24h Rogaining World Championships!

This is going to be an all time classic that I will remember for the rest of my life... in fact I think even alzheimers wont be able to take that away from me!
Met Michi (my buddy Michael Eglin from Switzerland, he s the one that got me into the crazy races about three years ago!) in Phoenix where we rented a car and drove up into the mountain boonies. We had two days go get acclimatized to the 10.000 feet of elevation (which is too little for most, unfortunately) so we drove right up to 8.000 feet and stayed at a nice motel, getting a beer at some shabby bar where come cougars (e.g. old mountain p.... yeah, that) tried to chat us up.... grosssss... one was so drunk she fell of her bar stool and could not get up anymore.....
Anyhow, the mandatory beer before the race was crossed off the list and the night after we made it up to the campground, where hundreds of campers were already getting ready for what was going to be an excellent 24h rogaining event on a new map in a very nice area. It was pretty flat up there at elevation, but nontheless there were plenty of hills to be climbed during the event. What the heck is rogaining? Rugged Outdoor Group Activity Involving Navigation and Endurance (ROGAINE) Seriously? Seriously!
24h of running around and finding as many checkpoints (which have different valued points depending where they are and how hard they are to find). That is the layman explanation I guess......





Map distribution and getting ready...

Got one! 50 points added...


Middle of the night, tired, sweaty, feeling a bit crazy...



They came from everywhere, 30 countries, Central/Eastern Europe, Australia, NZ, etc... some super fast, many just there recreationally, or fast for their age (e.g there were over 10 superveteran teams of each member at least 55 years or older!)

Michi and I wanted to go as hard as we could, and we did. To take it upfront we finished 16th out of rougly 200 teams, not bad ey? We stared off what I thought was slow but in hindsight was way too fast... I am slowly getting the hang of not being so ancy..... oh well. Moving along through the first day, we made great leeway on our planne route and had over a quater of the maximum points in a quater of the time. Thing is noone was supposed to get them all! And noone would. In a 24h race you make or loose ground on your competition after 12h.. some will come to a crawl (like us, Michi had altitude problems and I helped him for a while but soon became too tired myself to push the team along really), some move almost as fast at night as during the day.

We had a great time though, since I dont nav there was no disagreement there, plus Michi did a phantastic job, and we just got along great the whole time. I managed to jump into a lake shortly before night broke (dumbass me thought it was a reflection... of what??), so my feet never dried and were totally blistered up after the run was over. At night I got super tired for an hour or so but then got over it once the sun came up, was happy to see that I should be able to manage that well once I did more 24h adventure races .






Done!

Not much else here, a great event, Jeff was there too with his buddy Mark and had a great time as well. Michi and I limped to the finish with 2700 points, the winners (Team Nike/Balance Bar, Mike Kloser and Michael Tobin) had 3490... not THAT much more :)

Totally fascinated by the sport, will need to learn how to navigate!

Trioba Sprint #1, or Roger's first Adventure Race!

So I am now officially an adventure racer, with a 1 of 1 record, having completed the first adventure race with Jeff Woerner and Kimberly Shavender in Ellensburg. I met Jeff at a Seattle Running Company run in early February and while running together at Cougar Mountain told him that I was thinking of doing an Adventure Race, namely the Trioba Series. Found out that he not only had done four twenty four hour adventure races last year but was also still looking for teammates. Since then we have been regularly training together pretty much every weekend, and joined many DART trainings (Dirtworld Adventure Race Team, the best and most competitive AR team in the northwest). We usually run at cougar mtn. and bike at black diamond. My technical skills still are lacking a bit on the bike but I can hang on the climbs and am faster than most on the runs. The SRC sunday runs have really helped propel my running shape into being fairly competitive. I met other great runners, Carol O'hear for excample, who finished top10 at Western States 100 miler last year, who I ran with (35miles, 6h) at tiger mtn last weekend. Anyhow, so much to tell, I ll keep it short. We got to the race start all hyper, I was a bit worried though since my really big race is next weekend, the 24h World Rogaining Championships in Arizona, so I wanted to not completely blow out my legs. Not a problem the way we navigated. After some chatting with Cyril Jay-Rayon, the captain of DART, we started off like a rocket following DART instead of actually navigating, and already we made our first mistake and completely overshot the CP. In this way it continued, we were reasonably fast but Jeff sucked at the nav and I was no better at helping him out, so all day long we kind of flailed around and eventually got done with the trekking section. Some teams we must have passed five times, while we were faster they always took the direct route until we passed them again from another direction. I am sure it was fun for them!

