Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race 2011
Why Trek When You Can Swim?
Will Gray / 11.02.2011
Since our departure from the luxurious Remota resort in Puerto Natales, we have travelled in comfort on the Agunsa Orca catamaran south to the tip of the Isla Riesco and then north again, into the tight Fjord de los Montagnes. The teams, meanwhile, have had a rather more arduous journey, with one slow-going part of the trekking section alone taking 16 hours to complete 16km.
In its entirety, the opening trek of what is becoming known as one of the most challenging courses ever set by race director Stjepan Pavicic, it has taken around 48 hours for the fastest teams to go the distance. But their reward has been a bounty of beauty, from the bus-sized blocks of ice in Lago Balmaceda at PC3 to the 360-degree mountain top views on the multiple passes they have had to undertake along the way.
It was all smiles for the Brits when they arrived at PC8, triumphant with a swagger as they clocked in. Behind them, it seemed, their rivals were trailing away. Timely short sleeps and a relentless pace through the tights-shredding brambles and over marshy mangroves had led them to believe they could now stroll to the end.
“We think only one team will make it to the finish,� they said. “And we hope to make it.�
That, however, was not at all what second-placed GearJunkie was planning. Sure, they dropped back checkpoint by checkpoint, but then they pulled out their jokers. Using their thermarests as floats they took to the water and swam, once for more than a mile, then they called on their climbing experience to go over a pass between PC7 and PC8 rather than around it.
If it’s a tough course this year, then GearJunkie just made it tougher – but made up a swathe of time in doing so. The gamble paid off, and they are back in the game.
Several others, however, are already out – check the race website for the latest highs and lows on the course – while three more teams are camped out in the hills waiting for daybreak to finish the trek and the rest remain scattered along the route.
It is a tough course this year but both Bruce Duncan and Mark Humprhey have already admitted it rates as the most spectacular, certainly in the three years they have participated.
SleepMonsters
