Patagonia Expedition Race February 2008

I recently had the opportunity to race with Team Untamed Adventure in the 2008 edition of the Patagonia Expedition Race.

We arrive in Punta Arenas

Joel and I arrived in Punta Arenas on Wednesday, 3 days before the pre-race activities started. I had a bike box that cost me $150 on the airline because it was both overweight and oversize. Besides my bike, it contained lots of food and gear. I also had 2 other pieces of luggage weighing in at 50lbs each. Joel had the same. We laughed when we arrived in Punta Arenas and were joined by Victor from the Spanish team at the luggage carousel. He had a small cardboard bike box and a duffle bag. We looked like we were moving to Chile.

Our gear arrived all intact and we were so excited to be in Chile. One of the first things I realized is that we needed to be fluent in Spanish; this remote location did not cater to Americans and their belief that everyone speaks EnglishJ. Joel and I spoke "poquito Espanol". We were met by Sandra from the PER staff and were soon off to "Hostal Betty", where we stayed for the first few nights. "Hostal Betty" was like a storage shed, corrugated metal sides and roof. The floor was leaning, the shower leaked all over the floor and it had bugs. It was summer in Chile; everything was booked so we had no real choices. But it didn't dampen our high spirits. We were adventure racers and this was part of our "adventure".

We see Penguins
On Thursday we took a trip to Seno Otway and saw the penguins. They were amazing.

Rooming in the Military Barracks
Grant arrived on Thursday and joined us for one night at "Hostal Betty". The race organization moved us to the Chilean Military Barracks on Friday. This was yet another "adventure" – there were open group showers and bathrooms. I never knew what I would see when I entered this area. Not that I am complaining – these guys were all in great shape. This was good preparation for the lack of privacy during the race. The benefit of the barracks was a large open area for us to stage our gear and prepare for the race. We also got the opportunity to meet the other teams. You could quickly tell who was experienced by how smoothly they staged their gear. We were novices, our gear was spread everywhere; I am sure we gave the teams something to laugh about.

Opening Ceremony

Saturday night was the race opening ceremony. There was press from Germany, Australia, US, and Turkey. We quickly got caught up in the excitement. They called each of the team members by name on stage. In South America they don't shake your hand in greeting; they kiss your cheek (nice!). I was kissed by every team member that night. It was great camaraderie. The race organization presented each of us a Wenger Swiss Watch (and required that we wear it during the race) and a Wenger Swiss Multi-tool. Unfortunately for Rob, he missed the opening ceremony due to problems with his flight.

Skills Testing

Sunday we walked down to the harbor for our rope and kayak skills testing. First we had to ascend up a rope, when we got to the top, we had to switch from our ascenders to an ATC and then rappel down. We all passed the test, some easier than others. Next we moved to the harbor for the kayak testing. We were the 3^rd team to do the test. I had my own fan club of "drunken" fishermen. I don't suppose they were used to seeing a blonde in a wetsuit preparing to go in the cold waters of Punta Arenas. They took pictures with me; luckily our language barrier prevented me from understanding their excited conversation. Our lessons with Virginia Sea Kayak in self rescue paid off; Joel and I were back in the boat in record time. We hardly felt the cold water. We all passed our tests and were ready to race.

Getting ready to race

All of our staged gear and food bags were to be turned in at 7pm on Monday, the evening before the race started. There is quite a bit of strategy in determining how much food and/or dry clothes to stage in each food bag. There would be no support for this race, the only replenishing we would get, would be from these bags. We would see 4 food bags during a 10 day race. I created a spreadsheet outlining each checkpoint, the discipline, estimated time to complete and when there would be a food bag. We were going to race!

Race Day

The race started at 9:30am on Tuesday at the town square in Punta Arenas. It was very exciting with the press interviewing racers, film crews and photographers taking pictures. We started on the bikes and rode through Punta Arenas to the harbor with a police escort and boarded a ferry.

The ferry ride was several hours long. We had a school of dolphins accompanying us. We were going to Tierra del Fuego where the real race begins. Tierra del Fuego

The first leg of the race was a 127 km bike ride. The Chilean Carabineros escorted us through the mountains. We were in the first mile when I felt water running down my leg, the mouthpiece fell off my water bladder. We had to stop and go back and retrieve it. We quickly moved to last place. We climbed the mountains on rocky dirt roads and enjoyed the magnificent views. Grant pulled out the tow rope and I accepted a tow on the steep uphill. The downhill was fast and you never really knew the condition of the dirt road ahead; that was good for a shot of adrenalin. We had to stop frequently to adjust the gear on our bike racks. Joel was struggling with his setup; this was his first time using his rack. The bikes felt unstable on the downhill sections with the load on the racks. We were fortunate that we had a tailwind for the flat section along the Straights of Magellan. We stopped to refill our water from a stream and met up with the one of the Argentina teams and Grant shared his chocolate with them. We had passed the other Argentina team and the French team a few miles earlier; we were no longer in last place. The road got progressively more difficult to navigate as darkness arrived. I forgot to mention that it gets dark at 10pm in Chile. We arrived not long after dark at checkpoint 1. I changed clothes and shoes and ate a little. We had to pack up our bike gear in the bike bag for transport to the next leg and then we were off in the night for our first trek.

