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...