Pre-race... wheel's on, check!

Pre race chat with Cyril from DART

Truckin towards the finish...

On the bike Jeff blew up a bit since he tried a new drink, yup, never try anything race day of if you have not used it many times in training, lesson learned! That mattered very little compared to the two extra misses we had on the nav., so we finished somewhere in the bottom 2/3 at the end. All in all not the greatest race but one under the belt and a lot learned. Woohoo this is my sport!

Good/Bad Luck on Mt. Adams

Holy of all swiss cows! This past weekend my german buddy Rainer convinced me to climb Mt. Adams. Good idea, we re both in shape, he's climbed it before, the weather was ok, we had a 3 day weekend (of which we only needed to spend 2 days, up and down quick)... so nothing really spoke agains it.


Drove down there in one go and were able to still climb up to about 300 meters from the termed "Lunch Counter", a flat-ish area at around 9'000 feet where people camp when the weather allows. Well we never even got there. Up around 8'000 feet it started storming (it already looked worse than predicted all day) and by the time we got close the wind was blowing icicles sideways onto our face such that we decided to camp for the night. We chose what we thought was a good protective area, a flat patch just besides a protective ridge.

Digging our campsite...

In the tent at night.. rainer likes his sleeping bag...

Took this at 3.am while shoveling snow off the tent..

On the way down....

Mistake. The wind picked up even more, right over the ridge, and carried more and more snow over it which started to cover up our tent. More and more. By now it was night and we could not sleep in a full blown strom on the mountain. We had to get out of the tent alternatively every 30 minutes and shovel the tent free.... that we did until late in the morning. No way getting off the mountain until it calmed down. Eventually the tent sort of collapsed and started ripping apart, and it was time to try to crawl down the mountain. Huge wind gusts, hail, not a fun outing. We made it down even though it was complete whiteout... a bit lucky since I met up with a rather big snow track that was half overblown. ..... at the end we were wet, cold, tired and had just had to leave the tent (rainer's 500$ expedition tent) behind. Tough luck, but we were happy to be back safe and a bit freaked out..

Volcano 1, Underprepared Foreginers 0


On the way going there....

Same place, on the way back....

Lake Serene, or how to toughen up your Girlfriend

So I have been living in Seattle for a few months now and I am really happy with the choice of moving here. Three months in a nutshell. Work is ok, getting used to a 8-5 day again and doing reserach, good people to work with, not so interesting work at the moment. Started running more since Michi and I signed up to be doing the World Rogaining Championships in May, woohoo! Should be fun. Anyhow, joined Attackpoint www.attackpoint.org which is a great program to track my training and progress. So about 4h after i arrived at the airport I met Yumay at my friend Rainer's appartment (I stayed with him in the beginning) and we hit it off right away, and been together since. She is fit but only because she works out in the Gym, and has no real experience (at all) in anything outdoorsy except skiing. So we decided anyways to go do a hike, and man can that turn out ugly when expectations are unmet, on either side (do I speak of experience ya think!!??).

