Hello Family, Friends, and Fans of team Number Twenty-Nine.  I am finally in cell/internet coverage area and will post the past two days worth of news - and there is a lot of it!  I promise I will post whenever I can but between loading and unloading all of these gear bins, cooking, setting up tents, and spotty cell coverage….well, you get the picture.  So here goes.

Day One:

The day started off cold and foggy.  We were all concerned that we wouldn’t be able to see the racers reach the summit of Lone Mountain at 11,115 feet!  By 9:00am we were at the starting line, with teams checking in, support crews making last minute adjustments, family and friends excited and hoping their team would make it back from the top of the mountain.  At 9:40am, John decided his undershorts were too big and off he went to change them.  By 9:57am his team was ready to leave him, but he showed up in the nick of time in smaller shorts - whew!  I think the starting line is a little too early in the race to be racing naked!  By 10:00am, the fog had cleared, the racers had gathered at the line, and the helicopter was circling waiting to film the start.  At roughly 10:05 am we waited to hear the boom from the avalanche cannon to start the race.  We saw it first and then they were off.  An incredible start to an incredible race.  The transition area (TA1) was right back at the starting line - so basically, the teams went up the mountain and back down to the same place.  Our team was in good shape, although Mary had cramping in her feet and legs.  Bobby broke a trekking pole using it to slow his slide down the mountain through the snow, but he had a spare in the extra gear.  Jason and John are in great shape and chomping at the bit to move on.  Around 3;00pm they were off on a 45 mile trek.  We expect them to arrive here (TA2) sometime tomorrow (Tuesday) morning.  This transition is from trekking to paddling.  They will be going 24 miles down a raging Gallatin River in two 2 man rubber (duckie) kayaks.  Don’t worry moms and wives, there are medical/safety teams at every dangerous point in this race.  Safety is definitely the number one concern for this race staff.  After the paddling they’ll be back in the river with their riverboards for 8 miles.  We drove to Bozeman for supplies and the river is not as bad as we had originally thought - well the entire river isn’t a class IV rapids, but there is some big white water.  It will be a wild ride, but I think they’ll be fine - I wish I were doing this part!   I will try to keep you updated as much as possible, but cell/internet coverage is spotty at best.

Cheers,

Denise, Nathaniel, Eric, and Luke

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 11:44 am and is filed under Primal Quest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.