Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you for your reading pleasure… the tale of the 2006 Primal Quest expedition adventure race. A tale like no other about a race like no other from a place like no other.
Hailed as a nearly 500-mile juggernaut of an expedition in one of the harshest terrains in the world -- let alone the United States -- the 2006 Primal Quest evoked gasps of amazement when it was announced that the race would be held in the high desert of Utah in the middle of the summer.
“You’re going to die,” was the general sentiment from anyone half familiar with the conditions we racers would be exposed to. “Can I have your CDs?” was my brother’s comment (okay, I made this last one up for effect).
The Utah desert around the tiny mountain biking town of Moab is a panorama of unique and beautiful sandstone and rock mesas combined with a maze of narrow slot canyons, dry washes, and bleak, sandy, sun-scorched plains. Terrain fit (barely) for lizards and… lizards. Anything else – like humans – surely would not survive long without assistance.
And thus, despite all of this, 90 teams from across the globe descended on this spot on the map nearly three weeks ago to test their physical and mental limits in ‘earth’s richest adventure’. Overhauled in the nearly two-year hiatus from the last race in the fall of 2004, the Primal Quest took on a new shape and scope with a change in management – a change that would take adventure racing back towards its more adventurous and ‘wild’ roots, at least partially.
Team Silly Rabbits, America’s Adventure Racing Team ™, coming off a few solid warm-up races in early 2006 as well as a great 8th place finish in the 2004 Primal Quest, showed up in Moab with large targets on our backs and fronts. Yes, the media darlings and everyone’s favorite team to talk about were no longer the underdogs with the goofy name and bunny ears. We would be wearing jerseys with a single digit on them (8) and we would come in with the expectations of finishing once again in the Top 10 – something we held up as motivation in training and preparation.
With membership comes privileges…. And with our low bib number, The Rabbits got an early check-in slot three days before the starting gun. Check-in is a huge process that requires all of your equipment and gear to be checked by race officials as well as final checks (tests) of skill and knowledge. It’s an all-day process that involved proving our horse sense (literally) as well as taking a swim in the pool. Sounds like fun? Well, as part of our water tests, we had to tread water for 10 minutes while answering questions about water safety and then we had to prove our mettle with the double kayaks we’d be paddling by performing safety maneuvers in the pool at the base resort where the race was held.
We also had to saddle, tack, and ride a horse… something we’d do in the race. There were also checks of every piece of equipment we’d use in the race, a rock climbing test with all our gear, bike inspections, Leave No Trace talks, medical questionnaires, and Media interviews.
Yes, the Silly Rabbits would be one of the focus team’s for the upcoming world television broadcast of the Primal Quest (stay tuned in the fall of ’06). A production company was hired to film the race for its ABC/ESPN debut and the Silly Rabbits would be featured.
For this race, each team would be completely self-supported – a feature that added yet another high-stakes element to the adventure. This meant that each team would bring exactly what they needed (or thought they needed) for the entirety of the race, and nothing more could be acquired during the race, nor would outside assistance be available. Teams would pack containers with food, supplies, and gear before the race and hand them off to the race management who would transport these containers to the appropriate re-supply locations on the course. In between… it was only what you could carry that would get you through.
Upon inspection of the course maps the night before the race, we estimated that we would have to be self-sufficient for over 24 hours at a time and often up to 48 hours at a time. That’s a lot of food and water to carry when you’re constantly moving and burning calories.
This adventure was meant to harken back to the mean, ‘ol, ornery adventures of the hearty folks who undertook expeditions or excursions to conquer or settle these type of environs. We’d have the “luxury” of state-of-the-art clothing, nutrition, and equipment on our journey, plus an emergency satellite phone in case the “Indians” really started circling, but otherwise, the terrain was virtually unchanged and the conditions were not much different.
With less than 24 hours before the starting gun went off, the race management informed us that we would have a remote start that would require a four-hour bus ride from the base resort – the beautiful and picturesque Red Cliffs Lodge. The bus would be leaving at midnight. Repeat, the bus would be leaving at midnight.
Unless you’re proficient at sleeping in a ball on a crowded school bus bumping through the night, with a four hour bus ride starting at midnight and a sunrise start, that’s a lost night of sleep BEFORE an expedition that was estimated to take six days for the WINNERS to complete. All part of the fun.
And so, with a high-tech shoe to the face here and a dropped water bottle on the head there, I managed a few minutes of sleep on the floor of the bus and was just starting to get comfortable (read: numb) when we ground to a halt on a dusty road somewhere in the middle of Nowhere, Utah.
With the sun still an hour or so from making an appearance, each team of four persons groggily de-bussed and split into two: one pair to acquire the race-provided GPS and emergency satellite phone, the other to acquire one deluxe horse. Yes, the start of the race would find each team carrying enough provisions for roughly 36 hours, a six pound GPS/phone unit, and in the company of one massive 800 pound horse -- personality and disposition unknown.
The Silly Rabbits ended up with a fine looking steed named Chub. Large, imposing, ready to run like the wind, Chub had no idea what the heck he was in for. So, basically, that made five of us. And with all FIVE members of the Rabbits on even ground, we led Chub out into the middle of a large flat high desert mesa to line up with the other 90 teams and horses for what would probably have been one of the dumbest, most chaotic starts to an adventure race if it hadn’t been tried a number of times already to no avail.
Now, I’m all in favor of the IDEA behind having horses in a race, however the execution is another thing altogether. Horses are certainly ‘wild’, ‘exotic’, and evoke words like ‘adventure’ and ‘frontier’, however if it’s not your horse and you gotta race with it, it’s kinda like borrowing your neighbor’s teenage son and telling him he’ll have to do whatever you say for that day.
