Raid the North Extreme held in the Western Kootenay Mountains promised to be one of the best and most difficult expedition races of the year.  As a World Championship qualifier, there was a very good field.  As the course was disclosed, it was clear that there were going to be two large treks filled with huge and slow bushwhacks as well as long bike sections with steep hike a bike sections.

 This year I was fortunate  to be racing with the Dancing Panda’s.  We were a unique team in that we were far older then any other team competing with a combined age of 197 years.  We also had lots of  expedition experience under our belt - experience that would provide very useful over the six day race.

 The team was made up of Masha Glanville, our team leader and captain; Thor Egerton - from Australia - our navigator, Peter Spagnoli - from Long Island NY - our mule for carrying gear and towing me up the hill; and myself.

 From our prospective, we wanted to make sure that we got all four of us across the finish line.  Traditionally if you finish with your full team you are ranked.  You have to finish to in order to place.

 We all arrived in Nelson, Canada with little trouble and began the gear checks, and bike checks and general check in process.  Then we got the maps and were given 24 hours to plot and  determine our routes.

 From Nelson we were taken north to Kelso to spend the night.   Then in the morning it was off to Creek Meadow, just East of  Goat Range  Provincial Park.  The race started with a wicked 5000 foot climb on the mountain bike in 24 kilometers.  For me, in many ways this was the toughest part of the race.  It was warm and I wasn’t feeling well.  While my teammates were grinding along I was really struggling.    There were several sections that were too long and steep to ride (at least for me) so early in the race I was pushing a bike up a hill.  This would be come a very common theme.

 Peter recognized my suffering and put me on tow.  This made a huge difference and I’m sure we save 30 minutes or more just with Peter helping me along.  I remember thinking at the time that this was taking for ever, but in fact we hit the bike drop at little over 3 1/2 hours after the start.  Of course this was just a warm up.  After dropping the bikes we started the first long trek.  I had anticipated 18  hours for this trek.  What I didn’t appreciate was just how slow it is to move through slide alder and other thick brush.

From the bike drop we climbed at bit more up the fire road and in to the snow,  in search of a switch back trail that dropped from 7000 down to the river at around 3500 feet.  During the bike ride Thor told us that she was starting to get a migraine.  For her it effects her eyesight for a few hours. While many teams bushwhacked down, we stuck to the trail as long as we could in the hopes that it would increase our speed.  Also, Thor was essentially blind in one eye so trying to bushwhack wasn’t really an option at this time.  We kept moving and Thor started felling better as we desended.

Once we got to the end of the trail we turned south east and bushwhacked to the clearing that had a goat trial running along the hill side.  This eventually led to a fire road and to the turn off  to cross the river and head up Stony Creek.  This would split and we needed to then follow South Cooper Creek.  We were initially faced with a significant creek crossing.  The water was cold and very swift.  Wading through it was not a good option.  So crossing on fallen trees became one of the skills of the day.

 For periods of time there was a trail. Then it would end at the creek.  We had to cross the creek multiple times, always in search of the trail or at least a clear enough area to move with any speed.  We made reasonably good progress, although we got cliffed out a few times and spent a hour going up and down the hill looking for a way through.  At around 3 am we did a 1/2 hour lay down and got moving at first light.   We spent the entire night moving up the South Cooper Creek .  After the morning we really began to gain elevation and finally emerged from the forest.  From there you could see the Col we were heading to, a couple 1000 feet above us.  We were surrounded by beautiful peaks and we could see a small glacier high on one of them. It was going to be steep up but was mostly on scree.  But before we got to the real climb we had several long sections of Slide Alder.  At this point I was all scratched up and found the climbing through and in the alder exhausting.  Draining and difficult and frustrating is what slide Alder is all about.  You think you will never get through it.  However, we did.  Once we got through it was a easy hike (but very steep) up to the CP in the middle of the saddle.  We were with 3 teams as we go to the CP - all of the teams converging during the climb up through the scree and snow.  We were officially 23rd but we were within an hour of 5 or 6 teams.

