Traveling through the Mojave Desert is about survival. Problem solving, navigation, and team work are critical to making it out alive. Without being too dramatic, death can come in the desert quickly if one forgets the importance of making wise choices. The intense heat, the canyon climbs, both up and down, and the various critters can be fatal.

Desert Winds was set up to be several things. First it was the longest expedition in North America this year. It was designed to be an epic journey - one that is unlikely to ever be repeated. And it was put together by adventure racers who truly believe in the sport. Great emphasis was put on allowing the teams to continue to move forward without cutoffs or penalties so long as the athletes wanted to keep moving forward. Teams were rewarded for sticking together and the few teams that stayed intact were given the highest ranking. This was not as much a race as it was a true expedition.

The Dirty Avocados were proud to be a part of this event and applaud the hard working staff that made it possible. This sport needs more people like the Finley’s to keeps this sport what it was meant to be - an experience that you can- and will tell your grand kids about.

If the after party was any indication there was not a single participant that regretted his or her decision to be involved. The overwhelming applause for the staff, the course and the event as a whole demonstrated that the people most affected were glad there were there.

For this event the Dirty Avocados were joined by Masha Glanville of the Dancing Pandas. Masha brought so much to the team and kept us laughing the entire event. No one has a better adventure racing spirit then Masha. The rest of the team was made up of Brian Schmitz, Adam Doti, and Mike Chastaine.

The event was centered out of the Hacienda Casino near the Hoover Dam. This one star hotel was accommodating and seemed to need the business.

The check in was Saturday. The scheduled prologue of biking, trekking and rope work was set for early Sunday morning. A slight permitting issue presented itself in the form of being stopped by the rangers and turned back. This caused much discussion among the racers about whether we should start the race. After a group meeting and assurances that the manned CP’s would be staffed and water would be available all but one team started the race.

A note for critics of this event - none of whom were actually present - This race was well organized and safety was never compromised. Anytime a team requested help they received it. When teams were lost and unaccounted for the staff went out and found them. Without getting in to the politics of the permitting issues, I never felt that we were in unnecessary danger beyond what a course like this would present. I have raced all over the world and, in my opinion; this race delivered everything that it promised. It’s too bad that politics can (and often does) prevent experienced outdoor persons from experiencing the best and most epic terrain that an area has to offer. As a tax paying citizen who (in theory) owns our federal lands, why should we be denied access to the best parts of it? At Desert Winds we were not denied. (This is the authors personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of any other person or organization. It’s my opinion, but I could be wrong.)

The event regrouped and began with a staggered start beginning at 8 pm with teams leaving from the casino in 5 minute intervals. We left at 8:35 with our packs loaded down with 2 pack rafts, paddles, rope and climbing gear and as much water as we could carry. We exited out the hotel’s side door, crossed the dark parking lot lit up by only the large strobing casino sign. We crossed the street and disappeared into a dark canyon directly behind the gas station.

The basic course was broken-down as follows: 60 miles of desert and canyon trekking with canyon repelling and pack rafting. The 2nd leg was a 100 mile mountain bike ride with some tricky navigation. 3rd leg was a 20 mile desert trek with more pack rafting. The final leg was a 35 to 50 mile canoe paddle. There were 12 “mandatory” CP’s and 55 optional points. Most check points were man made objects on the course like windmills or signs with associated questions. A few were PVC stakes or stores.

The first trek took us south from the Hacienda Casino, over a ridge and in to Boy Scout canyon. We moved well though the canyon towards the first repel above a hot springs.

A short repel into a dicey down climb put us back into a canyon with hot water running from the hot springs. Slipping and sliding down we worked our way to the Colorado River and the 1st pack raft section. We had experimented and found that the hull speed of the raft was so slow that it was more efficient to have only one person paddle while the other person held on to packs and rested. We got our 2 rafts pumped up and paddled about 5 kilometers to a take out marked by glow sticks. The take out was a tricky cliff scramble, but we got the boats out of the water and up to a ledge where we could deflate and repack. We had to be very careful with the boats as they are quite thin and can be easily punctured. Our next goal was to climb out from the river about 600 feet in elevation gain and head to adventure canyon. The bottom of the canyon was tricky scrambling but we worked out each problem as a team to get over the obstacles.

