Primal Quest Badlands
Silver City After a Cold Night
Team Orion Health / 16.08.2009
This report back tracks a little covering - interaction and observation of teams after the Bethlehem caving section through to Salomon Crested Butte (SCB) departing transition to commence the Silver City orienteering leg.
OrionHealth.com were the first to arrive into Transition 5 after the mountain bike from Bethlehem Cave. They were in good spirits but admitted to have been fighting off the dreaded Sleep Monster intermittently. They made a quick decision to stop for some sleep and dived into their gear box to haul out as much additional clothing and food as they could find. Stuart Lynch and Brent Edwards plotted the orienteering course with Stuart seeming much more comfortable than he had been at the caving.
As OrionHealth.com "bedded" down - if that term can be used to describe lying on the concrete space behind the transition marquee! SCB's bike lights appeared down the road, almost exactly half an hour after OrionHealth.com. In contrast to the New Zealanders they decided to get organised and continue onto the course to find somewhere to sleep.
At about 3.30am OrionHealth.com stirred and readied themselves to leave transition. It was interesting to observe that they had originally settled onto the concrete nicely spaced apart from one another but 2 hours later, after the temperature of the high mountain air had dropped, some "spooning practice" was taking place and they were nestled in close to each other to try and keep warm!
A curious local in the form of a very bold cow was amongst a small group of observers gathered at Sunny Meadow to see which of the two teams battling out the lead would ride into the check point (CP) first. It was OrionHealth.com whose headlights were first to beam into the CP marquee where fellow Kiwi Daniel Jones was cheerfully awaiting them in his volunteer capacity.
SCB were next to arrive, 90 mins after OrionHealth.com ??" having travelled the orienteering course at the same pace as their opposition but taken an additional hour's rest. They continued on their bikes onto a leg that would take them to the picturesque Deerfield Lake and along some excellent trails to the small settlement of Silver City where they would once again trade pedal power for foot power and test their navigation skills on yet another orienteering course. Out at Deerfield Lake the CP staff were relaxing and enjoying one of the more picturesque and pleasant "waiting spots" - OrionHealth.com had been through and according to them they were looking strong ... although their captain's eyes were looking pretty red!
OrionHealth.com rode up the road and turned into the Silver City Community Hall at 12.10pm where a small but enthusiastic group of locals and PQ staff had set up the transition area. After the standard clothing change and refuelling - taking up the opportunity to purchase and devour some burgers made by two young local girls - they headed out on the orienteering course. Rumours floated around transition (as is often the way) that they had experienced some difficulty locating the very first CP. When they walked back into the transition area after a little over 2 hours it was established in discussion with Race Director Don Mann that the CP had been missing and re-set with the intention that a suitable time credit would be applied to OrionHealth.com's final race time to compensate for this error.
SleepMonsters