Anyhow me being an airhead I figured hey lets go to Lake Serene, a great mountain lake I had been to twice... kind of forgetting that it was March and there was still a TON of snow. Forgetting about this we drove out there and started hiking, she in sneakers! She is a chronic underpreparer I found out over time. It looked like a fine day, a little cloudy but good otherwise, and I was impressed by Yumay's speed up the hill. Shortly before we reached the last hill I knew we were in trouble. Snow was on the ground and became more and more by every foot we climbed, and soon we were potholing through a foot of snow. It was trecherous to walk on the planks that were set up, and Yumay wiped out twice and got some really nasty bruises. Without a whine or whimper she took it (heck I d have whined to kingdom come), and on we went. At the top we were wet and cold, so we took a few quick pics and off we went. Down was worse, tired legs and slippery snow, yeehaw, the wiping out continued. Back at the car Yumay was excited about the trip and told me she wanted to do another one next weekend... whoa, Girlfriend 101 passed, Grade A+, next week will be 102 and I am sure I can find a tougher hike :)

Seattle and what's beyond....

Life like I knew it over the last 18 months may be over, but what I have seen, experienced and learned will sure stay with me forever. It was a great trip covering most of what I had planned to see, and what I had to leave out makes me want to go back, one day...

I just arrived in Seattle and the memory of the last few weeks is still fresh so I ll go right ahead and cover that, more of the Wild West later.

I left for Belmopan in the Belizean Mountains to check out some caves that I heard were worth the trip, well I had to transfer over to get to Belize City and the Cayes anyhow, so I was game to check it out. While waiting for the tour to start (well it ended up being just me, and my tour guide had drinken too much and overslept by 1.5 hours!) I met Shaina, an American that was going to the Cayes as well, so I already had company for the trip through Belize, which was great.
My tour guide, hungover, driving a 35 year old volkswagen with gigantic rust holes in the bottom (when you lifted up the floor mats you saw the ground) was a spitting image of Bob Marley... spitting image! Same face, dreads, and talking in the usual creole accent I though I just travelled back in time. Spending a day with him and his buddy was already worth the trip, but the caves, the canoeing trip there, and the bundles of information I got doubled it all, what a lucky punch!

Canoeing into the caves...

I met Shaina the next morning to transfer over to Belize and realized quickly we will get along great, most of the time you can tell within a few minutes. I met my share of complete nutcases, freaks and weirdos, but hey, in 18 months you see it all, and most people I met were truly great, out there to enjoy the travels, to take it all in, to have the places you see change you, and vice versa, in a positive way. We took a bus to Belize City, then transferred over to the "ferry". Traveling through southeast Asia ferries used to be a ginormous time suck... wait for hours until the boat finally arrives, late, if at all and there is no storm, and then go at 4 miles per hour to your destination. Belize is a pretty modern country and what also helps is the flat water around most of the Cayes. So our "ferry" was a speedboat, an a real one that carried 40 people but still flipped up when the two gigantic turbines started... we were hauling 40 miles perh hour across the water, incredible.

Pure serenity

Once we arrived at our island we went off to find a hostel, and book our snorkeling trip. Shaina did not dive so I decided to go snorkel for once, I had one my fair share of diving in the previous weeks. The trip was great, and we saw lots of mantanees, stingrays, nurse sharks and gazillion of colorful fish. Another few days of relaxation, running on the beach, great food and company, she had to leave (on my birthday of all days) to travel back home. I had a month left almost so I decided to stay, and spend my Birthday on the island. Coincidence has it I ran into a guy I met in Tikal, and spent my Bday with im and two english girls in a karaoke bar. Turning 31 one I had a good reason to get hammered, and I sure did, I remember singing some Bob Seger song with this guy called Chuck, sure hope it was not recorded anywhere, it could and would be used against me some day.

A lazy day of backgammon

A good place to play hoops

Drenched and hammered...

It was time to leave, I had planned for months to get to Playa del Carmen on the Yucatan Penninsula on the 22nd of December to meet Marina again. Marina is a space cadette just like me so information was not very accurate and much, and after an hour of deciphering the directions and address a bus driver dropped me off at the side of the road to walk to the hotel. It was nestled away north of the city, no public access. For some reason they did not require one to wear bands to show that you are part of the hotel, probably due to its remoteness... and so it was no problem staying there for a few days.