A note to all aspiring adventure race directors: Things that don’t go together well – huge thoroughbred horses, strangers, helicopters, and guns. This is the recipe that Primal Quest decided to start our adventure with, and after witnessing a few other adventure races that started with this recipe, I can tell you what you get: something that looks and tastes like matzoh. Not good.
Case in point: As if 90 horses that have no idea who is riding them isn’t bad enough, add a few low flying helicopters with video cameras, random media personnel, and a starting gun. And, for our big, grand, made-for-TV start, the race directors wanted one member of each team to be mounted atop their horse.
As we stood watching Jason rein in Chub on the starting line in anticipation of the gun, our amigos on Team Nike yelled over to us. “Hey, uh, maybe you guys want to step over here…” John, Jen, and I turned to see them standing off to the side of the starting line tucked somewhat safely out of the chaos of 300 horse hooves. Thanks for the head’s up, guys! Much appreciated.
Bang! 90 horses and over 300 competitors took off across the valley. And in 90 directions did said horses go. We kept a watchful eye on Jason and Chub for about 10 seconds until Chub thought he was auditioning for “The Lone Ranger” and decided to rear up, tossing Jason like a rag doll into nine feet of dead air….
Gulp. As I watched Jason audition for Superman (yeah, the whole flying through the air thing), I actually thought our race was over ten seconds and 50 yards after it began. Thankfully, Jason (who was wearing a required helmet) came to earth somewhat on his side and backpack and appeared okay. John and I chased Chub for another mile before a cowboy/wrangler on horseback (who was standing by for such occasions) roped in Chub, belted him in the head, and handed him off to us. Thanks, pardner?
We noticed other rider-less horses and knew that other teams were having similar luck. Many teams managed to head in the right direction and several others got through the start unscathed. And with that, the Primal Quest began.
Two mere miles later, the horses and teams had to bottleneck for a steep, precarious trip down a narrow, rocky canyon trail. As we waited our turn in line (while wranglers helped teams line up the horses and get them moving down the single-horse-wide trail), a member of team East Wind got kicked in the thigh by a horse and crumpled to the ground. East Wind had traveled all the way from Japan – could this be the end of their race? Thankfully, he was able to continue, however it would be additional pain to the adventure.
The first leg of the race would have each team accompanied by horse for a 22-mile jaunt through the hot, exposed desert. Though deceptively cool when the race started at sun-up, the temperate quickly shot into the 90s during the early morning hours. After the initial TV-friendly start, teams had the option of placing one team member on the horse OR attaching all team gear (backpacks) to the horse. Most teams opted to take the weight off all four teammates and have them run/walk while the horse carried all packs instead of having one person ride while others bore the burden of heavy packs. We opted to saddle up Chub with our heavy packs and run/walk/gallop beside the beast.
Our strategy was to go out at our own pace and take it easy through the first day or two of the race. We knew it would be a long, hard war of attrition, and we knew that going out at a fast pace early wouldn’t suit our team’s chances. Throughout the next several hours we walked and jogged through the exposed sandy desert chatting with a few teams around us and trying to get Chub to cooperate the best we could. Like any good teenager, he was wanting to break out on his own and we had to tell him a thousand times to “Whoa!” It took a lot of energy to say the least.
After 22 miles and about seven hours of sand walking with a horse, we thankfully said good-bye to Chub at the first transition – a dusty crossroads in the middle of yet another hot, dry, exposed area. The temperature was probably in the triple digits and we checked in somewhere around 42nd place. Not to worry! There were several more days and several HUNDRED more miles of racing…
I believe it was here, unfortunately, that our intended strategy began to fall apart from one end of things. We had decided before the race that we would try to take our rests in the middle of the day when it was almost too hot to move. We would use the cooler nights to travel. This is different than in most races where it’s advantageous to travel in the light of day, however the conditions of this race almost favored the opposite.
We laid down under one of the only gnarled desert trees in the area for a rest and decided we’d take about 90 minutes. So, I went to sleep, hoping that my other three teammates would do the same. Jason got a few winks, however John and Jen were too wired and caught up in the action as we were near to a lot of race staff and other teams coming off the first leg. As a veteran, you can quickly learn to block out these distractions and get all the sleep you can whenever and wherever you can.
After what amounted to 90 minutes of torture for John and Jen, we headed out into the afternoon sun for another foot section. We’d have to go another 20-odd miles, but without a horse to contend with. We immediately picked up the pace and quickly caught up to other teams who had tried to push it too early. This section was completely uneventful otherwise as we continued to walk through dry, hot, exposed sand in the high desert.
One thing that did not play into our team’s hands was the lack of navigation in the race. Due to the environmentally sensitive areas we were traveling through, nearly the entire course was flagged with red tape and reflective markings tied around branches and bushes that we would have to follow in order to avoid these sensitive areas. One of our team’s fortes is navigation and it’s where we make up a lot of time over other teams…. However this would not be the case in this race.
We hiked and hiked for the rest of the afternoon and into the first night of the race before eventually coming to the end of leg 2. About 45 miles down, and nearly 400 to go!
Section 3 would be the first bike leg of the race. Before we could ride, we’d have to put our own bikes together. This is one function of racing in a self-supported race. You pack up your bike in a big box before the race, hand it off to the staff, and then you get to put it back together from whatever shape you packed it in. At the bike transition, we would only see our bikes, not our food. So, from the start we had to estimate our needs for this section as well. One thing in every team’s favor was that at nearly every checkpoint and transition throughout the race, Gatorade (a race sponsor) provided welcome products for all racers. One product that became an instant favorite was a new endurance shake -- a thick, calorie-laden canned beverage that ended up tasting great warm or cold.
