Monday Jun 30 |
 | Hiking race (mountain trek) 13:00:00 [3] *** | |
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| Finally we started coming down the mountain to the College "M" CP 22. After that, hike down the road to the TA at East Gallatin Rec Area. |
| Miscellaneous (transition/sleep) 6:00:00 [0] | |
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| We talked over the remaining course in TA and decided to do the short course option. This allowed us to recover lots of sleep time. We planned to start the next technical MB section around 7 PM and ride through the night. |
| MTB (road) race 5:00:00 [3] ** 30.0 mi (10:00 / mi) +300m 6:02 / km | |
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| Nice ride through Bozeman and over to Little Bear Canyon, then partway up until we hit the 4WD track. |
Sunday Jun 29 |
| Hiking race (mountain trek) 20:00:00 [3] *** 35.0 mi (34:16 / mi) +3500m 16:15 / km | |
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| Up into the Bridger Range through Corbly Gulch. We arrived at CP 21 just after sunrise and continued on along the ridge trail - over Sacagawea and Nuki Nuvi Peaks. Then down to a saddle at 9000 ft where we got swooped by the media helicopter. At this point we had our first team disagreement. The instructions said to take the ridgeline all the way to CP 22, about 10 miles to the south. There was also a trail that would get us to the same place, but it was 2000 feet lower and had > 10,000 feet of elevation gain and loss. We started along the ridge line, but rapidly found out it was pretty sketchy. Half the team (including me) was OK with continuing on, but the other half felt we were out of our depth. After a brief consultation, we acceeded to the demands of safety and dropped down a scree field to the lower trail. From then on it was a monster slog up and down, up and down. Total time used: 1.5 hours.
The ridge route and the trail route both converged about 3-4 miles south at Ross Pass (elev. 7800). As we walked the trail, we decided to make another go at the the ridge when we got to the pass, since we wouldn't have to waste any effort to get there. We did this mid-afternoon and had a punishing climb to get back up the the ridgeline. We weren't sufficiently careful to attain the absolute crest and so we got cliffed out about 200 feet below the ridgeline. As the otheres waited, I found a way up and attained the ridgeline at about 8600 feet. Unfortunately, it was anything but smooth - although passable, it was craggy and gnarly as far south as I could see. With disappointment, I went back down and reported it to the others. You could just see the slumping of shoulders. So we backtracked down to the trail and resigned ourselves to a killer climb. Total time used: 4.5 hours.
That night we slept for another four hours in the tent. It wasn't quite so cold, but the constant up and down took a lot out of us and it was a drag to get going again. |
| Miscellaneous (transition/sleep) 4:00:00 [0] | |
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Saturday Jun 28 |
| Miscellaneous (transition/sleep) 5:00:00 [0] | |
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| Hiking race (mountain trek) 4:00:00 [3] ** | |
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| MTB (road) race 7:30:00 [3] ** 80.0 mi (5:37 / mi) +1000m 3:22 / km | |
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| Long road bike from Cottonwood Bench out to Ringling in order to approach Sixteen Mile Creek Road. The first 30 miles or so were pavement, then 10 miles of serious uphill gravel, then we got to the fun part. The area north of Hatfield Mtn was a set of swooping uphill/downhill sections, but with more down than up. Assuming you were proficient enough on the downhills, you could carry your speed into the uphills and mostly avoid pedaling. I did this some of the time, but the rest of the team was more conservative, although we still made very good time.
Unfortunately, the last 30 miles was a major slog, mostly uphill, that got us to the foot of Corbly Gulch. We were dirt tired as we pulled into the TA and decided to sleep some and go up the gulch at night. |
| MTB (technical) race 1:30:00 [3] ** 15.0 mi (6:00 / mi) | |
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| Technical section - gravel roads with rocks/ruts, but at speed. |
| Miscellaneous (transition/sleep) 3:00:00 [0] | |
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| Hiking race (mountain trek) 3:00:00 [3] | |
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Friday Jun 27 |
| MTB (road) race 5:00:00 [3] ** | |
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| Hiking race (mountain trek) 19:00:00 [3] 30.0 mi (38:00 / mi) +1500m 20:26 / km | |
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| The Crazy Mountains. Went up Big Timber Canyon past the campground and up into the bowl between Conical and Granite Peaks. Reached the meltwater lakes at the end of the bowl and moved onto fairly continuous snow. Luckily, there was a good trail that we followed up, up, up over the shoulder of Conical Peak to get over to the next valley. Descending the west face was easy since most of the snow was gone, but the valley itself was choked and we half walked, half plunged, half slid down a snowpack at least 10 feet thick. The trail disappeared at times but we were able to find a not-so-difficult way down the valley and arrived at the creek junction in late afternoon. We started up the next creek valley and ascended to Moose Lake, but not before several mandatory creek crossings got our feet all wet.