I had never been to an all-inclusive hotel, sure is nice not having to carry around a wallet but it does sort of cause one to lay on the beach and drink coctails all day. We made sure to run and explore the surroundings to offset that, but both became a bit restless, so the deal was to escape the false paradise and go to Isla Cozumel for a few days. First though the whole family wanted to go see all the ruins, so the dad wanted me to drive his rented car (none of them spoke any spanish) and drive em around. Sure thing!! So we saw all the famous sights such as the beach ruins of tulum and especially chichen itza. At the hotel, Marina, her family and friends there soon realized that whenever they sent me to get the drinks (which was often since not many spoke spanish) I would bring stronger drinks back. Apparently since I talked to all the waiters up there they would give me the "special treatment", alcohol from the lower cabinet (better quality) and higher amounts.... so I became very familiar with the 6-8 waiters that regularly would be at the bar, good noone ever found out that I did not even belong there!

Tulum ruin...

Chichen Itza

Lack of gas, no gas station, no problem, there s always a solution

After that I took the overnight bus to a big transit center (San Christobal de las casas) and found out that Annie, who I travelled with through the south, decided to come north to finish up her travels in MC as well, so we struck a deal and met halfway... lago aticlan in Guatemala. Another night bus (2nd in a row..grrr) got me there. We spent a few days there, including new years, which turned out to be quite the desaster (too much smoking and drinking) and got me thinking the next morning that now is the time to clean up... really clean up.. no more drinking, smoking, etc.... its perfect timing, my travels are over in one week, and its a good new years resolution, though probably a bit drastic, I think I can hold on to it.

Funky taxicabs in Mexico City

At the museum...

Xavier and his family!

Flying home... wow, this is really it...

So anyhow, we spent a few more days traveling up north before we had to split up, was great seeing her again but now it was time to see one more friend, Xavier! We met in Patagonia and he invited me to his house in Mexico City, and I got to stay with his family while there. I had a great time, being shown around the city, and taken out to fancy dinners. He is the VP of HR of Bimbo Bread, a gigantic mexican owned company, so quite a different style to my raggy usual travel style. I still managed to get sick, (yummy tortillas at the subway stand) and spent a day out cold at their house, but overall it was a great end to the travel and I was ready to start my new job, postdoc-ing in Bioengineering at the University of Washington.

18 months, 35 countries, close to fifty flights, tens of thousands of miles on the bus and train, and stories I will be able to tell for the rest of my life.

No man is an island...

There we go... the finish line is in sight and I am starting to get a little nostalgia...After the adventurous travels through northern China and some parts in South America, i have been pretty much on the "gringo-trail"... throughout africa for better or worse, you cannot wisely travel off the beaten path all the time. After Africa I took a month break in Switzerland, preparing for landing in Seattle in about a month (January 2004!), getting the visas, work permit/schedule figured out, and sending off a container (well more like a small palett) to San Francisco, will figure out later how to pick it up and schlepp it to Seattle. I am excited going back "pseudo home", after I lived there for a period of time with my ex wife in a part of my life that seems so long ago now. Interesting when you travel and see so many places in such a short time, the life before becomes sort of slow motion affected as well, all boxed into the "pre-travel" stone age. Reentering society will be interesting and tough too I am sure. Anyhow, I will spare you the roger rambles and tell you what I have been up to. Arrived in Costa Rica, decided to pass on Panama but hit all the other countries in central america, travelling north criss crossing the subcontinent.

Hot springs bar directly beneath the volcano!

After a few days of visiting some volcanos, hot springs, and relaxing on the beach, the sun and fun was over and my travel buddy Daniel was scheduled to arrive. Dont get me wrong, it actually wasnt that the fun was over, it was starting, just not every tourists dream climbing every Volcano you can in ten days. We started off easy, travelling to Nicaragua, where we stayed on a rather nice island on the biggest lake of the country, and that island, coincidentally hosted one big, bad, VOLCANO! Now we could have elected to go there to relax, do some hikes in the area, and explore the gigantic markets the island had to offer.. but volcanoes are like magnets to us..... they are there, dangerous. Slippery, volcanic rocks, bad to virtually no paths, snakes and other poisonous animals, and the odd farmer with a machete walking by at dusk or dawn, there are a lot of perils out there..., but the worst was 100% the fact that some of these volcanos we scaled were still active enough that when you did not pay attention to your footing, you easily could scorch off the soles of your shoes... yup, no sandals recommended.