 One of my big concerns going in to this race was my knees.  My left knee had been sore for a couple of weeks and my right IT band was achy and tight.  Down hills typically on very hard on my IT band and I was concern that this would be come a problem.  The good news was that even though from time to time the knee and IT band spoke to me they held up and after a while completely quieted down.

 The trip down from CP2 to the town of Relallack was relatively uneventful.  We glissaded down the top part of the mountain then followed the trail till it disappeared in the snow.  We followed the creek along with several other teams still we hit the road.  The maps were 1:50,0000. with 100 foot contours.  This means that there was very little detail so we had to really make route decisions on the fly.  Finally at around 3:30 (27 hours) we reached the TA at Retallack.  We took an hour transition getting some hot food and getting prepared for the first long bike ride.  And there was a storm rolling in.

 From Retallack we began climbing.  Our next CP, CP 4 was a warming hut.  At first it was sprinkling, then the rain got harder.  We didn’t put on our rain gear right away in the hopes that the rain would stop.  So we got our inter layers wet.  By the time we got to the hut in was raining pretty hard.  From the hut the map didn’t have any roads or trails on it.  It was not clear how to get to the way point at Recon pass.  We took off and tried a service road/trail that climbed a ways but ended in a clear cut of trees.   It was pouring rain as we stood there trying to determine the best course. We headed back down the hill and went to the hut.  it was here that we made a good decision.  We were wet and cold so we took advantage of the warm, dry hut and took a nap.  During our nap team 30 came into the hut. they had tried to get over the pass but couldn’t find it.  With this discouraging news we took yet another nap, in the hopes that the rain would stop.  around 3 am we got up, put on our now semi dry clothing and headed out.  We hoped to be able to time it so we hit the pass near daylight so we could get a visual.  As it turned out, we got on the correct service road and simply followed it all the way over the pass.  The road was very steep, some times a 25% to 30% grade.  We got to the top and began the long ride down to the town of Coby.  Being wet, it was very cold coming down.  For me it was very frustrating in that I had good winter gloves and booties in my gear bag.  why I didn’t bring them, I don’t know. 

 We know that hanging out in the warming hut was a good idea because several of the teams that were right in front of us and pushed on wound up dropping out.  I would guess from hypothermia or other related issues.

 We sped down the numerous switchbacks down the mountain and went through Coby and then the ghost town of Shelton to start the climb up Idaho peak.  At Shelton we meet up with a couple of teams and rode together for a while.  We left some behind and we were dropped by others.  We rode as much as we could with pushing the bike from time to time.  We got above the snow line and had to push through snow banks on the road.  We made pretty good time just by moving steadily.  We hit the CP and continued up to the parking lot.  Finally we reached the top and the beginning of the Wakefield trail.  This was a very narrow and technical trail that was carved in to the mountain side  with very big drop offs if you went over.  I lead the way down often with one foot unclipped to avoid any big fall.  Periodically, I was able to ride sections freely only to run up on a fallen tree.  We had a very scary, but short, snow crossing.  Masha got a flat which required a quick fix.  We worked our way down the mountain finally dropping on to a good fire road that allowed for some quick riding all the way in to Silverton.  Silverson, which is on the lake, boasts that it is in the middle of nowhere.  We found a coffee shop and  got a quick sandwich and a couple cups of coffee.  At the coffee shop were a couple of racers who had dropped out and someone from the race with a lap top.

 We were in the middle of the third day and over all every one was felling pretty good.  We had gotten some sleep (except Thor who had trouble sleeping the first few nights) and no one had any serious injuries.