The Middle Fork (this is the valley we were ascending) was dangerously high and we needed to get to the other side. We saw a few teams on the way up, trying to see if they could cross. We decided to go upstream as far as possible and cross there, since 1) the total water volume would be smaller and 2) the slope would be flatter, thus minimizing overall water velocity. Our efforts were rewarded as we safely crossed at the outlet of Moose Lake. Then we began an 800 foot uphill climb to the next bowl where CP 17 was.
Unfortunately, there was no trail at all here and I ended up taking up too far west. We had to backtrack along the shore of Campfire Lake and when we got to the CP, found no punch. The flag was there but the punch had disappeared. We took some video to prove the point and hustled up the trail towards the next pass so we could make it before sunset. On our way up we saw a couple of other teams (that we'd passed) coming along the lakeshore - apparently they made the same mistake I did.
We made it to the next pass and, after negotiating a sketchy talus pile, dropped over into the Trespass Creek valley together with another (3 person) team that had overtaken us. We glissaded down the steeper section and set out along the elephant trail down the valley as night closed in. At the confluence of Cottonwood Creek, I got confused about the trail junction and it looked like we might have had to cross another dangerous high creek. We were starting to get stupid tired, so we broke out the tent and got a couple hours of sleep. Dave went to investigate another trail and came back after 15 minutes saying he'd found the way out. That gave us some relief as we laid down.
We manged about 2 hrs of sleep and then the near-freezing temperatures got us up and moving. We took the route Dave had found and continued down the creek into the TA shortly after sunrise.
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Thursday Jun 26 |
| Hiking race (mountain trek) 4:00:00 [3] *** | |
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| Rest of time for night navigation |
| Miscellaneous (transition/sleep) 2:00:00 [0] | |
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| Sleep time after we got over the ridge |
| MTB (road) race 4:00:00 [3] * 38.0 mi (6:18 / mi) +200m 3:52 / km | |
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| Bike from the drop at Trail Creek down to the boat landing at Carbella on the south side of Paradise Valley. We already knew that the kayak section was canceled, and this was just a checkpoint. |
| MTB (road) race 9:00:00 [3] ** 95.0 mi (5:41 / mi) +1000m 3:25 / km | |
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| Long bike back up the valley to Carter Bridge, through Livingston, past Sheep Mountain and along the freeway frontage road to Big Timber. |
| Miscellaneous (transition/sleep) 4:00:00 [0] | |
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| Transition time and sleep on our way to the next CP. We woke up after midnight surrounded by a pack of coyotes. We could see their eyes reflecting around us and there was one bold one that had snuck up behind a tree only a few yards away. After we woke up and starting making noise, though, they backed off - although they did follow us for about 15 minutes after we got back on the bikes. |
| MTB (road) race 1:00:00 [3] ** 20.0 mi (3:00 / mi) +750m 1:40 / km | |
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| Ride up to the Big Timber bike drop. |
Wednesday Jun 25 |
| Hiking race (mountain trek) 24:00:00 [3] *** | |
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| Arrived at CP 11 in the morning and continued the trek down to Cottonwood Creek. It was flowing high and fast, and we had to cross it on a sketchy log. We made it across, but the team behind us had a cameraman so their navigator wanted to be a showoff. He grabbed a long stick for a pole, jumped up on the log and started walking across. He slipped in the middle, and with arms and legs flailing, barely managed to jump back to shore, but not without getting his bottom half wet. Then he tried again simply to ford the stream while holding on to the log. That worked at first, but the waist deep water ended up stripping him of his map case (!) We were eating lunch on the far bank and saw the whole thing.
Continued up Cottonwood Creek through a nice series of meadows, and took a turn to the east to go up the History Rock trail. Up an over a saddle, then we cut across the face of the next mountain and passed a couple of teams. Finally we made it to History Rock, which is an out-of-place 12 foot high piece of sandstone that was used for all sorts of messages (I'm guessing that's where the name cam from.) At the trailhead, we saw a team that was ready to drop out and waiting for a ride from their support crew.
We refilled with water at Lick Creek and proceeded to the last major backcountry section on this leg. We just managed to make Mystic Lake at sunset, took a rest and started off on the Bear Lakes trail.
About 4-5 miles in, the trail turned into a confusing weave of ATV trails. In the dark, it was very difficult to see where the trails went, but I recognized that there were just several interlocking trails all going mostly the same direction.I started to get into the navigation "zone" and we started to speed up as I took simultaneous reading from the map, compass, and altimeter. We blew by half a dozen teams who were either milling about confusedly, or simply stopped by the side of the trail. One team even pitched their tent in the middle of the trail and asked us if we knew where we were as we power walked past. My only response was "Yes." They weren't able to break camp in time to follow us, which was their obvious plan. Towards the end of the section, I discovered another angled ATV trail that took us up and over a ridge and dropped us exactly onto the trail we needed. Between there and the bike drop we passed several more teams and arrived at Trail Creek just after sunrise. It was the best round of night navigation I've had in a long time.