Gekko

Bagged our first "peak", recommended to not walk further... right at the crator edge

Our first volcano, wrapped in an evening cloud veil
We then proceeded to try to take a shortcut. I love shortcuts.... especially since they usually are long-cuts once you have reconsidered everything, because if they were shortcuts would not everyone take them? So there was two ways to go from A (island) to B (Granada), the regular but, regular boat, regular bus... appx 6h.... OR try to convince the local farmers to let you on their once-a-week banana boat heading directly to Grenada.. no buses, just a whole lot of convincing and a much longer (also 6h) boat ride.. until about 30 seconds before the boat left we were not sure we were allowed to go with, and would have lost a day since the regular boat already left... but somehow the guys had pity on us and we got to hop onboard a squeaky, crappy, broken old barge that carried probably 5 times more bananas than allowed, and the odd foreginers....

The Banana Boat, there s room at the top..

Dani on the boat

Church in Granada

The ride was great though, hanging out with Banana farmers for 6 hours was worthe the trip alone... Grenada was a good stopping point to see some of the famous central american churches, eat a LOT of rice and beans, and bag the 2nd volcano. But then it was time to go for the kill. The biggest, baddest volcano we planned to climb was described as an adventure extraordinare, and it sure was. We needed to find a taxi, bus and taxi in the middle of the night to get to the town at the base of the volcano. There, we eventually tracked down the major who supposedly knew the one guide that was (stupid?) able enough to guide us up there. So after a not very easy haggle on the guiding price we trotted on, with a 4-6h climbing time in sight. It sure started easy enough, only thing we were told to pay attention to was the snakes, and since our guide with his machete was plowing us through the densest vegetation, it was not always clear if we could if we wante to. Once we finished our bushwhacking part it was supposed to get easier. That was certainly not the case, and now we were walking up at a 40 degree angle on sliding sharp volcanic rocks... the traversing was particularly difficult and Dani eventually sprained his ACL again, not realising it at the very moment, but that was the end of our volcanic explorations for the remainder of the trip. After a hard hike up we finally made it to the top, it was amazing standing in the crator of a pretty active volcano. Sulfur smell, and the fact that one step away from our guides path would have made us pothole through the hot earth into a steaming pool of mud, made me make the decision right there. More risk, more fun, until you reach your comfort level. That was it. On the way down the guide started chatting.... he practically said no word on the way up. So apparently a few weeks back he guided this american up the volcano and on the way down he stumbled and fell, and broke a few bones and ended up in the hospital for several weeks.. great, good to know, AFTER THE FACT! :) Hey, wanna make business, gotta be smart...

Volcano Cotapeque, looking pretty tame there from the bottom...

Uppedyupupup, and it was hot!

At the top, open steam holes all around...

Nice shot Dani!

So that was that for hiking, and since we are not the most dedicated ruins and churches watchers, we decided to do something else fun that did not bother Dani's knee much.. diving! We both did not have the PADI certificate yet, but been diving before, so it was time to get it. Utila in Honduras was the place to get it, and so we did. A week of diving during the day (while it was raining) and drinking at night pretty much sums it up.. a good end to a good travel section with Dani. After dani left and the rains continued (4 days of heavy rains uninterrupted) I left in a hurry the first day the ferry actually left.. two days before it was canceled.


Roger, about to go underwater....

On the boat I met Annie, and decided to get out of the hurricane region towards san pedro. After all the downpour we decided to treat ourselves to some relaxing beach time on the other side of the country, where it was dry season. Traveling with someone that speaks spanish is great, it allows both people to engross themselves into conversations and one does not have to translate all the time, and during the three days that it took to get to the island we did not see another tourist. One night we went to play pool, and annie being the only girl (among about 100 guys) in the pool hall, got a little too much attention... i am already used to playing "boyfriend" for female travelers, ... once the young guys hear that the girl is already taken they leave, while the older men of about 60-70 years stuck around and taught her how to improve her pool-game, quite a funny sight!

