Patagonia Expedition Race
Two Teams Take Their Own Route
José Manuel Jiménez / 18.02.2006
Buff España and Alberta Adventure Racing are already on their way, setting off at 6:30 am.
This stage could last about 2 to 3 days, they will have to go through an enormous valley and one massive canyon. They will be walking through steep ravines and passing through terrain that has some dangerous wild cattle, called Baguales.
These animals were taken to the island a long time ago, escapted from local estancias and run wild ever since. It is known that they live in areas which the teams will be passing so they are aware of the danger. They will also pass through Riesco Lake, having to wade through water at 4°C.
The three remaining teams arrived on the island at approximately 3:30 pm and were transported to PC 4 at Skyring.
From this point Feed The Machine took off at about 7pm and DAP and Mad Scientist left the checkpoint together at about 9pm taking an alternate route to that planned by the race organizers. While the race route instructions were planned to take teams to the most spectacular landscapes, they were not mandatory and DAP and Mad Scientist realized they were not the optimum route, so the took a line missing out Riesco Lake. They’ll cover about 40K of original route but through easier terrain. Whether the earlier teams realized this was an option is not clear, but it’s unfortunate the teams are not taking varying routes.
Cristian Burke of Feed The Machine (one of the teams stranded due to bad weather) said that because of an issue with their route maps a wrong turn cost them around an hour and a half on the trekking section on Maria Soffia (Pc3), which was why they were not in time to make it to the crossing.
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