Patagonia Expedition Race
Alberta Blitz The Trek
José Manuel Jiménez / 18.02.2006
Feed The Machine were reported to have passed an observation point close to the lake at 04.00 next morning.
Team Alberta surprised everybody appearing at Pc5 Otway (Sutivan Ranch) on Thursday afternoon having completed the stage in much less time than expected. Katrina Rosen (Kat) said, “The landscape was just incredible, that was more than a trek, it was an extreme life experience!� The teams are used to full races lasting 36 hours and they had just completed a 36 hour trek in only one section of this race. Although Riesco Lake was extremely cold teams enjoyed the coolness of the water which soothed their painfully sore feet for a while.
Buff España made it to PC5 at 8pm and the South African team Mad Scientists arrived at 11pm. Team Feed The Machine has not been seen since 04.00. The South Africans had been walking the whole way with the Chilean team, although they separated later on after resting, Natalia Armijo and Andres Fernandez from DAP were very sore and had bad muscular spasms. DAP had to slow down so the ‘Scientists’ kept trekking.
The controversial route both teams had chosen the night before didn’t turn out to be the best option after all. They ended up on top of a ridge that was very hard to spot on the map because of the complex terrain, and had difficulty navigating from there on until finding a better reference point. They also had to back track and pass very close to Riesco Lake, the one part they weren’t very fond of going through. Maybe they’ll still to the route book from now on!
SleepMonsters