We arrived on isla el tigre, a wonderful island that only received a very small subsection in the lonely planet travel book, fortunately... and hence was completely abandoned from tourists. In fact we saw none during the four day stay there. We took a nice apartment in a hostel and spent the days exploring the island and swimming in the ocean, watching the kids play soccer on the beach, or have a fantastic fish dish with lots of salad for roughly 2 dollars... can't beat that. What made it really that special was the lack of tourists... (I know, its hypocritical since I am one too). There are many advantages... no one spoke english, no tourist touts, just chicken buses to get there, an hitchhiking on the island to get around... obviously much cheaper to travel as well.

Dinner at the marina..

Watching the boys play "futbol!"

Nice view from the ferry dock....

After the four relaxing days it was goodbye for us, she had to travel south, me, I needed to get to Mexico City in less than a month to finish off my travels... my cousin Christoph, who has travelled extensively across central and South America told me a while ago to go to El Salvador, and somehow i had forgotten and only because I traveled that far south with Annie did i consider going there. A lucky punch. When i left the island I already met a guy from el salvador in the bus and he helped me across the border, which was a bit of a chaotic situation, but the guy helped me quite a lot and somehow i got across. I already though I d have to bribe the border patrols, but I don't like doing that since one false move and you are in jail... bribing to get into parks is much easier...

I though it was a good start to meet such a nice guy from a country I did know nothing about... on the next chicken bus to san salvador i got to talking to an engineer from san salvador, we chatted the whole way to the city and he invited me to dinner, gave me his number and told me we should go out, so the next night I met him and two of his friends and talked all night about world politics, the country's sights and random stuff... a great experience. In the hostel I met two dutch girls, and we decided to go to cerro verde, where we found a great hostel amongst the lakeshore and the mountain range.

The family there that ran the place only had us as guests at the time and seemed more like a family then a guesthouse to us. From the first night we drank cuba libres with them (not with the two kids, they were only 3 and 6 :), then went out for dinner in town, sitting in the back of a pickup truck on sawed-off plastic lawnchairs... going 90 km per hour in the dark on a road with potholes... so much for save travels... we somehow made it there and had some really nice pupusas, the el salvadorian specialty, filled flour tortillas, a great dinner cost a little over a dollar including a drink, I still dont cease to be amazed by the fact that a meal there in a restaurant with an eglish menu will be 3-5 times more expensive and half as good...

Lucia's (3) birthday at the guesthous

Out in town with the family

Another church... hey we re in central america!!

Our daily dose of relaxation at the hostel...

After a visit of the volcanic park in cerro verde and a day doing pretty much nothing but reading for 5 hours in a hammock, i decided it is time to hit the road again, and be off to tikal... tessa and iris gave me some great tips of where to go. I crossed the border to Guatemala and after an almost 6 hour busride and a walk though guatemala city i got to the bus station and within just 30 seconds made it to the very last bus towards tikal, great because that meant i could sleep in a bed that night... bad because that meant another 10 hours on a tiny bus, combining for 16h, sleeping is not that easy because people get on and off all the time, plus the occasional police checkpoint with heavily armored police searching the bus does not help either. At midnight that day I made it to Flores, found a place and crashed for the night... the next day I relaxed a bit and organized my day trip to tikal, which i did with two americans, a girl from ancorage and a guy from new york city, and we spent the day together walking the amazing maya ruins in the jungle of the tikal region.

Yes I like you too...

Roger, Tikal Ruins in background...

Busy ants..

The jungle setting of the ruins is just spectacular, and the beautiful hiking paths that connect all the temples something I had not seen yet even though I had been on the road for 17 months. A few beers and a great meal later i said goodbye to my temporary travel mates and set off for Belize.