kim) and all the volunteers who helped make it possible.
Vail lake is private property so there were no restrictions on the trails we could take, and the area has trails on almost all ridges, in all valleys, and there are areas where you could wander cross-country for a long way. There are also some very steep hills where you cliff-out if not too careful.
30 minutes prior to the race we were given the rules of travel. Word Scramble, trek to CP1 to get coordinates, CP3-4 on bike, CP6-8 kayak, bike to CP10-12 and orienteering to finish. The other CP’s were at the transition and involved mystery events. The race started with the maps being given out just 5 minutes before the start gun. The red dot was CP1 and the green dots were for orienteering.
With about 60 seconds to the GO, as we were all prepared to run through the start gate and hike up to CP1, we were told the word scramble (which most of us had forgotten about) was at CP zero, on an island in the middle of the lake – that took 25 seconds to say, 30 seconds to sink-in and it was 5..4..3..2..1..GO.
Now, everyone was charging down a small hill to get their kayaks and launch. Do you have your PFD? Do you have the paddles? Can we help you? The Equinox team for this race was Steve, Mayte, Jaime and Barrie. We had two good kayaks and got a reasonable start to paddle the 500 m to the island in about second or third place. CP zero was in the middle of the island and you had to translate LBH ZNL GNXR BAR OVXR CRE GRNZ BA SVEFG GERX. We were given a simple over-under letter key to kelp with the translation, but in the heat of a race, wet after the sprint paddle, and adrenaline pumped, it was not easy to do. In the meanwhile other teams were arriving, all wanting to look at the scramble. Some wrote it down and took off, others translated before continuing the race.
The message told us we could take one bike per team on the first trek, so we headed back to the TA where we had to lug the boats off the shore before running. We decided to take a bike and use it for the slowest runner (me). But in my haste to transition I picked up the bike as the others exited the TA and rode after them without a helmet. 200 meters later we realized the mistake and had those early-race jitters where we were unsure what to do. We (I) had already made a dumb mistake. To return to the TA to get a helmet would take time, we could not split up and send the fast runner (Jaime) for the helmet as we would be spread past the 100 meter rule. We could not continue riding, so we did the next best thing and dumped the bike on the side of the road and all ran/jogged/walked to CP1.
At the CP we got the coordinates and plotted all points. CP2 had great placement, the “as the crow flies” trail was up and along a ridge. The alternate route was downhill and then kind of flat to the CP. It was almost a triangle where you could run one side (over the hill) or run two sides with negligible elevation gain. As we are slow runners we took the more direct route. Maybe it was tougher, but the scenery was great and we never seemed to loose any position to the other teams.
Returning to the TA we grabbed the bikes and headed back the way we just ran in for the first bike loop. I liked going back to see the teams behind us. Riding this loop we found ourselves with Team Monster Energy and that made us feel good as they are fast (even though they obviously made a navigation mistake). The loop was quick but we made it longer by not paying attention to the trail in the map as we got to CP 4. It was just around a corner on a point that went out into the lake. We jumped off the bikes and searched the point for 10+ minutes to find the CP just 10 meters away from where we dropped the bikes, if we had looked more carefully it was obvious. Dumb error #2.
Back at the TA we had the BALANCE BEAM. Not any balance beam, but one where all team members had to get across with a bucket of sand. AND, the last person onto the beam had to be the first off (so somehow had to get around the team). There was a zigzag midway across the beam to help stabilize. It was fun, frustrating and doable (after we made a number of mistakes).
Then it was on to the kayak which was about an 8-9 Km paddle. The wind was up when the race started and it peaked right about when the bulk of the racers got into the paddle section. Our team had no problems, though we did swim from the boat to CP7 as the wind was battering other boats on the rocks. I understand that some boats tipped and in the 55 F water those racers had to pull out of the race due to cold. Some racers could not do the kayak section because the wind allowed them no forward progress, but in good AR tradition they just skipped the kayak and continued to race.
We lost some time on the kayak section as we had trouble finding the first kayak CP. It was further up a hill than we had plotted and we made it more complicated than it was by looking in all the overgrowth along the shore wandering past the CP location (dumb error #3).
Returning from the kayak was another mystery event – Empty the Lake! I say that because we had to fill a 44 gallon bucket with lake water and a small 1 gallon pail. As we were running the water from the lake one little girl who was watching, asked her parents why we were empting the lake. Our team filled half the bucket then I plunked my butt in to raise the level to overflowing and we completed the task.
Then was a fun 16 Km bike which was both easy and difficult. The easy part was that the trails were ride-able, the difficult part was that there were LOTS more trails than were shown on the map, so you had to pay attention to where you were at all times. And the uphill was a challenging ride for those of us who do not mountain bike naturally.
We quickly found the first two checkpoints then got confused locating CP12. We lost sight of the switchbacks and were looking for a trail going off the main trail to get to the CP. Dumb error #4. When we stayed on the main trail we came to the CP with no difficulty. Steve figured it out eventually as he used other clues on the map to position us.
Back to the transition and off to do the orienteering. We could get the O points in any sequence and chose to do the easy ones first which allowed us to get high on the hills at the end and scope out the better way back to the finish line. The real trick to this section was the map had you stay along a ridge at one point and if you did that you had to bushwhack some rough terrain. We saw the problem and chose to backtrack to the easier trail, but Dave and Lance (Team Rooster, who were first place overall) had to stay with the bushwhack as they were in a tight race at the front of the field and backtracking would have probably dropped them to second – well done you two. Second place overall and first in the 3-4 person mixed division (just 9 minutes behind them) was Team Kayak Lake Mead.
The winning time was 5 hours 9 minutes, we took 6 hours 54 minutes and that put us solidly in the middle of the pack. We had a blast and fooled ourselves by over-thinking the navigation. But friends and fun was what it was all about and racing in 65 F weather, in the middle of winter, was lots of fun. Thanks to Mayte and Jaime for joining Steve and me for this race.
We are looking forward to the next Desert Rage in Phoenix.
Cheers and well done to all those who organized, worked, and raced this fun event.
Barrie
