Raid the North: of grizzly bears and endless bushwhacks....

I have not been in a life threatening situation for quite a while due to the fact that I havent been traveling for a long time, but this weekend it hit me again how one could potentially have the shades go down pretty quickly, but such is life and I would never have this keep me a minute from the outdoors... more to the race later but at about 3am on Saturday morning we were trotting along, bushwhacking with Team Helly Hansen, right behind team DART, when DART got charged by a Grizzly bear.... we heard a ton of screams, for a long time and determined that could be the only thing.. noone falls off a mountain for about 3 minutes screaming like that...
It all ended ok, one of the guys ran into a tree and needed stiches, but the bear just charged twice but did not attack... fortunately. Crazy day.


Rinn looks relaxed on the TT...

To the beginning, Aaron Liz and I got company by Glen Rogers to do the Raid the North 36h and we got right into it... after a lot of gear checks and a day of preparation we got zero minutes of sleep and started at midnight for our big race... a flamethrower and big street party where we started made the race a bit more exciting.. not knowing we d get plenty of excitement on the course.

We battled it out with DART and Helly Hansen for 30+ hours, being slightly ahead and behind until about hour 18 or so...
The race included my longest bushwhack ever (about 6h with no roads) and a grueling 4500 foot climb on the bikes in the midday sun... it was a great race, with long, very beautifully chosen legs... and after a 5h canoe paddle we arrived at a big tyrolean traverse and start of the "Advanced Section". It was us, DART and HH, all within 20 minutes, and then noone for hours, so we knew noone else would make it to the Advanced Course Cutoff and we had 3rd place for sure.... we lost time in the TA and on the last long downhill bushwhack being indecisive, so we ended up 3rd overall, but it was my longest race to date and I was very pleased with it.... more to come I am sure!!


After no sleeping for 30+h Roger looks a bit out of it...

MerGeo.com 2C wins 6 degree of navigation!

Yumay and I had big shoes to fill this weekend when we raced as MerGeo.com at the 6degree of navigation at Lord Hill park in Monroe. Debbie Newell and Dave Tallent put on a great course on a gigantic O-map and Yumay and I had to give it all we had, did real deep sometimes and come back from bad letdowns to win this one! Eric Bone had won it for MerGeo.com with William Emerson and Liz Stahl the two years before, but he was at the World Orienteering Championships in Japan so it was up to my navigation to see how well we will do.
The race started well for us and we built a good lead on the first Orienteering Section, only to realize that I had forgotten to go pick up the kayaks, so we had to run up the big hill again to do so, and were passed by 5 teams...
Kayaking went well and we were once again trekking, this time across the whole park and fought it out with several teams, the nav was hard so teams stuck together at times to find the CP's faster, and it was clear that the Biking leg in the midday heat will decide...
Yumay and I were able to pull away good at the pipeline trail, the steepest section in the park, where we had to carry our bikes up all the way. I carried both bikes and told yumay I will race her up the hill... she won, but the incentive made us gain a few minutes and we were able to break free from the pack.. after that I made some pretty good nav choices and we gained about 15 minutes, only to loose it on a combination of yumay going over the handlebar and messing up her knee and me misnavigating... we were four teams all together going up the last hill of the day when Yumay and I were able to break free and put important minutes between us and the rest of the teams to make it to the rappel first, and that was key for the win. A few minutes between us and Alex, Brandon, Tamara and Michelle, who took second... sweet!!


Bloody happy to be done... we spare you the view of yumay's knee, but she ended up needing an MRI after the race... fortunately it healed well...