We were still sticking with our pre-race plan of resting early, and with most of the teammates already tired from not sleeping for well over 24 hours (though the race began only 15 hours ago, we had the lost night on the bus and had therefore not had effective sleep in close to 30 hours), we decided to try for an hour or so of sleep. Laying down on the soft ground, huddled beneath our space blankets, we got a fitful little nap and then arose to put our bikes together and ride off into the hot, dusty night.
The rest of the night was relatively uneventful. We rode through the desert with a half-dozen or so teams along sandy, dusty (hey, are you getting the theme here? It was all sand out there!) fire roads across some large plains and valleys. We made too many stops on the ride and were still stuck with a pack of teams as dawn broke.
As the sun rose, we found ourselves climbing out of a canyon onto some fast dirt roads before ending up on a paved road for a 15-mile jaunt into our first encounter with civilization – the town of Green River. Again, we were in no real rush to push ourselves knowing what still lay ahead over the next several days, and so… we decided to have a spot of breakfast along the way.
Now I don’t mean we stopped for a meal of Clif Bars and energy gel packs. I’m talking nothing less than a Ben’s Diner type of meal. (Ben’s Diner?!...) I’m talking about taking advantage of what the race course provides which in this case was the little town of Green River – and Ben’s Diner, a welcome little greasy spoon oasis that was open as we rode into town. Riding now alongside Team Dynamic Earth, our newest race friends from the Mighty Mo expedition race (see last Report), we were dreaming about eating a solid meal at any place that might be open in Green River. Thankfully it was not the middle of the night.
Okay, so how do we justify sitting down for a waitress-served meal at a real table on real chairs inside an air-conditioned restaurant in the middle of a race?? Well, it so happens that there was a ‘dark zone’ instituted early in the race. After this bike leg would be a riverboarding section that would find us essentially swimming downriver through some whitewater for about 6-7 miles. This was deemed too dangerous to do at night, so if teams got to the head of the section after a certain time in the late afternoon or before sunrise, then they would have to stop and wait for sunrise or take a penalty and move on. So, with many teams in front of us essentially stopped, we were still moving to catch up… and therefore didn’t lose too much time stopping to eat. Capiche?
As we peered in the windows of Ben’s Diner, we noticed another team already happily eating pancakes and omelettes! So the Rabbits and Dynamic Earth sat down for some tasty grub and enjoyed every last bite. Who knew when we’d get our next solid meal?
Stuffed, we climbed back on our bikes and proceeded out of town towards the actual Green River. Attacked by swarms of mosquito-like flies as we approached the river, we found ourselves only a few hours out of the lead due to the dark zone. We’d finally see our food box here and our transition was again much too long for any racing good, but we got our whitewater swimming gear together and got to the swim put in. For the riverboarding section, were required to bring some sort of swim board (i.e. a boogie board), snorkel fins, a wetsuit, lifejacket, helmet, and shin/knee/thigh padding in order to proceed downriver through rock strewn rapids and fast moving water.
The water turned out to be much lazier than we anticipated and the section turned out to be amazingly welcome and enjoyable as we cooled our overheated bodies in the river and took our time getting downstream. I believe we were somewhere in the high 30s in the overall standing by this point, but again, miles to go!
It was a water-filled day as the next section would find us in the first of two kayak sections for the race. We swapped riverboarding gear for paddling gear and hopped aboard two double kayaks for a 30-odd mile downriver paddle.
Now, in the midst of our big adventure, we were also playing human guinea pigs for some doctors doing a study on the physiological effects of adventure racing. As part of the study, we would be wearing watches and heart rate monitors made by Swedish watch manufacturer Suunto, one of the top brands of adventure wrist top computers. At almost every transition, doctors would download the stored information from our heart rate monitors, take our pulse and temperature, and ask us a series of questions designed to check our mental aptitude and the effects of sleep deprivation. You can see some video at the www.ecoprimalquest.com website where you can navigate to the Silly Rabbits team page.
Kayaking downriver into the afternoon, we were trying to make the next transition by dark, however after our lazy swim earlier, we got a little behind and made it to the end of the paddle just after sundown. From here, we would have to wade/swim from one shore to the other to start another long trek. Getting across was yet another small adventure within the larger one as we would have to get across in the pitch black of night at a point where there was a very strong downriver current to land at a certain spot on the other side.
Safely across, we tried to bushwhack through some dense underbrush and after several attempts to break through, we decided to skirt along the river and cross a small channel to climb into the barren slickrock that Utah’s famous for. As we headed for checkpoint 13 or 14, we came across Team GoLite who, due to a bum horse, had been with us all the way through the first section and had finished the leg with us around 40th place. Incredibly, in only a few hours of race time, they had raced their way all the way up to third place! Yes, they were going in the opposite direction after completing most of the section we were barely starting.
Looking for a trail that would lead us to the next checkpoint, we began crossing paths with more of the lead teams who were returning from this out-and-back section. After some detours through the undulating slickrock, we found the checkpoint and then had to hike straight up and over an amazing rock mesa that would have been really cool to see in the daylight. Following reflective tape, we kept climbing up a ridge of smooth, tacky rock and eventually started down to the first ropes section of the race – a long rappel straight down a rock face that led right into the Green River. Thankfully, we rappelled down to a ledge above the river and then as light broke on the second day of racing, we traversed around the cliff face into a beautiful high-walled canyon.
