2005 Desert Rage # 1
Horseshoe Lake, AZ
www.desertragear.com
After only a slight
break in the race season, the only thing that stood between the nutty
adventure racers and their first race of the year was a short drive, a
bumpy dirt road and many flooded road crossings. Thirty three teams made
the journey to the start line and thanks to sound race planning and a
good starter race for the year, thirty three teams finished. Did the
race still hurt though? It’s an adventure race, of course it did!
-The Orienteering Leg-
The twenty five mile race started out at a mere 37 degrees at 7:45 am.
The first leg of the race was the orienteering leg, or otherwise known
as, super freaking fast paced running, skipping and hopping for 1 mile
while hitting 3 control points. Navigation was not difficult since the
points were fairly obvious, but the steep, brushy, prickly, cactilisous
going to the CP(checkpoint) at the top of the nearby hill left many of
us cut up and breathing heavily. Is it over yet?
-The Trek-
One thing that I have learned about Rick’s (race director) races is that
you really should use the maps that Rick gives you. Some would say that
this would be logical, but maybe I’m a little slow sometimes. My school
of thought has always been to buy the best possible maps, often USGS
maps, for every race even if the race organizer is going to provide
their own maps. Since we used the purchased USGS map we ended up
navigating in the right direction, but to the wrong coordinate. The
datum on the USGS map was different than that of the provided maps and
to boot, the provided maps also had a road listed on them that was not
on my USGS. Have you figured out what I’m trying to say yet? Yeah, I
freaking screwed up (I don’t admit to that too often) and lead us hiking
down some cantankerous goat trail…no, check that, it was not a trail,
more of a hillside infested with loose barney rubble rock, weeds and
cactus. The downside? Lost time, multiple slices to the legs and
humbleness. The moral of this
story is this. Check the datum’s on your map and make sure it is the
same as the race provided maps. I’ve had the fortunate experience to
learn this twice.
Did I mention that AR Jack towed me? Initially I thought that I would
just not mention it to preserve my manhood, but it’s a part of life in
adventure racing. Adventure racing rule # 345, tow the weakest member.
In this case I was the weak link and by having AR Jack tow me we were
able to run at a very fast pace back to the TA. In reflection, I have
been towed on bike legs by my friends Shaun and Roger in the Cal Eco#3
and by Mike
in the Balance Bar 24. Both of those times were largely needed and
helped to speed me up in the Cal Eco and helped to make me simply move
in the Balance Bar 24. AR Jack has also carried my pack for a good 8
miles or so in the REI Desert Classic due to a crushing knee injury. At
least in that race the teamwork resulted in a win. Even a win still made
me feel a bit humbled. But you know what? I’m glad that I took the
tow/help for the sake of the team. So the next time you need a tow, ask
for it. If one of your
teammates needs a tow then offer it! Egos, even one as big as mine, have
to get checked at the door in this sport. Thanks for always being faster
than me Barb, you have helped to shrink my Ego to a size that will be
forever more immeasurable…..
-The Kayak-
Once arriving back at the TA we had some sort of a fill up the water
glass with lake water sort of trick. I can’t say that I remember this
one to well since I was plotting coordinates, but I do remember that we
had a cup at the top of the hill that needed to be filled. Fortunately,
AR Jack ran down to the lake and back up a couple or a few times with a
smaller cup and filled it up while I plotted away, again the right
coordinates on the wrong map…..
Once our special task was completed we grabbed our gear and headed
towards the water. The kayak section was a 4 mile kayak with 2 wide open
checkpoints and a nice flat lake. Navigating to and from was fairly
easy, thanks to the exposed and open desert, and paddling for 4 miles in
the inflatable Sevylor’s turned out to be better than expected. A quick
side note – all of the teams that we saw on the water did a great job
controlling their boats. Control and Sevylor are two words that are not
usually in the same sentence without the word “out” somewhere mixed in.
-The Bike-
By the time the kayak leg was over I realized there were some
catastrophic flaws with both my head and the way that I plotted
coordinates or the maps. After careful analysis, it was determined that
I have a messed up head, but the maps were not the same. Perfect, I
didn’t want to carry that big freaking map anyway. Back to what I
mentioned earlier, check the datum’s on all your maps since it can hurt
or ruin your
race!
Prior to starting the bike leg we had one special task to complete. A
rope ran from some fixed point, possibly a trash can or tire (I have now
forgotten what it was), through a tire, a picnic table, a tube of some
sorts and I think and a hula hoop. One of us had to be blind folded, I
was the victim, then we each zip tied a zip tie to our wrist and
attached a carabineer to it and the rope. All 3 of us had to walk craw
and shimmy
along the rope through the obstacles. It was actually a little more
difficult than it sounds. Good stuff. To understand this a bit more, see
the pictures on www.teamascent-ar.com.
The bike leg was quite scenic and fast paced though infiltrated with dry
rutted muchosuckovich hardpack. This was a 15 mile out and back journey
that had one under the dam crossing, one mud bath (that I just happened
to hit), one 5 ton down Saguaro and one good hill climb. The dam
crossing was much different than I have ever seen in a race and was
quite spectacular to participate in. The only rule that we received on
the bike leg is that we couldn’t go over the dam and we couldn’t cross
the water. Well, that left only one option and that was to go under.
Horseshoe Lake was nearly bone dry earlier this year, but thanks to
recent heavy rainfall the lake was not only full, but overflowing at
10,000 cfs. When designing the dam of this lake, the engineers created a
dam that would allow the water to overflow over the top, but still
provide a walkway underneath it for safe passage. I’m sure their main
thought process was for fun and it must have been designed for adventure
racers of course! Whatever their motive, the under-the-fall walkway was
quite impressive,
especially as we biked through the misty by product of massive water
flow and observed a current that was not only powerful, but very loud in
nature.
-Final result-
The fastest time on the course was 3 hours 40 minutes. TeamAscent-AR.com
took 2nd in division and 3rd overall in this race with a time of 4 hours
and 1 minute. Total elevation gain was relatively nil, coming it at
around 1885’ for the total race length of roughly 24-ish miles. Thanks
to Sierra Adventure Sports for another spectacular race!
Difficulty rating: Spring Chicken
Weather variant: Start = 37F / Finish 65F of nice and purty Arizona sun.
Critter count: 1 swimming dog and a bunch of quail. No wild burros on
this journey, where did you hide them Rick?
Train hard,
Josh Sprague
www.teamascent-ar.com
