AR World Championship 2005
Get the Picture
Rob Howard / 14.11.2005
Setting off with Swedish photojournalist Fredrik Olmqvist, we needed to hurry or we’d miss the team, but there was no trail. Fredrik set up off steeply uphill, slipping on the muddy surface and grabbing hold of ferns, roots and branches to haul himself up. Sometimes the branches gave way, sometimes they held, and all the time they snagged in bootlaces, clothes and rucksacks.
He decided to go back down to a river while I pressed on over the hill. There was no way to be sure the direction was the right one and going down the other side of the hill I was slipping and sliding, constantly off balance. It was hard to see where to place a footfall in the dense undergrowth and I had to watch out for branches hitting my head or roots tripping me up. I found a trail for a short distance and emerged by the rapids after clambering across riverside boulders for a while.
Balance Vector came by and Fredrik arrived after they’d passed, missing his photo. We’d taken 20 minutes to cover a few hundred metres, but the teams out on the first trekking stage will be in much worse conditions on steeper ground for 20 hours or more, and all of them will have trekked through the night.
Visiting teams who have never raced Southern Traverse before will have no experience of such conditions, and will find them hard to cope with. Michael Nordstrom of Team Halti was here last year and said before the race he’d been preparing himself mentally for the treks for months. “It’s more like fighting than trekking,� he said, “you use your whole body so it’s tiring, and have to keep your spirits up knowing there are many kilometres of bush still to go and nothing will change.�
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