We decided to take another short nap here because we still didn’t have any quality sleep since the race start. We picked a nice sandy spot and caught about 45 minutes of cool rest… however, it wasn’t until hours later that we unfortunately realized that we had been practically eaten alive by mosquitos. Hiking up the dramatic high-walled canyon, we made our way to another ropes section that required us to ascend up and out of the narrow canyon using devices that allowed us to go up a rope (like magic!).
We were greeted by the intense heat of the sun as we topped out on the ropes. From here, we had another 4-5 miles of walking across open, exposed desert before we’d drop into another canyon. Needless to say, it was hot. And it would only get hotter because we were about to descend into…
Hellroarer Canyon. I don’t think I need to say much else. It was straight out of a bad horror movie. We were able to load up with some water and Gatorade at a checkpoint before trekking into the depths of this dry wash surrounded by walls that rose a few hundred feet above us. The high rock walls and intense sun combined to create a virtual inferno through the canyon. And it was about six miles to the end of it…
We swept into the mouth of Hellroarer at about 11:00. It would be several hours before we saw the other side and despite it being a straightforward trek that offered no chance of getting lost, we would go a lot of ‘twists and turns’ to get through. The sand was starting to take its toll as we stopped every 15-20 minutes to empty several ounces of it from each of our shoes. It was creating blisters on John and Jen’s feet which would ultimately hinder their progress greatly. There was no escape from the heat and we took breaks often, however Jen really started overheating a little more than halfway through. Seeking shade every place we could, we tried to bring our core temperatures down in order to move on. We passed a few other teams who appeared to be in similar situations. Pouring sand from their shoes, sitting in the shade at every opportunity, going slowly to conserve energy and water.
In the midst of this, we came to one amazing section where it was nearly too narrow to get through. We found ourselves scrambling over boulders and climbing down short sections while sometimes having to remove our backpacks to get through. Squirting out the other side, we mercifully left the canyon in the mid-afternoon for the trek back to the river.
Recrossing the river, this time in the light (which made it much less daunting), we re-supplied ourselves for several more hours (possibly up to 24) and got back into our kayaks for another 30-plus mile paddle. This section was both challenging and surreal.
We were roughly 48 hours into the race, several more hours than that without proper sleep, and we were now sitting down in a kayak heading into the heart of the silent night. Can you say ‘sleepy’?
For an hour or so, we kept ourselves going by joining up with another team to chat and pass the time. As mentioned in previous reports, in the middle of such a huge race we are not concerned with getting ahead of other teams so much and therefore it’s fun, helpful, and very unique to pass the time by hooking up with others on the journey. In this case, we were able to initiate some fresh conversations that kept us going for a short time.
We decided not to bring major lights for this section and second-guessed ourselves slightly as a curtain of blackness descended upon us. The river curved back and forth in giant snaking bends as it cut through the desert. Though there were no rapids the current was moving us along and we could easily beach ourselves or run into a 300-foot high rock wall if we weren’t too careful. We did have our small headlamps, but imagine trying to light up a football stadium with a match.
Our paddling partners decided to pull over for a rest and we decided to carry on to try to stay ahead of some weather that was starting to kick up. In the distance, lightning bolts were starting to flash across the sky. The wind was starting to pick up. And our eyelids were starting to close…
Despite our attempts to nap, Jen was exceptionally tired because she had barely slept a wink since the race began. I figured that she could catch some sleep in the front cockpit of our boat while we still maintained some forward progress along the course. With the current moving us along, we could have essentially not expended any energy and still been “racing” ahead while doubly getting some much needed rest. I was fairly awake in the cool night air and paddled us along while Jason and John alternated dozing off and paddling in the other boat.
It was a strain to peer through the darkness with only the light of our tiny headlamps, trying to gauge where the river turned next. A few hours into our paddle, we decided it would be more advantageous to stop and rest even though our plan was to try to continue moving with the help of the current. Coming around another bend, the river canyon opened up and we saw some lights up ahead. As we approached, we noticed it was a bunch of people camping out on a beautiful, white sandy beach. The scene, the weather, and our physical state combined to create quite a surreal moment. As the cool breeze of the impending storm blew over us, we beached our kayaks on the soft sand and asked the campers if it was okay to take a small spot for some rest. John, Jason and I laid down in some of the softest, most welcoming sand in the world (or so we imagined) and using our life jackets as pillows we fell into a short, deep sleep. Jen stayed tucked in the boat to conserve heat.
After 90 minutes in this beautiful oasis, we climbed back into our boats and continued downriver. Thankfully, only a bit of rain washed over us on this section. A few hours later, we tried to find another spot to rest, but there was no place to land our kayaks that wasn’t inundated with mosquitos or too steep to land on.
As dawn broke, three of our four teammates were sleeping, yet we were still progressing down the river! After hitting a sand bar, everyone awoke to paddle the last two miles to the next transition. From here, we’d be back on foot for another hot, sandy canyon trek.
Before heading out, John and Jen stopped into the medical tent to get their feet taken care of, something that would become a theme for the rest of our race. This was by no means unique to our team as many others succumbed to the perfectly blisterful conditions. Some teams had their races ended because of blisters.