Oops, we have to go. More later. |
Tuesday Jun 24 |
| Hiking race (mountain trek) 10:00:00 [3] | |
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| Rest of time for mountain trek. |
| Miscellaneous (transition) 2:30:00 [0] | |
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| At TA 2, found we had to wait for the rubber duckies to be returned from downstream. Apparently they had a boat limit on the Gallatin. Took the opportunity to sleep next to the river and cool off by soaking our legs in the 43 degree water. |
| Paddling (kayak) race 2:00:00 [3] * 13.0 mi (9:13 / mi) | |
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| Got in the duckies and paddled class II-III down as far as Big Sky. I was a little nervous at first but soon realized that the damn boats would ride right over the occasional hydraulics we encountered. Mark did such a good job of setting up our line, I didn't even need to paddle much.
Shortly before the Big Sky takeout, we saw a race volunteer on river left, signaling us to pul over. There were several other boats there, too. We crossed river and eddied out, and were informed that the river section in Gallatin Canyon had been closed about a hour ago. The water was at record levels (and was peaking today), and the water was so rough that at one point the race/county officials had six simultaneous water rescues going on. The county had decided to close the river to all traffic, including the commercial raft trips. So no one was going to do any more on the Gallatin. So we portaged the boats up to the road, and we and three other teams waited for a shuttle up to TA 4. Mark and Dave were a bit disappointed. Rozzi and I were both disappointed and relieved.
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| Miscellaneous race (waiting) 2:00:00 [0] | |
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| Waiting for and riding in the shuttle to the end of the river section, plus TA time. |
| Miscellaneous race (mountain trek) 7:30:00 [3] *** 50.0 mi (9:00 / mi) +2000m 4:58 / km | |
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| Next mountain trek section into the Gallatin Range. Walked up Castle Creek and started up Telephone Ridge. A little after dusk the trail ended on a small knob, and teams were milling around trying to find how to go forward. We decided to sneak up the ridge (via contour and altimeter) and soon picked up the track of prior teams. We passed several teams here. We kept climbing up into the snowfields and had to traverse a fairly steep slope to gain the next ridge. Luckily, there were steps kicked already. We made the ridge at dawn, and a couple of teams caught up with us. Together we ran the snow path on top of the ridge and dropped into the basin on the other side. After another snow path run and a descent down a trackless creek, we hit the attack point and homed in on CP11. |
Monday Jun 23 |
| Hiking race (mountain climb) 4:00:00 [3] 5.0 mi (47:59 / mi) +1400m 15:57 / km | |
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| PQ Montana! Started on the plaza at Big Sky with a run (yes!) up Lone Mountain. The whole pack followed a ski lift path up to CP1 at the top of lift in about 2 feet of snow. Then we all lined up onto the ridge to reach the summit. One narrow portion required us to clip into a handline, and since they only wanted two people between knots, we found our first bottleneck. After a good long climb, we summited and followed the rest of the pack down a sweet glissade on the south face. We descended at least 1500 feet on our butts and plunged/hiked the rest of the way back to the TA at the start location. |
| Hiking race (mountain trek) 9:30:00 [3] *** 40.0 mi (14:14 / mi) +2000m 7:40 / km | |
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| Transitioned to Mountain Trek 1. Walked the roads up from Big Sky into the Beehive Basin, down the Gallatin North Fork, past Ouzel Falls, and up First Yellow Mule Creek. Ran into our first navigational problem around evening; the trail as marked on the map wasn't correct (but probably was at one time.) We ended up using about an hour to find the correct way, and I was enough on the map to know how to map the actual trail. Trekked our way up the creek at night with several other teams, and reached the 9400' snow-covered ridge around 2 AM. We took an off trail path, found some steps a couple of teams had made, crossed a frozen snowfield and dropped into the next creek valley after passing several teams. We also navigated well through the 4WD trails lower down, crossed the heavily flowing stream on a log, and made it to the Albino Lake traqil near down. Then, just a nice morning hike down to CP6, where we saw Kevin and Sean. Then a 6 mile gravel road trek to the TA to get in the rubber duckies. |
| Miscellaneous race (transition) 30:00 [0] | |
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Saturday Jun 21 |
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| Event: Primal Quest
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| Miscellaneous 2:30:00 [2] | |
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| All gear and skills checks today! We weren't forced to wait and just slid in and did the twelve stations as a score-O. So now we have a free day tomorrow with no need for a last minute rush.
