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We didn't see scuba equipment on the mandatory gear list, but maybe it should be! The drive up to Muskoka along HWY 400 was interrupted by one of the fiercest thunderstorms of the season. Puddles on the highway in some sections were at least 12 inches deep. Lightening bolts cracking to the right and left of the highway. Thunder claps that actually shook the van. It was something else! "Mother Nature surely wanted to give us an adventure for our race!" we thought to ourselves. If not adventure then surely a lot of mud! Scuba gear might just be required. The storm continued right through the night. We are hoping that Mother Nature is just getting out of her system before the race. That is exactly what happened. It turned out to be a great day to adventure race. It was a little cool, damp and drizzly in the morning, but the sun broke through and made it a great day.
Concerns of "bottle necking" from last years Muskoka race prompted the race organizers to start us off on an open lake canoe. Boy did it spread us out. With a head wind doing everything it can to slow us down, we found it difficult for us to gain on anyone. Waves splashing up over the bow also took its toll on us. Peter called it the toughest canoe paddle he ever had in an adventure race. Peter did a great job keeping us straight, while Heather and Joe paddled their hearts out. Poor Heather was sitting in at least a couple of inches of water, making it especially tough for her. Her spirit was never dampened. It wasn't until we landed on shore 2 hours and 28 minutes later that we realized that Heather was bordering on hypothermia. Since this was going to be the bike leg of the race, we knew we needed to get moving quickly so she can warm up. Luckily, Heather warmed up nicely early in the bike ride. We were 79 out of 144 teams at this transition point.
At this point, we have CP1 and CP2 out of the way. CP3 was at the top of a hill off a path. This proved to be a little more confusing then it should have been. The mass attack of adventure racers on this hill was comical and added to the confusion. After CP3, the instructions wanted us to locate CP3A along the path. The problem was that we had two paths to take from CP3. We must have circled CP3 three times. Confused, we scrapped CP3A. (I still don't know if we needed to record a code here or not!) CP4 became our focus. Okay, an easy check point. "Ride along a gravel road for less than 1 km and look for a field on the left and then follow the ATV trail." Sounded simple, right! Wrong! After messing around for about an hour, we finally came out at the top end of a private airfield! Was this the field? We noticed other teams on the opposite end of the airfield. We joined the main path and finally found a field on the left with an ATV trail leading into the forest. This trail consistently got narrower and tougher to ride. Eventually we had to dismount and walk it. Around three other teams were doing the same. We had our very own convoy happening. Luckily we didn't have carry our bikes, the terrain allowed us to roll our bikes with one hand. Finally, we got to CP4! Back on track and heading on our way to CP5.
After a quick CP4, Peter made some good navigation decisions that allowed us to pass a number of teams on our way to CP5. We're on a roll now! We can feel it. At CP5, we were redirected by race marshals to bypass the trail ahead due to erosion concerns and go straight to highway 632. Here is our chance to make up some positions. We knew to road would lead us directly to TA2/CP6. We attacked hill after hill. We passed teams along the way. Many teams walking the hills. We were pleased with our fitness levels. Training paid off big time! We conquered each hill and descent. Peter was great here, providing motivation and help on gear selection. On arriving at TA2/CP6, we figured that we passed at least 10 teams. Refueling and refilling on water, we headed out on foot. We arrived at 3:13pm in the afternoon. We just made the 3:30 pm cutoff for Re-direct #2.
Now we are on foot. We still have energy in our legs. We started an on and off light jog. This allowed us to pass at least four other teams who were just walking. Peter remembers this section from a previous race. Confident now we head straight to CP7. Bang on! Another smooth quiet check point. On to CP8. By this time, we were well into the bush and relying on our navigation skills. CP8 comes and goes. However, it doesn't take long for us to realize that other teams are having trouble with CP8. Now we are thinking we can make up some great positioning. We're pumped. Two more checkpoints! This is where the wheels came off the bus, our search for CP9.
We never found CP9. In hindsight, we were headed in the right direction. However, our mind started fighting with the facts. We also made two many course corrections too far from a solid point of reference. When we knew that we had approximately 2 km to hike to CP9, we have already traveled too far north before heading eastward. As it turns out, we were screwed 15 minutes after we left CP8. By this time, we were hoping that we could run into the open body of water that the checkpoint was on the SE shore of. If we did that, then we should be okay. Unfortunately, we ran into swamp after swamp. Time started running out. We don't want to be stuck out here when it's dark, even though we had brought headlamps. We were almost 3 hours in the bush by this time. At this point, we decided to take a beeline south direct to the camp. We knew that we would hit two major roads on our way to the finish line. This is where the adventure really started! A half-hour into our exit, we hit a major V-shaped swamp. We were right at the vortex of the V. By this time, the team was feeling drained. We could walk around it, we thought. That would take us far off course. Peter suggested we swim across a deeper section. Heather was too eager to comply! Joe wimped out, having not trained specifically for swamp swimming. At this time, we tried to throw a rotten tree stump across a narrow, but deep section. Unfortunately, the log was actually weaker than it appeared. It broke in half in the attempt to place it across. It is a weird feeling jumping into a swamp. Especially when two thirds of it is bog and it is up to your chest! Now we are adventure racing! Another interesting fact about swamp water …..it STINKS! This is also when we all realized what a great team we had! Our spirits were still high and we never complained about how much each of us stunk! We trekked on. The map shows no more swamps a head of us, but the map didn't show the 500-foot cliff we had to climb down! The cliff stood between us and the road. We were looking down onto a quarry business with three locals having a few wobbly pops. "How do we get down from here?" we shouted. "Follow it down on your right hand side, we do it all the time" they replied. We hoped they weren't drinking, as they were that day when they did climb it. It was steep! After speaking with the locals a bit and thanking them, we pressed on. We had a decision to make. We can run along the road for about 3-km into the camp or cut through the bush for about ¾ km straight into the camp. By this time, we could hear the loud speaker from the race finish line. It couldn't be any worse then what we came through, so we decided to cut through the bush. This last ¾ km of bush whacking proved to be the roughest. A few minutes into our hike, we came across a very steep hill, easily a couple hundred of feet. It must have been 75 degrees. Carefully working our way through the loose stumps and dirt, we made it to the top of the hill. We didn't look back. The terrain was rugged, rocky and proceeded to go upwards. When we finally reached what we think was the top, it must have been at least 1000 ft. The slope started to ease downwards, but continued to be rough and rocky. Hearing the highway, we knew we were getting close. Unfortunately, another 500-ft cliff face was in our way of reaching the road. This time there were no locals to guide us down the cliff. We started looking for a way down. We headed eastward, which seemed to be the easiest way down, but that was taking us away from the camp. We spent easily 15 minutes looking before we found a way down. It was steep going down as well. On the road, we met another team that didn't find CP8. Knowing we were less than 1 km from the finish line. We decided to make this a strong finish and began to run. We passed three other teams on our way to the finish. Sticking together, holding hands we crossed the finish with smiles across our faces. Happier then the four other teams still stuck in the bush after the sun set. Thank goodness, it was a full moon.
You wouldn't have guessed we just spent nine and half hours facing what Muskoka has to offer. Our bodies felt worse than they looked. It was a long day, but we were all proud of ourselves for sticking it out. We were especially proud of how well we worked together as a team! We can't wait for the 2003 season. Not wishing to waste any time, we have already started training for next year!
Joe Smirlies
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