 We took a little less then an hour and then made our way to the TA.  We had a quick transition since we had already eaten and got on the water pretty quick.  Thor and Peter were in one canoe and Masha and I in another.  This first paddle was pretty uneventful although I had some trouble keeping the boat straight.   Whether it was the wing paddle or just my poor technique, I struggled keeping that boat in a clean line.  No withstanding my crazy Evan paddling style, we finished the paddle in a few hours at the end of the Slocan Lake in the town of Slocan.  The last bit was moving water and a quick turn into the landing.  The boat directly in front of us (team 30) dumped the canoe but we managed to keep the boat up right. 

 When we got to the TA it was full of people.  There had to have been at least 4 or 5 teams there at the same time. 

 Because of travel costs of shipping regular gear boxes, the Dancing Panda made the decision to go with gear bags.  Pete and I had big North Face bags and the ladies had other large bags.  In short, this was a nightmare.  First and foremost the bags were not water tight so when left out in the rain, the bags leaked and most everything got wet.  There is nothing more discouraging then to only have wet gear to put on.  On top of that the organization in a bag is poor when all of your gear is black.  In short this was a lessoned learned to never do that again.  This made the transition more stressful for me as it just seemed that I could never find what I was looking for.

 As it was still afternoon, we transitioned as quickly as we could and headed out on the longest trek, into Valhalla Park.  We were a few hours ahead of the cut off where they would not allow teams to go forward on the trek.  We were within a 1/2 hour of at least 4 teams.  This trek was going to be the crux of the race.  In to Valhalla Provincial Park.  We followed a trail to Beatrice Lake then bushwhack  a long way into the high alpine country and over several passes.  We knew that this could take us at least 48 hours so we packed accordingly.  We brought the tent, extra clothing and lots of food.  We even brought the jet boil and mountain house food.

 The trail was very pretty with tremendously  powerful water running.  The snow pack was 150% of normal so the water was high, cold and strong.

 Our initial goal was to get to Beatrice, about 25 kilometers and 3000 feet of climbing.  We moved off at a steady pace.  The trail was good and steep at times.  It was raining lightly.  As darkness fell, the trail became a bit harder to follow and with the tree fall our progress was slowed at touch.  I was doing the route finding and moved with purpose.  I was tired and looking forward to a sleep at Beatice.  Around 2 am we finally hit the campground.  To my surprise there were at least 5 teams in the campground. There was a fire burning.  We quickly set up the tent and laid down.  I got some sleep and woke before the sun came up.  I cooked a couple of bags of mountain house and started packing.  Finally, Thor got some sleep and we let her sleep an extra 1/2 hour.

 We packed up and got ready to go.  The other teams started leaving and we left about 1/2 hour behind the 4 or 5 teams.

 We were told that the South side of the lake was the prefer and better way.  So we went on the south side.  We headed in to the bush.  The slide alder is brutal.  We went up and down and slowly moved forward.  We would bull through the bush and run into a series of cliffs.  Nothing showed up on the map.

 After about 3 hours we figured that we had travelled maybe 1 1/2 kilometers.  We stopped and talked about our concern that we wouldn’t be able to get through this trek and do anything else.  In other words, we were on day 4 and knew that if this trek took  60 or more hours, we would not have time to do any other parts of the course and certainly would not get to the finish line.  We had heard that it took the top teams over 20 hours to the Ice Lodge and well over 30 hours to complete the trek.  It was not unreasonable for us to expect it to take twice as long.

 We pulled out the radio and called the race director.  Amazingly enough we actually got him on the radio.  We explained that our concern was we would not have time to finished the race and wanted to know if we would stay ranked if we turned around and went back to the TA in Slocan.  He told us that we would just be on the modified short course and would remain ranked.

 After some discussion we all agreed that going back to the TA was the right choice if we wanted to complete the rest of the course.  Knowing what I know now, I still believe that it was the right decision.  Two of the teams that left Beatrice Lake that morning took 69 hours to complete the trek and we not allowed to do any other part of course.

