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Wild Rose battles the BC elements

Brent Clark, Team Wild Rose / 24.08.2004

The team arrived in Vernon to high cloud and warm weather on Friday afternoon. Check-in and race HQ were at Silver Star Mountain, and this was also the start of the race. The 27 co-ed four-person teams racing were shuttled to the top of the mountain for a midnight dash downhill on their bikes.

Wild Rose was the first team into TA1, leading team PURE by a hairs-breadth. Following a very quick transition the team was off, in first place, on the first trek, along the mountains above Mabel Lake road, east of Enderby, BC, to a spectacular waterfall rappel and then into CP5, where they picked up their bikes.

Wild Rose kept the lead up to CP6, the decision point for the advanced vs. regular section. The team arrived at this point with a forty-five minute lead on the second place team, THE BIG FISH, and some 7 hours ahead of the cutoff that would limit teams to the regular section.

As in all Raid the North races, any team completing the advanced section would rank ahead of any team on the regular course, even if the team on the regular course crossed the line first. Racing for first place, Wild Rose elected to take the advanced course and in doing so put itself on a route that included avery difficult and navigationally challenging trek, an extra 15-20km lake paddle and a 1500-metre portage around a set of nasty rapids.

Around 5pm Saturday afternoon, midway through this section, the weather turned nasty. The wind whipped up and the sky released a deluge of rain that would not stop for another 24 hours. Still Wild Rose pushed on. The team arrived at CP6A (the half-way point of the trek) about 40 minutes ahead of its closest competition, THE BIG FISH.

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