Keen Adventure Race - Alps to the Ocean
Stage 3: Getting more and more spread out.
Jacqueline Windh / 11.04.2008
This course is not only extremely challenging in a physical sense, with huge elevation changes and extremely difficult terrain (both on foot and on bike), it is pushing people to their mental limits: technicals skills, strategy, motivation. That the leaders are pretty much right on course designers John Jacoby’s and Sam Maffett’s time predictions shows that the route is realistic and doable – but the huge spread in the teams, and the numbers going for various short-coursing options, shows just how tough the route is. Even the back people are extremely fit athletes – but the full course is still too much for many of them.
I stayed overnight at the Fernie’s Flat CP. This is the location where teams pass through three times – first near the end of the mountain bike leg, then about 2 hours later as the mid-point on their paddle and, finally, around one quarter of the way through the long (9+ hour) trek.
Being a CP for three different legs, Fernie’s Flat was a hive of activity for about 24 hours! The first of the trekkers arrived at 6 pm, Adventuresportsnz, followed soon after by Orionhealth Mixed (both having biked through about 1pm), but the last of the bikers did not pass through until midnight (most of these choosing to skip the paddling and proceed directly either to the trek, or some of them skipping the trek as well, taking some rest, and moving on to the final mountain bike leg early in the morning). Paddlers continued to pass through, right from early afternoon until some time several hours after midnight (I was asleep in my hammock by then!).
SleepMonsters