 We bushwhacked for another 3 hours till we got back to the campground.  Then we proceeded on the long trek back to the TA.  Round trip the whole thing took us about 26 hours.  We got to the TA right at dusk.  We talked to MA and asked her if we had any deadline to get out of the TA.  She said that in order to stay ranked we had to leave by midnight.  And that we would have to bike to the TA at Upper Little Slocan Lake about 20 k away.  We (except Thor) got an hour of sleep, drying stuff as best we could in the heated room and got ourselves ready to go at midnight.  From the TA to Little Slocan was a gradual climb up the road.  We got to the TA and Thor really needed to get some more sleep.  So we took another lay down and all slept another hour.

 When we got up it was still dark.  We headed down the road about 8k to the zip line.  When we got there we had to wake up the rope crew.  It took about an hour to get us all across.  While it was a great photo op, the zip only took about 20 seconds to get across.

As we finished up team SOG caught up and started working across the line.

 We took off and started the climb up to CP 12.  Masha started having some mechanicals and I tried to fix the ghost shifting.  While I made it better, I didn’t get it completely fixed at that time. 

 After CP 12 we had missed the cut off the day before so we had to do the “short course” which would cut about 30k out of the paddle.  But the short course climbed from the CP at about 3000 feet to over 6000 feet at the top of the climb.  It was loose gravel and very steep.  We rode as much as we could but spent most of the time pushing the bike.  We kept expecting SOG to catch us and were surprised that we got over the top and they were not in sight.  It turns out that they took a road on the wrong side of the river and the road didn’t cross.  We had seen this on Goggle Earth and didn’t have that delay.

 After getting to the top we had a long and very fast down hill.  We would travel for several minutes and then make sure we gathered.  This was the type of down hill, where a crash would hurt.

 We got to the bottom at lake level and SOG finally caught up.  We had a bit of trouble finding the TA and tried getting directions for an unfriendly local who could not understand what we were doing on her property.  Finally we got to the TA and it was mid afternoon.  We made a hot meal and got our paddle stuff together. 

 The next leg was a 40K+ paddle with our bikes in the boats.  We had to paddle to a TA on the left side of the river, get our bike gear and then cross the river and start the bike ride.  Before we left we asked the race director if we need to take all of our bike gear.  He said no, they would have our gear bags at the next TA.  So we didn’t take bike shoes, helmets or lights.  And only took enough food for the paddle.  We started the paddle into a head wind.  I was concerned with the bikes in the boat.  If the boat flipped we would never be able to flip it back over in the water.  And the water was very cold.  After about an hour or so the wind began to pick up and we were starting to see white caps. This concerned me because once you get water in the canoe they become more and more unstable.  We found a place to pull over in the hopes of sleeping a bit and letting the wind die down.  We hated to burn day light but paddling into the wind  was going to be slow and take a lot of energy.  SOG who was just behind up also pulled up and took a lay down.  The plan worked perfectly.  We got some sleep and the wind had died down a great deal.  So off we went.  It was a long paddle in the moonless night.   The more tired that I got the harder it was to keep the canoe straight.  Masha was struggling to stay awake.  We pushed hard with the idea that would get to the TA, sleep till day break and have all day Friday, all night and into the morning to finish.

 Finally we pulled up to the boat ramp that was the TA.  When we got there, there were two other teams there - SOG and the French team.  The volunteer immediately let us know that our gear was not there and that they didn’t expected it till around 8:30 am.  It was 3:30 am at that point.  So we came ashore and  laid down near the fire.  At day break I got up and others awoke as the morning wore on.  There was no hurry as we weren’t going any where.  It never occurred to us to try to move forward without bike shoes, helmets and lights.  We later learned that DART went on  with boat shoes, not helmets and no backpack. 

 We waited for 13 hours for our gear.  The locals seemed less then pleased at our being camped out on their boat ramp and made their feelings well know.  At that point I had just about given up on being able to  finish.  We waited so long, I began to heal, which makes the muscles very sore.  The teams talked about finding a road route to try to get over to the seven summits. Ultimately we were told that we couldn’t ride the road and we had to stay on the original course.  Shortly after our gear showed other teams started paddling up.  They said that they had also been delayed about 8 hours waiting for gear.