I had an unfortunate accident during the kayak check, though. My glasses are now at the bottom of Lake Levinsky. Luckily, Chris brought her old pair and our prescription is very similar, so that's what I'll be wearing. |
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| C • I read about your glasses o... 1 |
Thursday Jun 19 |
| MTB (road) 1:34:00 [3] 17.5 mi (5:21 / mi) +450m 3:05 / km | |
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| Down the mountain to the Gallatin Valley and back up. 6000' to 7450', with Chris. Topped out at 39.5 mph on the way down. Topped out at 14 on the way up. |
Wednesday Jun 18 |
| Note | |
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| Photos are posted of our Monday riverboarding and Tuesday mountain climb. |
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| C • Beautiful 2 |
| Hiking 45:00 [2] 4.0 mi (11:14 / mi) | |
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| Everyone else went riverboarding again today. I skipped out and let Chris use my gear so she got a chance to try, and took photos and video instead. Time counted running back and forth along the road - slow pace, but a run nonetheless to keep up with the current. |
Tuesday Jun 17 |
| Hiking 4:00:00 [2] 5.0 mi (47:59 / mi) +600m 21:44 / km | |
| shoes: Salomon XA Pro 3D (2006, black |
| Hike up Lone Mountain as far as we could go safely. Went up several snowfields and ended up at the top of a talus field on the summit ridge around 9800 feet. The rest of the ridge was steep and snowy with several dangerous cornices, so that was the end of it. On the way down, the open ski runs offered a lot of chances to plunge and glissade, so we made it down very quickly. |
Monday Jun 16 |
| Riverboarding 1:00:00 [3] 1.2 mi (49:59 / mi) | |
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| Riverboarding the Mad Mile of the Gallatin River. We weren't quite ready for it - water is high, cold and we had to go pick the roughest part with solid class III. After my second board flip followed by five big waves I barely manged to eddy out and had to take 10 minutes in the sun to catch my breath. We all portaged around the worst section near House Rock and Rozzi and I walked ahead to scout for Dave and Mark.
Luckily, we now know where and what the toughest river section is like, so we can make appropriate decisions during the race. |
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| C • we had cold water in North ... 3 |
Monday Jun 9 |
| Trail Run 1:15:00 [3] 8.5 mi (8:49 / mi) +100m 5:17 / km | |
| shoes: Salomon XA Pro 3D (2006, black |
| Cedar - Brownie - Wirth, some hills and back. With Biz, Tom, Chad, and Waima. |
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| C • Good luck 3 |
Sunday Jun 8 |
| MTB (road) 2:50:00 [3] 42.22 mi (4:01 / mi) | |
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| Summit - Greenway - Lakes - Wirth - Webber - Miss. - 694 - Rice Creek - Long Lake - Victoria - RW - Dale. Went off pavement at several places, logged separately. |
| MTB (technical) 50:00 [3] 5.0 mi (10:00 / mi) | |
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| Off trail at Wirth, Miss., RW |
Friday Jun 6 |
| Note | |
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| Photos from the trip are up! |
Tuesday Jun 3 |
| Hiking 1:30:00 [2] 2.0 mi (45:00 / mi) +200m 21:20 / km | |
| shoes: Salomon XA Pro 3D (2006, black |
| Misc. hiking in the Idaho Springs area. |
Monday Jun 2 |
| Hiking (backpacking) 6:00:00 [2] ** 9.0 mi (39:59 / mi) +500m 21:12 / km | |
| shoes: Salomon XA Pro 3D (2006, black |
| Next morning, went up past the reservoir and north into the bowl containing Upper Causeway Lake. Going up was relatively easy since the snowpack was hard and compact. We were able to reach the base of the ridge north of the lake without trouble, but couldn't have proceeded farther without crampons.
Went back down on softening snow, and showed Annie how to glissade in a couple of safe sections.
I guess I underestimated the amount of snow still left, so we weren't able to make it all the way up onto the Flat Tops. Still, I was with a less fit hiker and didn't want to push too hard. Plus, I wanted to get in some mountain work in whatever form possible before PQ, and it doesn't matter what kind... this worked well.
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Sunday Jun 1 |
| Hiking (backpacking) 4:00:00 [2] ** 5.0 mi (47:59 / mi) +500m 22:45 / km | |
| shoes: Salomon XA Pro 3D (2006, black |
| Quick Colorado trip for mountain hiking and a concert at Red Rocks.
Started below the new (unmapped) reservoir right about here due to snowbanks across the road that were jeep-only. Hiked the road up to the end and dropped back to Cold Springs CG for the night. The upper reservoir was almost completely frozen over and the trails were 2/3 snow covered. |
| Note | |
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| Photos coming soon! |