Baja Travesia 2008
Day 2: Teams DART 1 and DART 2 have 3 hour lead on the rest of the pack
Jacqueline Windh / 26.03.2008
Day 2, 1pmWell, I fell asleep last night in the desert, under the light of a nearly full moon and the yip-yip-yipping of a coyote. I woke up a few hours before dawn, absolutely freezing cold. I was only a few hundred metres above sea level. I wondered how the teams, working their way up that canyon to the peak of the Sierras at around 2500 m, were faring.
Gary and I headed out on a long drive to try to find out. While the racers are travelling due west, crossing the spine of Baja, those of in vehicles had to drive way north, then west, then south, then back west and up to intercept them. We left our desert camp at 7am, and five hours later found ourselves at the top of the world – in the dry pine forest of San Pedro Martir National Park, with westward views on the drive up of seemingly endless mountain ranges, one behind the other, far below us.
This is exquisite territory, not what most would expect of Mexico – there were mountains of snow piled up by the Park Entrance, and little pockets of snow still remaining in the shadows on many of the north-facing slopes.
When we got up to the top, both DART had been and gone. Travelling together, they had left CP10 up here at 10:45, which means that they took something like 17 hours to do the canyoning trek. They are now headed out on a 90 km downhill bike ride that would involve some navigation through the forest (not really on tracks, even, at times – but navigating sandy washes to eventually head up with some tracks).
The DART teams had a 2 ½ hour lead on next-in-line, the Yoga Slackers, at the previous CP9, so we are expecting Yoga Slackers in here almost any time now. ExtremeSports.dk and Bosi Colombia have also made it through CP9 so far, one hour and an hour and a half behind Yoga Slackers respectively.See All Event Posts