Humping well over 100 ounces of water each, our climbing/ropes gear which probably weighed over ten pounds, food, and other mandatory gear, we headed out into another blazing hot day to trek into a dry, dusty canyon towards two rope sections. The first was an ascent up an overhanging cliff face that would lead us into an area of smooth slickrock and steep rock chutes. We had to scramble up and through one of these chutes to get out onto the top of a huge, flat mesa. Handing our backpacks up to one another, we had to perform some very yoga-like moves to tunnel between large boulders. From the top, we were to follow more footsteps and red flagging tape for several miles to the lip of another canyon for a long rappel. In the middle, we incredulously came upon a sparse campground in the middle of this harsh, exposed area. The only souls there were the campground hosts who kindly offered us ice-cold sodas and water… for $1 each! Thankfully, we were carrying money with us throughout the race for occasions such as Ben’s Diner or wherever we might find some outside sustenance. It was highly recommended, if not required, for each racer to carry some money.
I wasn’t no dummy and had stashed two twenty dollar bills in my backpack. John had tossed about 35 bucks into his bag and Jen brought along a twenty dollar bill. We were extremely happy as Ben’s Diner cost us about $45. Jason… brought a quarter. Twenty-five cents. This wasn’t a problem at the campground host’s trailer as we bought twelve cold sodas and bottles of water. But we still had a few days of racing to go, and potentially more encounters with civilization (hint: this is foreshadowing).
Like ants under a cruel child’s magnifying glass, we trudged the open desert to the rappel section. We rappelled. And we came out into another canyon where we’d have to trek several miles to get back to where we dropped off our kayaks. As night fell, we decided to lay down for our first “big sleep” of the race. We decided on a three-hour sleep and we found a relatively decent spot to do so. We came upon a soft sandy spot among some big boulders, ate a “meal”, slapped on some bug repellent and our space blankets, and set our watches for midnight, three hours hence. We had used the daylight to as much advantage as possible to move down the canyon and now it was recharge time.
At midnight, we packed up our little camp and trekked back to the kayak transition. From here, we’d have to carry all of our kayaking gear, along with everything else we had, up a steep road to the next transition where we would again see our bikes.
As dawn broke on the fourth day of the race, we found ourselves reunited with our food container and our bikes. Packing up all of our paddling gear, getting our feet taken care of, slapping on copious amounts of sunscreen, and putting our bikes together again, we mounted up for an extremely long bike section (I can’t quite recall, maybe 60-70 miles – not so long distance-wise for us, but with the terrain and circumstances, it took a long time).
We made decent time across the top of an open, flat mesa to a spot called Gemini Bridges. Gemini Bridges is a spectacular spot among spectacular spots in this area. Along a high mesa wall, there’s a spot where a bridge of rock has been carved across a chasm. From this “bridge” we would rappel down several hundred feet as our bikes were sent down via rope beside us. Landing at the head of a sandy canyon, we slowly pedaled out onto the crux of the biking section – a gnarly bit of riding across barren rock following some four-wheel drive markings.
It was some small consolation that we had pedaled this exact section last year in the Adventure Xstream race and knew what we were in for. However, it would be about 40 degrees warmer this time and we would be working on a lot less sleep while carrying a lot more gear. If I told you it was blazing hot, I would be making a grave understatement. Deep fried fish doesn’t feel this kind of heat. We rode to the next checkpoint… or more accurately we rode to where the next checkpoint was supposed to be. Riding and pushing our bikes up the rock, we searched an area for where we were pretty sure the checkpoint should have been. For well over an hour, we expended precious energy, used up precious water, and exposed ourselves to not only the fury of the sun, but the frustration of not knowing how to deal with a missing checkpoint. There were no other teams near us to check with as we sat down under the thin branches of a scrub tree to talk about our options.
Pull out the satellite phone and risk disqualification? Go back to the last checkpoint? Wait for another team to come by? Move on? We decided to continue moving forward to the next checkpoint and seeing what the deal may be. We were in 26th place and figured that there might be some news from the previous 25 teams if something was amiss.
About a mile further along, we came around a bend in the trail… and there was the checkpoint! We told the checkpoint volunteer that we were nearly certain he was in the wrong spot. He told us that every one of the teams that came before us said the exact same thing. Whew! We weren’t crazy and victims of heat-stroke! However, he said that one of the race officials flew out in a helicopter to check the position of the checkpoint and deemed it to be in the correct spot. There was nothing the checkpoint person could do about it, and very little we could do by protesting to him. We were forced to continue on, though our condition was starting to get critical. We had used up a lot of our fluids in our hunt, and without being able to refuel at this checkpoint, we had to get several miles further to the next checkpoint in the middle of the day on the most exposed part of the entire course.
Onward we pressed. The “trail” that we followed was no more than a series of painted symbols on what is literally a mountain of slick rock. The trail meandered up and down the side of this mountain, often going up sections that were too steep to ride or over rock steps that were too tall to ride up or down. Riding only a few hundred yards at a time, we rested under a few barren trees and eventually wound our way to the next checkpoint just as a few of us ran out of fluids. The race management had deemed this checkpoint a water resupply just before we arrived and therefore the checkpoint volunteer was able to give us water without penalty. Though the water he had was practically boiling. The volunteer had a few large jugs of water standing by, however without any place to hide them from the heat and sun, the water inside was as hot as tea. It didn’t matter to us! We gulped it down, refilled our bottles and headed out for a few more miles of sandy bicycling.
The final “trail” on this slick rock mountain is called the Poison Spider and on days like this you can see why. Alternating some more hike-a-bike with a little riding, we mercifully got to a dirt fire road that led off the mountain and onto a paved road outside of Moab. We stopped briefly at another checkpoint to refill water and then rode about 10 miles into Moab as the sun sank slowly in the sky. And here’s where Jason’s quarter reared up to bite us in the butt.
