The Wilderness ARC
A Fine Finish
Rob Howard / 26.08.2005
On Friday morning a mixture of ranked and unranked, restarted teams were progressing towards the finish line, with the wind behind them, but lashed by occasional heavy downpours. Fun Over Talent arrived just ahead of the combined Alpinebikes/High 5 team looking cheerful and still wearing their headlamps after their early morning start. “We may be unranked, but we finished it as a team,� said Camilla Lennon. They were one of only two teams which resumed the race all together.
In sight behind them were 3 members of the original Alpinebikes team and Gill Watson, the last survivor of High 5 on Orange. “We’re the only team who didn’t pull out and go back to HQ,� said Watson. “We’ve been on the course the whole time!� Another team who were proud of sticking it out together were Carpe Diem who finished later in the morning. They’d completed the majority of the course, rejoining at TA4 as soon as possible after being taken off the course at TA3 when Karen Murdoch was close to hypothermia.
“Karen was very nervous on the Aonach Eagach ridge and terrified on the jumar ascent�, said Paul Cooper. “She wanted to call it quits there and then, but once she had recovered a bit was persuaded to carry on, and is already talking about doing it again! The long trek was hard, a bit too much wilderness in one go to be fun I think.�
Barclays/The North Face came in with their ‘umbrellas sails’ set up, which they said had worked really well. They were torn in places, but had held up to the strong winds and pushed them towards the finish. It was a finish the team had wondered if they would ever reach, but they’d persevered, determined to complete the course.
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