The Coup de Gracie

Rob Howard / 22.02.2016

The team captain of Godzone Adventure has a reputation at the Patagonian Expedition Race. Nick Gracie is here in his 5th race, unbeaten, so he's earned the reputation as a great competitor and tactician in the race, and on the second trekking stage his team moved to the front with a big lead. The defending champions may have been well behind the leaders for the first half of the race, but their conservative tactics paid off on this stage, and it is being in front at the end of the second half of the race that counts! With a big time advantage from the neutralised time while waiting to kayak and only 2 stages left to go the British team are now in a strong position to hold on to their title ... though as we have seen, nothing can be taken for granted in this race.

When the team arrived at PC12 at 15.25 Warren Bates said, 'We went well on that stage. We just wanted to get it done and for the first time in the race no one was sick!' The race staff were amazed at the speed with which they made the descent from PC11 down to PC12 and Bates said the descent was one of the easiest sections of the race. Staff were surprised too that YogaSlackers were not the first to arrive as they'd had a 14 hour head start on the chasing teams.

'We passed them earlier,' said Bates, 'and they looked really beat up. We were surprised how under-equipped they were with no floor to their tent and not even a stove for any hot food or drinks. They were low on food too so are having a hard time.'

When I asked about the stage he added, 'We took a different spur on the first climb and made time on Merrell and looking back later on guessed we had an hour on them fairly quickly. It was a tough stage, one I'm not sure many teams would cope with unless they are very experienced. The weather was bad much of the time and the route committing.'

'There was a fair bit of snow and we crossed the bottom of a small glacier. Nick got the ice axe out at one point as we were slipping about like dogs on roller skates. The high mountain stuff was great, it's what we came to Patagonia for, but there was a lot of bush bashing after that where you were fighting all the way, getting snagged on branches or falling flat on your face. That wasn't so great. It is OK for an hour or two, but hour after hour of it takes a toll on you. We were all fed up except for Nick, who said he loved it! I think there is something wrong with him!'

He showed me his photos of the high part of the route. It was all steep snow and rock and looked very dramatic. 'The best moment was when a full moon suddenly came out and lit up the fiord below us. It was dazzling and a real 'wow' moment.'

The team stopped and slept for 3 hours overnight. 'We were moving half a kilometre an hour in the dark and it wasn't worth it,' Bates said. 'So we put up the tent, spent 10 minutes eating as much as we could then slept. We have inflatable mats and good sleeping bags so we can be comfortable, and plenty of food. You just have to carry it all in this race. We didn't stop for breakfast though when we got up - as we pulled on all the wet kit we just wanted to start moving! I hate putting on wet kit.'

When they arrived in the checkpoint, the team had a big feed. They were in no hurry as the conditions were too poor to kayak and while they might like to get the next stage done and arrive at Balmaceda which has a hostel and kitchen, they were happy to rest up. CP12, called the Camp of Last Hope, isn't the most comfortable place to stop as tent spaces are hacked out of the forest and they are very small and on ground which is littered with forest debris. However, the team managed to get the tent up among the trees and fallen logs and are now resting and waiting to see who else will arrive at camp tonight and if the weather will allow them to continue with the second kayaking stage in the morning.

[Report sent by YB satellite tracker.)

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