DontGetLost Snowshoe Raid - 10th Anniversary Edition
Hard to believe it's been that long! In the early days, results were calculated from manual punch cards (an experience I was lucky to enjoy) and we were all packed like sardines in the Horseshoe Valley XC Ski Chalet. It was tons of fun back then and Bob keeps finding new ways to make it fun and different. A few people have returned to race all 10 years, including APers AdventureGirl!, Hammer and Timato. Thanks for all your work on SSR, Bob and DontGetLost.
Dee and I teamed up once again and worked through a few different strategies. One of the twists this year was that Matrix points could only be claimed if we returned to the Aid Station at the northeast corner of the Matrix within the first 2.5 hours. After a longer uphill run from the start than planned (the buses couldn't get up the hill to the intended start), we entered the Matrix.
Dee went to 2 and 9 while I picked up 1, 4 and 6. I was surprised to see so few other people in this section, and I did more trail breaking than expected.
We'd picked a somewhat daring meeting point - the place where the east-west trail south of 9 (hopefully visible in the snowy terrain) left the forest and entered a rough open area. I had a false alarm on my way there when I reached a different rough open area. The trail wasn't there and I couldn't leave the Matrix box without my teammate, so I scrambled along a snowy slope to stay on the legal side of the line - until I realized my error and headed south again. We arrived at the designated spot at the same time - phew.
With Simpy, Jocelyn, Mrs. Tiny and Heidi, we headed south along the fence line to 191, then continued south to the valuable 224 and 201. We met Hermes and DoubleDown along the way. Dee and I used our incoming snowshoe tracks to leave 201 and travel most of the way to the snowmobile trail where we ended up back with most of the same crowd. Hermes and DoubleDown took off at high speed, and Simpy and Jocelyn weren't far behind. We headed to the hilltop of 236 with Mrs. Tiny and Heidi. We were far enough ahead of schedule that we briefly considered going east to 234 but fortunately talked ourselves out of it.
From here, we planned to go due north to the Aid Station for our post-Matrix check-in. We picked up 242 on the way, then did the agonizing climb up the escarpment to the Bruce Trail. Dee has an injured hamstring that is extremely painful and the hill climbs were particularly hard on her today. She is so tough though! Luckily, that was our last big climb for the day.
Mrs. Tiny and Heidi had the same plan until this point and we were pleased to see them turn east when we got up to the plateau. They are a faster team with excellent navigation so we had no chance unless our routes diverged at some point.
We ran up to the aid station, punched in our five Matrix controls and headed east to pick up controls on top of the escarpment. We figured this would be safer in the later stages of the race since it would be easier to estimate our time to the finish without any big climbs to worry about. The overtime penalty was large this year - 30 points per minute - so no one wanted to be late.
We visited 231, 230 and 229, then we hopped on the Bruce Trail and ran around to 227 at the lookout. We made a tough call to get 225 (50-pointer with a 35 m descent/ascent) instead of the closer 228 (25-pointer). After that, we knew it would be a push for the finish. Our original plan was to approach the finish by following the Bruce Trail from the east but that committed us to running all the way through Petun Conservation Area within the 3-hr time limit, and I chickened out.
So we ran west to the Aid Station, then north to the bend in the road before diving into the conservation area for 186 and 190 on our way to the finish. Timato and Nosnhoj flew past us on the final downhill, looking great on their way to a podium finish.
It was such a great time playing in the snow and my teammate was awesome as always. If we had it over again, I think I'd choose the same route - and it's not often I say that. We were both warm enough, we both forgot to eat, and I didn't drink nearly enough since I had trouble reaching the mouthpiece through my new hose insulator. Further experimentation is required.
Huge congrats to Harps and Logie on the overall win out of 96 teams with 1475 pts! Such sweet irony that the victory went to a man who hates winter. ;) Congrats to Hammer & Tarno and Timato & Nosnhoj for completing the overall podium, and to Gally & STORM and Hermes & DoubleDown who rounded out the top five. Trav & Christian were 6th overall, Dee & I were 7th with 1,000 pts, and Mrs. Tiny & Heidi were just 25 pts behind in 8th - yay, girl power! 'Bent and BGY would have been next if they hadn't arrived 3 minutes late - but they did, so they were 15th.
The weirdest highlight of the day was finding a compass draped over a branch in the middle of the woods. We decided to bring it back for the Lost & Found. Turns out, it was Bob's compass from setting the course!