The Wilderness ARC
The Winners' Story
Top Gibbs / 06.06.2006
There are times during expedition style races that you really wonder why you are doing it, and other times you really know why. The lows are usually in the middle of the night, like this time, following a deer fence through a big bog with mountainous tussocks (or baby’s heads as we called them), the highs are generally at sunrise, sunset or when something magical and unexpected appears, this year we saw a porpoise at the end of one of the paddles. Highs usually quickly follow lows and so it was when we got the stress and hassle of preparation (a big low) out of the way and finally left Fort William on the first stage of our journey (a high).
The organisers started off with a short orienteering course on Cow Hill to split up the teams, our goal was to get round quickly and be first to the rope section, something we managed to do. The first rope section, an abseil was situated in Glen Nevis high on a crag with stunning views of the Mamores and Ben Nevis.
After the abseil we had the canyoneering section. A large crowd had gathered to watch us throw ourselves into the maelstrom. The first section involved a jump into the boiling water of the Water of Nevis then a float downstream through some rapids, the water was pretty chilly and we all came out feeling like our heads had been deep frozen – “ice cream head�.
We quickly moved through to the last section of canyon – a simple 5m or so jump and swim out. Once done we could change back into trek/running kit and continue on over some more ropes to a big climb up and over the Mamores to Loch Leven. We tried to keep up a good pace to get a gap on the chasing pack, by running the flat and down hills. By the shores of Loch Leven we had gained some time, and as Nick and Helen changed for the swim we couldn’t see anyone behind us. See All Event Posts
