Patagonia Expedition Race

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The Dreaded Bog

Jacqueline Windh / 22.02.2005

The long sections of peat bog, as much as 20 km at a stretch, have been the talk of the race! The bogs consist of spongy mounds of peat moss. For the most part, the trudging is not through actual water, but consists of picking a route around the little ponds and channels. For the most part, sitting down means getting wet as the water seeps up out of the mosses.



For the first day of the trek, Canadians King’s Own, Americans Fukawi, and Spain/Argentina Globalstar traveled together. That day was hot and sunny, and all members of King’s Own, (their tender white skin fresh out of Canadian winter), were badly sun burnt. Members of all three groups recounted to me that:



Arriving at one deep channel, they stopped and contemplated the crossing, and resigned themselves the fact that they must swim. All of the North Americans stripped right down (except for Mike Kotuk (Canada), who to everyone’s delight left his special Christmas underwear on) and started swimming.



Meanwhile Nidia Barrientos (Globalstar) suggested that they just check the banks downstream a bit – and only meters away found some logs fallen across. Globalstar walked to the other side as the North Americans dried off and put their clothes back on.



Some comments about the bog:



Colleen Ihnken, Fukawi (USA): “It was an endless bog. I couldn’t believe there was so much bog. I should have brought 20 pairs of socks. But it was not so much the bog, it was all the streams and the bush, going down to the streams then up through the bush, a lot of bush-whacking.�



Tom Zidek, King’s Own Calgary Regiment (Canada): “It was like doing Stairmaster the whole time. We have buns of steel.�



Mike Kotuk, King’s Own Calgary Regiment (Canada): “For 70 km we had bog. But at least I got to swim in my Christmas underwear.�



Artem Rostovtsev, Salomon Russia: “The bog was bad... but the forest worse.�See All Event Posts