We steadily climbed to the ridge in the dark. When we got to the top we did not see what we expected. The map showed a large flat area. What we found was rocky undulating terrain. In the dark, even with the full moon, we struggled to find a landmark that matched up. We thought we knew where we were but were north of that location. We worked our way south for several hours till the moon went down behind the mountains. At this point we decided to take a sleep till the sun came up so we could figure out where we were. An hour or so later, as dawn broke we could see and determined that the flat area were looking for was about 200 meters east of us. Finding that, we moved quickly to the entrance of one of the real highlights of the event - adventure canyon.

Adventure canyon was a series of repels and down climbs. Nine separate repels with the last dropping us directly in to the Colorado River. It was beautiful, challenging and scary all at the same time. Excellent fun.

After dropping into the Colorado River (which was about 50 degrees) we inflated the boats and were off again paddling our pack rafts about 3 miles. The water was calm but the day was starting to heat up.

An hour later we pulled on to a little beach at the entrance of the next canyon. Just leaving was a team from Pennsylvania - Gung Ho. We filled up every container we had with water, deflated and packed the rafts and shouldered our heavy pack and set off up the canyon. Our goal was CP2 about 1500 feet above.

The early part of the canyon was full of technical climbs and scrambles that required team work to get 4 bodies and packs past. As we continued to climb the temperature continued to climb. It was easily 120 degrees F in the sun. After a while we would have to stop in the shade every 45 minutes or so, just to cool off. About 3/4 the way up the canyon we caught up to Gung Ho. From there on in we played leap frog all the way to the top of the canyon and on to the road that took us to CP2 - a truck full of water.

Robert was there to greet us. We arrived at about 3 pm in the heat of the day. We knew that we were about 6 hours behind the teams in front of us and 10 hours behind the leaders. That navigation error had cost us both time and confidence.

We had two options at this point. The first was to trek through the desert in search of the 5 OP’s that lead back to the river. This was about a 20 mile section. The second was to go back down the canyon and pack raft 16 miles to CP 3. Gung Ho was going to try the pack raft route. So far our experience on the pack rafts had been pretty good and with the current we figured we could do the whole trip in 10 to 12 hours. Our concern with the trek was the fact that there was no water for the entire 20 miles. This is where the confidence in our navigation came to bear. If we got lost, would we cook in the desert? Finally, after much discussion we decided to do the trek.

We left around 3:45 and made pretty good time across the open desert, past the power lines and into the valley we were aiming at. The trekking was slow as the ground was covered with rocks and tough going. We climbed to the ridge and got on the razor ridge on which OP 7 was located. Just as it got dark we were walking along this ridge. We were very confident that we were in the right place but could not find the PVC stake that was OP 7. This was very discouraging. We continued on toward OP 8. We were beginning the traverse around a large knoll. In the dark the features didn’t look right. We stopped, took inventory of our water and determined that after about 5 hours we were through almost 1/2 of what we had taken. At this point, with doubt about our ability to get to the river, we decided to turn around and go back to CP2. Feeling that we were going to have to drop out we made our way slowly back to the CP. We were pretty sure that no one would be there and that we would have to request help. What a bummer.

To our great surprise, the truck and more important the water was still there. We took a nap and when we got up in the morning Briana was there. We found Adam who got the chills, curled up in the back of the truck bed spooning a giant roast beef sandwich apparently belonging to Briana. She lifted our spirits and we decided that we would head down the canyon and do the pack rafting. We knew that we were way behind at this point, but figured that if we could keep the team together we would be fine. We were pretty sure that if we were having these types of problems, other teams were as well.

We made it down the canyon in under 3 hours - even with all of the technical down climbs, and got our rafts pumped up and loaded. However, instead of the calm water that we had experienced the night before, the wind was really picking up. Paddling these pack rafts was a lot like paddling a beach ball. The wind really impacted our progress. Being adventure racers, we put our heads down and just paddled along. We were covering a couple of miles an hour and making progress. After 8 miles in about 5 hours we were about 1/2 way, but the wind was getting stronger. If we stopped paddling for a second, the boat would go backwards.