A town! Civilization! Food! Drink! Yes, we were traveling through Moab in the early evening and the town was open to us. If you do ride into civilization or come across outsiders willing to give you food or water, this is not a penalty. You’re essentially only taking time out of your own race if you decide to stop, but in a case like this, I think that every team in the race stopped somewhere in Moab. As we rode into town, I believe we had the first ‘fight’ of the race. We were having trouble decided where and what we should eat! ☺ The problem came down to money. Basically, we didn’t have much left. A quarter?! Okay, we had more than this, but not an overwhelming amount to feed four hungry adventure racers after 96 hours in the bush.
I carefully pointed out to Jason – who thought he was being crafty by interpreting the mandatory “bring money” rule by taking a small piece of change – that a TWENTY DOLLAR BILL probably weighs LESS than a QUARTER!!! Anyway, we counted out about 26 dollars (and 25 cents) left and we had to decide the best way to maximize this amount. I suggested a grocery store where we could buy in bulk. Others wanted burgers and fries. I said how ‘bout both? So, we pulled over at McDonald’s (I know, don’t hate me, it was a special circumstance, I swear!) and after tabulating the prices found that we could each get a value meal of a quarter pounder and fries. And, we’d have a few bucks left over. We sat in the air-conditioned McDonalds and wolfed down our meals as we spoke to some race journalists who found us. After McD’s, we headed for the supermarket to buy some stuff for the rest of the ride, which would take us several more hours.
After yet another long stop to readjust and re-tape feet, we headed into the night for the dastardly Pritchett Canyon, evil cousin to Hellroarer Canyon. Mercifully, we hit Pritchett at night when it was cool, however it was a long, grinding hike-a-bike up the sandy wash and then up more un-bikeable four-wheel drive “trails”. Everyone was hurting physically, mentally or emotionally at this point and we had to stop to rest several times before reaching the top of the canyon and gliding down into an adjacent one. With nearly everyone at wit’s end, we leaned our bikes against a tree and laid down about two hours before sunrise for another short sleep. We figured it would be better to ride when we could see the terrain around us and it turned out for the better as we made halfway decent time getting out of this section. We were headed for the mountains and into Day Six.
But before the mountains were – you guessed it – more miles of open desert riding. We came upon some friendly faces out in the middle of the scrubby desert and rode to another transition with a team that was also from the SF bay area. At least we were on top of our bikes instead of beside them for the rest of this section, but it still took us two more hours to get close enough to the next transition that we felt we would make it without any mishaps or breaks.
The next transition was at the base of the La Sal Mountain range, a relatively small (at least in terms of area compared with its neighbor the Colorado Rockies) range that has a number of peaks reaching over 12,000 feet. Don’t misunderstand, there’s still plenty of terrain to cover for hikers, bikers, and adventure racers. The transition was in a campground by a very inviting mountain creek.
We were steadily climbing up the leader board though we hadn’t passed many teams. A few teams ahead of us had dropped out for various reasons and we caught up to some others in transitions. I believe we had cracked the top 20!
I stripped off my backpack and biking gear, grabbed some food and headed for the creek. After six days of heat, dirt, sand, and rather unmentionable things, a certain heat rash can start to build up – an itchy rash that can be temporarily soothed with something like a dip in a freezing cold mountain creek. I immersed myself in a tiny pool of ice-cold water and Jason and Jen followed. A real adventure racer shower.
After cooling off, re-packing our bikes, getting feet taken care of, re-supplying ourselves and re-grouping we were off for a 40-mile trek through the relatively cool, rugged mountains. Up we climbed, this time joined by our buddies the Mighty Dogs from Georgia who we also squared off against in the Mighty Mo expedition. We chatted about ways to take revenge on the race course director for putting us through such sand-filled horrors and then switched subjects to more pleasant things.
Several miles into the mountains and we were trekking at some considerable altitude. At the next checkpoint, teams were somewhat surprised to find that they would have to complete an orienteering section in the middle of this long trek. We were given a map and told to copy ten checkpoints off a master map. Out of these ten we would have to find only five before reporting back and continuing on. The checkpoints were spread across several square miles of sharply rolling mountainous terrain and once again night was falling. We read the rules and saw that for each missed checkpoint on the orienteering section a penalty of two hours would be assessed. This meant that, in case we felt it was too difficult and/or too time-consuming to find a checkpoint on the orienteering, we would not be disqualified for not finding one of the points (as it would be with regular checkpoints). Taking this into consideration along with our physical and mental state, we got an idea.
Okay, we had a plan in place long before we got to this ‘surprise’ because word gets around, even in the wilderness. We had heard that a few teams were just taking the maximum penalty of ten hours (2 hours per point times five points) and were electing to sleep away the penalty instead of beating themselves up further on a course that would take several hours at the very least. Upon arriving at the starting point, we heard that it had taken the fastest team nearly five hours to complete the orienteering. Okay, so they would have a five hour advantage over any team that wanted to take the full penalty… but they would be spending five more hours expending energy and getting beat up AND they would probably have to sleep again sometime before the finish line as well.
We were planning on taking another nap at this point anyway, so calculating that if we did the orienteering as fast as humanly possible under the conditions it would take at least five hours. Add a few hours of sleep that we wanted to take and you can see it’s not far from a total of ten hours. Now… in our current state, we estimated that the orienteering would have taken us at least 8 hours if not more. We were not in the same shape as the fastest team at this point. Add a few hours of sleep, and you’ve got at least another ten hours or racing. So… we opted to take the full penalty and rest for a whole ten hours – enough to hopefully recharge us for a big push towards the finish line!
