trekking 6:00:00 [3]
we were up early for half hour drive to start (6AM) after about 4 hours in bed (not sure I actually slept at all, too excited). didn't get maps until 9pm and had to UTM 50ish controls.
made one strategy call to skip control 1, as the organizer was certain nobody would clear it, and it looked like that could be the case, and it was an extra 7 or 8km on foot.
race started on trek. straight up to the ridge, just beautiful watching the sun come up. we jumped to an early lead spiking CP2. i screwed up CP5 as we went to top of cliff and CP description said base of cliff. that put us back with the top 5 teams. finding our way down the cliff, we found a hound dog pinned to the ledge, too weak to move. no idea how he got there, but he had obviously spent days there. vince picked him up and somehow rappelled him down a rope that was attached to the rock face. i stood and watched in awe with my GoPro not turned on. i could have made vince a YouTube star. the pooch wouldn't take water from our hands or eat or walk, so there wasn't much we could do for him. at the end of the section we told the East Kentucky Trackers (race medics) his whereabouts, hopefully they were able to get him.
the rest of the trek was some fun orienteering, reasonably challenging CPs. we were spiking them until CP14 - could not find it and knew we were in the right area. we wasted 40 minutes hunting and when REV3 came up the reentrant we knew it should be in and didn't find it, we took off. turns out it was on the forest floor under a branch, must have blown down. ultimately we got credit for it, which i think was the fair decision by the race organizer.
i was the first on the tyrolean traverse across the river. not sure it was set for my 215lbs b/c i immediately sagged into the underbrush, almost speared by a tree branch, then on the other side was heading ass first into the rocks (coming in too low). instinct did the one thing you're not supposed to and i reached up for the rope and got a bitch of a rope burn.
we trudged back up the ridge to the TA, tricky river crossing, helluva climb.