Finally a power boat came up with race officials in it. They told us that the wind was even worse further down the river and we were strongly recommended that we take advantage of a ride to CP6 - the bike TA. Given that we were behind, we figured this was the smarter move.

When we got the TA - which was Roberts house we discovered that we were right. Other teams were also having problems and many of the teams had either been rescued, received assistance or had lost a team member. We were still in the race.

We were given new maps and had to plot the bike ride as well as the last trek and paddle. The bike started with a 30 mile loop that we were told was tricky. This could easily be short cut. We figured at this point, the key was to get to the finish line in tack.

We went directly to CP7 then followed along the many roads to the various OP’s. This was a bit tricky in that the map and the roads didn’t match up. But using features and some plain old deductive reasoning we were pretty successful in moving through this area at a good speed. The route consisted of a maze of very confising fireroads that we needed to navigate through the night. It was a very surreal and lonesome experience navigating around old abandoned and some still operational windmills creaking and moaning in the dark. Finally we got to Red Lake - a dry lake bed. The CP was in the middle and we had to navigate it in the dark using nothing more then a bearing. We were only about 100 meters off when Adam happened to look over his left shoulder and saw a faint dark black man made object in the distance. Dreuce‘ s truck in the middle of the lake. We found a couple other teams sleeping as well as Druce. From there it was about 10 K to the next OP - also in the dry lake. Upon finding that we took an hour sleep at the base of a giant water tank. Upon waking and gathering our belongings, Brian found a small scorpion taking refuge in his bike shoe.

When we got up we headed to the highway and traveled south in to the teeth of a very strong head wind. We worked our way to Vock Canyon and started the long slog up the mountain. We were told that it was 70 to 80 % rideable. Not on our best day. We pushed and pulled our bikes up the mountain to almost 7000 feet. Finally, after several hours we were at the junction. We had the option of dropping the bikes and climbing the last several hundred feet to the top for an additional OP. We were pretty beat up so skipped it. We got back on the bikes and jumped on the unmarked single track that took us for 5k to the road that lead to the town of Chlorine. This down hill section was uneventful and finally we arrived at the little town store. We cleaned them out, eating pizza, burritos, ice cream and several cold beverages.

From the store it was mostly down hill, across highway 93 to the TA. We arrived there in the late afternoon, got the bikes packed, gear ready and took an hour sleep. We looked at the maps and concluded, consistent with our game plan, to skip most of the optional OP’s pick up the mandatory CP and head to Cottonwood road that lead to the paddle TA. This was not going to be a short trek but we would avoid the canyons and many of the navigation issues that could arise.

We left the bike TA at sunset on foot for a long cross country desert trek through the night. The trek took us through some very remote sections which occasionally would bring us near makeshift neighborhoods and compounds whos resident dogs would signal for us to not come any closer. We zig zagged around these and made our way to Cottonwood Road.

As the sun was rising we arrived at the paddle TA. 4 of us in a canoe was quite the sight. We paddled for 11 hours getting out of the boat only twice. One to swim in the heat of the day and a second time to grab some optional CP’s along the way. Just after dark we hit the beach at Willow Creek - the finish line at 95 hours, 7 minutes and 22 seconds.

True to our strategy we were awarded 4th place. Staying together, never giving up and grabbing all of the mandatory CP’s except 3, 4 and 5 put us ahead of all but 3 of the other teams.

While, from the perspective of things going well, this was not my best race. Without a doubt this was the most fun I have had out on the race course. We laughed at ourselves and everything else throughout the course. Masha kept the mood light, even when we thought we were on the verge of dropping out. The entire team pulled together and really made this an epic experience.

We would like to thank the following companies for all their support and encouragement in making our adventure possible…

Camelbak
Outdoor Research
nuun
Aquan Sports
Headsweats
National Geographic Maps
Rudy Project
CAMP

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