Ahhhh… relaxation. Food. Sleep! When we arrived, a Scandinavian team who was near the top 10 in the rankings was fast asleep, serving their ten-hour penalty. We were able to see a sheet with the leader board and the times it took teams ahead of us to complete the orienteering. Some had taken up to 17 hours! Many others were still out on the course and time was ticking away. We were happy with our decision and kicked off our shoes to eat a bunch of the food we had on us.
Quite aside: Food. Yes, while we had a regular assortment of energy bars, candy and the like, we aimed to take more hearty food with us in this race and so I found some MRE’s – Meals Ready to Eat – the type of stuff the military uses. We also had some self-heating camping meals, cans of chicken, cans of soup, muscle builder shakes, some bagel sandwiches, and a few dry salamis among things like fruit cups, Clif Bar products (one of our sponsors!), sleeves of Pringles potato chips, trail mix, peanut butter in handy packets, and dozens of other sweet and savory treats.
Back to racin’: We pulled out the mandatory tent and sleeping bag that we had to carry on this section (in case of inclement, and/ or cold mountain weather) and unfurled them for our long sleep. A few teams that were several hours ahead of us were still out on the orienteering section getting dangerously close to taking ten hours to complete. Somehow, somewhere, we had crept up the rankings to around 16th or 19th place at this spot. There were only two or three teams ahead of us who had elected to take the full ten-hour penalty – and we heard that they had benefited greatly because of it. One of these teams, Crested Butte, jumped into the top 5 after hovering somewhere between 9th and 12th before this section.
About 90 minutes after beginning our penalty, as we lay down to sleep, the checkpoint volunteer approached us with some awful and painful news. He had received an email on his Blackberry from the race course director which said that teams could no longer serve their penalty at the checkpoint. Instead, the time would be tacked on to your overall time after you crossed the finish line. We cried foul and claimed that we should be allowed to stay since we had already started serving our penalty there. However, we could not contact the race course director and in the end, we decided that we could not risk staying there for much longer as we felt they would still tack ten hours onto our overall time. We desperately needed sleep and decided that we still had to get some now. We decided on about 90 minutes of sleep and with that done, we groggily packed up and moved on into the night – upset that our big push to catapult ourselves towards or into the top ten with a long rejuvenating sleep was probably thwarted.
We trekked like zombies into the pitch black mountains and came across another checkpoint before walking out onto a long finger-like ridge as the sun rose yet again. As mentioned, for nearly the entire race we had been following flagging tape and subsequently footsteps of the teams ahead of us. We were walking along someone’s footprints, but coming to the end of this finger ridge, Jason recognized that we should have crossed over onto the next ridge sometime earlier. So, we had to backtrack about one and a half miles to get over to the next ridge.
As we traversed the next ridge – just one in a line of about four ridges that we had to go up and over to get to the next checkpoint – Jen became somewhat delirious in her overtired state and began laughing hysterically. We told her to lie down for a short nap and she literally turned a 180 and fell over backwards like a tin toy soldier into a bush. She was most likely asleep before she hit the ground. Jason, John and I sat down and nodded off for a few minutes. Jen awoke a few minutes later claiming to be good to go on. She did perk up considerably and we decided to try to move on.
From the next checkpoint it was now time to really climb high into the La Sal range. The next several miles would find us ascending to two peaks that stood over 12,000 feet above sea level and in between having to traverse up and down several thousand feet of elevation. It was a frustrating exercise in torture I thought, and though I was fine physically, in my mentally tired state I was not doing a good job of containing my displeasure. On the flip side, there was still a bit of snow high in the mountains and we actually used it to have a little bit of fun on the way down some of the slopes. Taking a few giant strides, or in some cases a flying belly-flopping leap, we careened down some snowfields into a huge bowl of loose rock created by the mountains and elements.
Needless to say, after trekking up and down thousands of feet of mountains over nearly 40 miles, we were pretty tired. With one last push up and over a ridge, we were descending to the penultimate transition area at around 9000 feet above sea level. As we all auditioned for Night of the Living Dead on the way down, the sun kept on its never-ending course towards the horizon. Just as it became totally dark again – the seventh night of the race – we stumbled into the next transition where we would once again put together our bikes for a final bike leg.
It was critical decision time as we stood in roughly 16th place. We were practically too tired to go on, however we could smell the finish line and wanted to make a final push to get there and see if we could improve our standing at such a late point in the race. We heard that the winning team – Team Nike – was crossing, or had just crossed, the finish line in about six and a half days. In adventure racing, like any other race, your position is not secure until you cross the finish line – so in theory we were still in the hunt for a position anywhere from second to 90th. In reality, we saw our top 10 chances slipping away.
We decided to get a few hours of sleep and start the bike section just before the sun would rise in order to get to a potentially tricky section in the daylight. As with the last bike leg, we were familiar with most of this leg from participating in the Adventure Xstream expedition nine months earlier. The tricky part would be riding onto the Kokopeli Trail, the same trail where we got bogged down to a near standstill in a tremendous thunderstorm that turned the dirt into something akin to fresh cement. We worried we might have this same fate again.
After a few last checks with the medical team monitoring our progress, we laid down in the parking lot of the campground site among dozens of bike boxes, gear containers, race staff and other sleeping racers for a few hours of sleep. We awoke at 4 a.m. to get a jump on the daylight, however we didn’t end up leaving until nearly two hours later – well after the sun was up.
The easiest part of this bike leg came first as we had several miles of country road to travel on before a long climb to the head of the Kokopeli Trail. We held our breath as we rode onto the trail and we thanked each one of our lucky stars that the trail was relatively dry and easy to ride. We were finally making good time in the race! At yet another checkpoint (somewhere around #31, I think), we were told by the volunteers that it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 hours to the finish line – at least that’s what the lead teams had taken to get there. The rest of the bike section was mostly downhill and flat and we enjoyed riding through an amazing red-walled canyon while crossing and re-crossing a stream that meandered down the middle of it.
