The 2007 Adventure Race World Championship
On the Wolf Trax
Rob Howard / 29.05.2007
It began to rain soon after dawn when Wilsa Sport Helly Hansen slipped into the cold waters of Loch Ness, and it was still raining at dusk when they walked into Transition 5 at Laggan WolfTrax, a specialist mountain biking centre on the opposite side of the Monadliath mountain range.The centre has a café and bike centre and a choice of graded and prepared routes and it is the end of a long ‘nordic walking’ stage over the hills.
For most of the walk the teams crossing today were in cloud, with little visibility and they had to concentrate carefully on navigation. The terrain in the Monadliath is markedly different to the hills of Rum or Knoydart, Here there are no rocky summits or steep gullies, in fact no distinctive features at all.
“I took a compass bearing to guide us,� said Alain Berger, a former international orienteer, “but if you get your navigation wrong up there you are in trouble. There are no landmarks or features to guide you.� He was repacking his gear under the porch of the café and was a little rueful that the transition marshal had ruled they could not sleep inside the warm and dry building.
“I know the owner said they could sleep in there,� said Pete Robinson, “but its unlikely he will let all the teams do so when he is busy tomorrow, and we have to be fair.� The French team then set up their large red tent by the transition boxes but then were moved on again and told they must camp on the edge of the forest away from transition.
Eventually they settled down for what Berger described as a tactical sleep. “We could go on, but want to sleep now to prepare for later in the race. We will move quicker in the night if we sleep here.�
As they moved their tent Nike walked in but they had no intention of sleeping, not at this stage while there was still some daylight to make use of. As they prepared to ride the marshal explained they had to ride the red route, which started by climbing on forest trails but then switched to technical singletrack for the descent. See All Event Posts