Trekking to CP2

We hiked through the night in what was the first of the unforgiving terrain we would encounter during this race. I turned my ankle several times but with no real injury. We were supposed to find a trail but it was morning before we found anything resembling a trail. When daylight finally arrived we were not certain exactly where we were. Unfortunately we made a few navigational errors that cost us miles of trekking in difficult terrain. Have I mentioned that the maps were 1:100,000 Satellite maps (kinda like using a crystal ball). We should have been at CP2 around 8:30 in the morning, instead we arrived late in the afternoon. We were in last place. It was disheartening to lose so much time this early in the race. On the bright side though, we saw some amazing scenery during our "lost trek". We saw vast forests that had been devastated by beavers. The sight was unreal and at first we couldn't identify the source of the destruction. We saw our first Guanaco, they were everywhere, we were in their turf and they were constantly checking us out. We had now been racing for a day and a half.
Biking to CP3

We spent a lot of energy (even jogging) to ensure we made the time cutoff at CP2. Now we were travelling fast on our bikes to make the cutoff to CP3. The roads were dirt with a series of rolling hills. Grant offered me a tow on the climbs to keep up my speed. We missed a key turn and had ridden hard for over 30 minutes when we realized we were off track and had to turn around.

It was looking like we might not make the cutoff for CP3. The last section of this bike leg was a very difficult single track. The mud was deep from the previous 10 teams travelling on it. At one point Grant blacked out and crashed due to lack of food and water. He was able to eat a little food for energy and continued on. Grant also had a slow leak and had to stop every ten minutes to pump his tire. Things were not looking good for us.

We finally arrived at CP3 but we had missed the time cutoff. We asked if we could continue racing even if we were not official. Stephan, the race director, said if we made the time cutoff at CP4 we would still be officially in the race.

We were exhausted from our efforts to regain all the time we lost due to navigational errors.

The longest trek of my life

We packed up our gear and started on the 110 km trek to CP4. Our plan was to trek until dark (10pm), put up our tents, sleep a few hours and get a fresh start on this leg of the race. To my surprise I couldn't fall asleep, my mind was going full speed, I was cold, and my knees were in excruciating pain. I did eventually fall asleep. Have I mentioned how cold it is in Tierra del Fuego? There was frost on the ground that night and it was summer in Chile. We woke in the dark, ate a little, packed up and started on our long trek in the wilderness. We started out on an actual path but that didn't last long. We were quickly plunged into the difficult terrain of Tierra del Fuego. We were continually faced with new challenges. I learned to cross beaver dams, "tight rope" walk fallen trees over deep ravines, hike in the sinking peat bogs, walk in rivers, crawl up steep hills and slide down steep ravines on my rear.

We were still struggling with the navigation using the 1:100,000 scale satellite maps. Our goal on Thursday was to find the Rio Condor and felt victorious when we finally reached it. We ate, called in a race report, and celebrated Valentine's Day with a call to our loved ones. We walked through the night that night in the river hoping to make up some lost time. Daylight came and we realized we were not where we needed to be; actually we weren't really sure where we were.

We stopped often to tend to our feet but the night walking in the river took its toll on Grant's feet. He was concerned that he might be getting the dreaded "trench foot" he experienced last year in the EFix. We had growing concern over Grant's feet and decided when we reached the next river crossing we would stop and assess the damage.

When we stopped Joel tried to start a fire but the rain made it too difficult. We setup a tent so Grant could get out of the rain and dry his feet. Joel and I tended our feet problems. I taped Grant's feet with the hopes to relieve any pain caused by the friction of the skin moving.

We continued our trek towards CP4 but we were moving too slow and knew we would never make our cutoff. We stopped and slept for a few hours on Friday night. The decision was made to use our Satellite phone to call the race organization and inform them of our location and the condition of Grant's feet. We had difficulty reaching them but continued hiking and attempted to reach them at regular intervals. It was raining and our spirits were low. The next day brought more of the same; miles of peat bogs and beaver destructed forests.

Grant eventually reached the PER race organization and they redirected us to Lago Blanco where they would eventually send a helicopter to rescue us. They told us the Argentina team was also heading there to join us. We reached Lago Blanco Saturday evening and thus ended our Patagonia Expedition race. The guys immediately fell asleep on the bank of Lago Blanco, they were exhausted. While they slept, I sat down and contemplated all that we had been through. It would take me weeks to sift through the emotions and find the life lessons and character building that comes from this experience.