The last transition! At about 10 a.m. on the seventh day of racing, we found ourselves dismantling our bikes for the last time and looking at a few more miles of open desert trekking to reach the spectacular final ropes section. Packing a wealth of fluids and enough food for what we thought would be an eight hour trip to the finish line, we headed out once again into the heat of the day. Like a mirage, we could see the tall majestic spire of rock that we would be ascending and rappelling off of. And for the next three hours we kept walking towards it and towards it yet it rarely seemed to get any closer.
Finally, we arrived at a checkpoint at the base of the spire known as Castleton Rock. Like the trunk of a giant rock redwood tree, Castleton is a long thin spire that reaches about 400 feet into the air and is probably only 300 feet in circumference. Castleton stands about 200 feet from a longer but just as narrow rock formation called The Rectory that we would also ascend and rappel from.
Before trekking up to Castleton, we were greeted by a few surprise guests – Jen’s husband Scott and Jason’s girlfriend Karen had found their way out to the checkpoint to wish us well on our final leg. We knew they would be coming out to meet us after we finished, but it was great to see them on the course for some final inspiration.
One last push! We trekked several hundred feet up a mesa to the actual base of the Castleton spire where we were met by a slew of professional climbing experts who would help us get attached to the ropes and provide some measure of safety. What they also did was watch the weather as it was extremely dangerous to be caught on such incredibly high and exposed rocks in a lightning storm.
Not long before we reached the base the sky had been clear for miles around, but as Jason and I ascended towards the top of the spire, the wind started to kick up and clouds were rolling in fast. Not taking chances, the head rope guide decided to postpone any further activity on the rocks which meant that Jason and I would have to quickly get to the top and then get back down with the rest of the ropes team that was stationed high above. We were devastated.
We had heard reports of other teams having to spend several hours waiting for the weather to clear, and now, with the finish line at the Red Cliffs Lodge practically in sight it was hard to also be one of those teams and have to stand down for some unknown period of time. Yes, the Red Cliffs Lodge was only a few miles away as the crow flies and if not for a beautiful mesa between us and the resort, we could literally have seen it from atop the Castleton outcropping. A few other teams had caught up to us at this point and we all commiserated under some scant shelter of rocks as a brisk rain shower washed over us. It was late afternoon and we hoped, prayed, begged for the clouds to leave as quickly as they came, however they did not fully move on. The rain only lasted a short time yet we all were forced to sit and wait for quite a long time to see if the sky would truly clear of any potential threat.
As darkness approached, the lead ropes guide made the decision to keep the section closed until first light in the morning. It was a cruel thing to hear, however we respected and fully understood and agreed with their safety concerns. So, we would spend yet another night on the race course, sleeping on any stretch of ground that proved comfortable.
And so the night passed. In the middle of it, a number of teams who were “short-coursed” – meaning that they failed to make an earlier time cut-off at some point – traipsed past us in a long 15-team train. They weren’t technically going ahead of us in the race since they would not get the chance to do the final ropes section and since they had not obviously completed the entire course. As a gesture to allow slower teams to reach the finish line, the race directors re-routed a number of teams around certain sections – hence a shortened course – and now they had caught up and were just passing along the trail that led to the finish line without being counted in the final standings
Under newly cleared skies, we awoke early to take our place in line to get through the re-opened ropes section. Jason and I did not have to re-do the part we had done, but we had to wait as Jen and John ascended and rappelled off the first spire before moving on to the second. It was now a bit of a race as about five teams were now hanging around each other and vying for the remaining spots in the top 15-20 places.
Two by two, we ascended the last 400-foot section of rope and then we all trekked across the top of a narrow mesa towards a high-wire zip line that traversed a gap of nearly 1000 feet of air between us and the desert floor. The zip would take us out to an even skinnier rock spire than Castleton! From here, it was one last rappel to earth and then a mad scramble along the mesa’s ridge towards the bottom of the canyon and out to the river that the Red Cliffs Lodge sat next to.
Frustrated and anxious to get to the finish, we literally ran the last two miles to the river, distancing ourselves from any teams that might usurp our position. We didn’t actually trek straight to the lodge. What we had to do first was get to a spot about two miles upstream and hop into inflatable kayaks to paddle down to the finish line. Performing our fastest transition of the race, we dove into the rubber ducky boats and manhandled them down to the bank next to the resort where scores of people were out to greet finishers in the middle of the day. We clamored out of the boats and walked the last 100 yards into the finish chute and across the finish line where we were met by a champagne shower and applause from friends, race fans, and race personnel. And then, I sat down on the cool soft grass…
And so, after a total of nearly 425 miles and 200 straight hours -- just over eight days -- of racing, Team Silly Rabbits crossed the finish line of the 2006 Primal Quest in 16th place.
We were happy to finish the grueling adventure but would have liked to do a number of things differently to have reached our pre-race goals. Hats off to John and Jen for fighting through blisters, sleep deprivation, and for taking on the mother of adventure races as rookies in expedition-length racing. Hats off to all of the teams that completed the entire course for it took its toll on everyone no matter what position they finished in. Personally, I’m still recovering despite, yes, riding and running again in anticipation of the next adventure! I don’t know where and when that will be… but it could very well be a “short” 6-hour race this upcoming weekend in Half Moon Bay, just down the coast from SF.
Check out www.ecoprimalquest.com for pictures, videos, and more.
~Rick Baraff
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