 We quickly got in the boats and paddled across the river and to the little town of Renata.  Quickly through this town and started the long push up Bulldog mountain.  Again, the road was steep and loose and impossible to ride.  SOG and the French team rode by us and we didn’t expect to see them again.  We slogged up the mountain for a couple of thousand feet.  We topped out and then came down the sketchy decent.  The original course would have had us head south through a mile long train tunnel and to the TA to the last trek.  We had long missed that deadline.  We might have been able to make it if we had not been delayed so long, but with losing 1/2 a day we had missed the cutoff before we had even started.  The train grade was in great shape.  It was slightly down hill and a very nicely maintained road.  We sped down the grade to the last climb to CP19.  Masha had not been feeling well with stomach problems and her bike was still ghost shifting.   As we started the last 2000 foot climb we had to stop and work on Masha’s bike.  I finally got the bike working properly.  We continued moving steadily up the mountain.  We were caught and passed by CP tracker and WEDALI.  They looked like they were moving well and we couldn’t keep up with the pace.  By the time we got close to the TA, we were all falling asleep and really struggling.

 We pulled in to CP 19 just a few minutes before midnight and I thought we were all done.  .  We were told the cutoff to continue on the bike was 10:30pm.  However, we were told that they would provide a shuttle to move the many teams that were at CP19 to the trail head of the seven summits.  We were going to be on the 2nd shuttle so we had a little bit of time.  Masha laid down in the back of a truck and Thor found a place to sleep.  Pete and I had some Top Ramon and were getting ready to lay down when the shuttle pulled up and we had to load up.

 We had heard a lot about the seven summits trail.  It was suppose to be one of the best rides in the world.  We jumped on the trail and the very first part was like a ride in Disneyland.  Some downhill with smooth swoopy turns and climbs.  But after about 1/2 k it began to climb.  With smoked legs, all I could do was push the bike up the technical single track.  Masha was still not feeling well with her stomach jumping all around.  We pushed for a few hours.  Near the first summit at  Mount Lepsoe we did a 20 minute lay down.  After finally hitting the first summit the down hills were a hoot.  Fast and windy and very fun with some technical sections.  There was one section that was very exposed but most of the ride was fun and fast.  I was very concerned that we would not have enough time to get to the finish line, but to my great surprise, by early morning we had finally hit Red Mountain.  Now it was a long down hill on the cat tracks to cp 22 and then through Rossland and continue down to the finish in Trail.

 At this point we were riding with the French team, who was still on the course and doing very well.  From CP 22 at Red Mountain was pretty uneventful.  It was all downhill and fast.  At about 8:40 we crossed the finish line in Gross park in Trail.  The finish line was disappointing.  No fan fair, and the race director seemed confused as to how to deal with the teams that we coming across the finish line.

 To our great disappointment, we were not ranked.  We spoke to the race director and he denied telling us that we could remain ranked.  We were not the only teams that were DNF or unranked.   Tecnu and Yogaslackers both completed the entire course only to finish after the 10am finish cut off.  No allowance for the time delays that they suffered.

 After the race we learned that the website hadn’t worked and showed us as withdrawn for a while.  The website gave the impression that we had dropped out.  That certainly was never the case.

 Over all, this was an excellent course but the race was run very poorly.  It had the feel of someone who didn’t spend the money to do it right.  In my opinion there is no reason to have a complete team that crosses the finish line unranked.  An there are no excuses for making a team wait ½ a day for gear.  While we aren’t sponsored per say, we had lots of friends and family following the race.  Having us listed as withdrawn caused a great deal of concern because those that know us know we would not drop out unless someone was injured. 

 For our part, I’m very proud of how our team performed.  We made good decision for us and achieved the primary goal, to get everyone across the finish line.  Way to go Dancing Panda’s

 It’s unfortunate, but I doubt anyone will do this race again – I know I won’t.

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