Day Two:

Are we only on day two?!   The team arrived in TA2 sometime around 9:00am.  They made up quite a bit of time over night.  They took their time with the navigation and it paid off.  Many teams walked in circles and were slowed by not so perfect navigation.  Jason used the first “wag bag” (poop bag) and had to pack it out.  Needless to say no one wanted to hike behind him.  It seems to have kept the bears away.  Our team saw some prints - probably black bear, but one team did report seeing a grizzly - it looked at them and then walked away - whew!  When they arrived in TA2 they were in great shape and decided to hit the river instead of sleeping.  Sleeping would be done after the riverboarding.  After eating, repacking, and regearing off they headed to the river.  We thought they’d have the ride of their lives…unfortunately, they did.  After teams took off, support crews were held at the TA for 2 hours as not to crowd TA3.  We cleaned up, packed up (if you’ve never done this before let me tell you what we are packing up later on), and watched for that magic 2 hour time limit and off we raced hoping to beat our racers to the next TA.  As we headed toward Moose Creek Campground, sure enough, we saw them in the river.  We pulled over and cheered them on they yelled back and were in great spirits, although Jason and Mary’s boat was obviously losing air, but they didn’t seem to be too worried about it.  We hopped back in the vehicle and off we raced to TA3 - we knew our racers would be there soon.  It was another beautiful day in Montana, with clear skies, no humidity, and plenty of sunshine.  We waited at the rivers edge for teams to come in.  The teams were in a very fast part of the river and even at this location it was very difficult for teams to pull over and get their boats out.  As teams rolled in we though something was wrong - the teams #29 took off with were coming in, but not our team.  Finally, a team member from team 49 came over and told us that they had seen Jason and Mary along the side of the river as their boat was sinking!  We didn’t have to wait much longer as Bobby and John were flushed down the river toward us - only one paddle.  We waved them in and ran to help them.  John was in rough shape - shivering and had some trouble getting out of the boat.  Bobby was fine and started to tell what had happened.  Now, I’m relaying this story from bits and pieces garnered from many sources so some of this might not be exactly accurate, but you’ll get the general idea.  Apparently  Bobby and John hit a big rapids and John flew backwards, hitting Bobby with his paddle and causing a bloody nose then they flipped over.  John’s shoe got caught in the boat and he struggled to keep face up in the river.  Bobby quickly used his knife to cut John’s shoe free, while holding John’s head above water.  They righted the boat and got back in and continued on down the river with the one paddle. Needless to say, John was pretty shaken up.  I think Jason and Mary saw what happened to Bobby and John and were going to try to help them, but as they hit the rapids, Jason flipped out the back of the boat because it was so deflated.  It sounds like he got caught in some sort of current that literally sucked the bootie off of his foot.  In the meantime Mary is calling to Jason to be calm and use his river swimming skills and trying to get a paddle to him.  At some point Mary becomes somewhat out of control on the river and managed to cling to some branches along the river’s edge as the boat sank beneath her.  Team 54 seeing what has happened has gone to Mary’s aid and pulled her into their boat, but the river is still pulling them and they get their last paddle caught in some tree branches.  They had given their other paddle to their teammates who had flipped and lost theirs.  Jason does not know what has happened to Mary and manages to scramble up the river bank and try to run barefoot down the river’s edge.  In the end, all ended up safe and sound, albeit extremely shaken up. I think they all have a new respect for the water and the river - especially Jason and John.  The river was finally closed at this point and they did not riverboard.  We drove them to TA4 where they slept for 2 hours, filled up on food, and headed out about 8:00pm for a 40 mile trek.  We dropped their bikes off at an Unmanned TA and are now sleeping in the Bozeman Wal-Mart parking lot.  The team in first place had not shown up for their bikes yet and it had been 14 hours.  I don’t think we’ll see them again until mid afternoon tomorrow (Wed.) at the earliest.  

Cheers,

Denise

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