BHP Billiton Rock and Ice Ultra

---

To Jennejohn

Rob Howard / 22.03.2009

Day two of the BHP Billiton Rock and Ice Ultra dawned bright and sunny. The snow clouds of day one cleared overnight and the northern lights lit up the sky over the camp during the night.

For the racers it was a relatively comfortable night as the stoves in the Mountain Hardware dome tents worked well, keeping the temperature well above freezing and even drying out damp clothing. The only complaints were about sleeping on the snow ... but I’m not sure what those who were moaning expected! The racers fared better than some of the Arctic Response volunteers whose stove did fail, and much better than Race Director Scott Smith and photographer Morten Hilmer who decided to sleep out on the snow! They didn’t get much sleep!

Hilmer had decided to bed down outside as the only free space was in a tent incoming racers were sent into, and they were arriving late into the night. Smith accompanied the last pair of racers into camp at twenty minutes past midnight! One of them was Korean racer Jesse Yoo who had persevered despite one of his snow shoes being too damaged to use. He’d covered 8km in the snowstorm with just one snowshoe and was naturally exhausted but one of the race staff was able to affect a repair overnight and he set off again this morning hoping it would hold.

After such a long and difficult first day, it wasn’t surprising there were a few overnight retirements. From the K-Rock race Jonathan Kennedy pulled out, as did Trevor Sinclair, Max Bloudoy and Troy Marsh, who were all fund raising but felt they’d gone as far as they could. In the Diamond Ultra French racer Patrick Renault withdrew due to an injured knee, as did Italian racer Katia Figini. Some of these were sent off back to Yellowknife down the Ingraham Trail road and the few who stayed overnight had the luxury of a flight out this morning on the Air Tindi plane that landed alongside the camp as everyone stirred for the race restart.

This was set off promptly at 09.00 just as the media helicopter passed overhead and the cold racers were glad to get going in the -25C temperature. Greg McHale jumped into the lead along the snowmobile marked trail through the fresh snow and the line of racers strung out as they headed for the trees on the lake shore to follow a route North-East to Hidden Lake. Not everyone made the start time or was fully ready to go. As Edward Gilbert waited for fellow Englishman Jack Broadhurst he commented, “We planned to be in the lead, but our timing always seems to be out!� The pair have never skied before, but figure that after 6 days they will have got the hang of it. Fellow Englishman Chris Hughes had other concerns as the towing pole on his sled had had sheared off. A repair has been made and he can only hope it holds out. See All Event Posts