This was a race in which we had no prior knowledge of the course and the course was not marked. We knew there would be trekking, rafting, and biking. Orienteering would be very important.
The race started with four trekking sections, which means there were four checkpoints and we had to find each in succession in order to get to our next leg of the race, the rafting. We allowed ourselves five hours for this leg. We started out bouldering along the Ocoee River bed. There was little water in the river since the release hadn't started yet. We shifted to the bank of the river about the time the release started. Several teams were caught in the river and got a little wet. Getting to check point one was a long process since the forest was very dense and it required a lot of bushwhacking. It took us two and a half hours to get to there. The other three sections were much easier and we were able to navigate them in two hours, arriving at the river a half hour ahead of our projection. We were in 23rd place at this time, up to an hour and a half behind some teams.
The rafting leg was on the Middle Section of the Ocoee River, about a six mile stretch, which has a good many class three and four rapids. Keep in mind that the air temperature was in the high 30's, the water temperature was in the low 50's, the wind was pushing10-20 mph, and we were in our hiking clothes. After putting our equipment in our dry bags we headed down the river. We told our guide that we wanted to get down the river as fast as possible, we wanted everyone to stay in the raft, and would reward him if this happened.
We paddled for a couple hundred yards, had to portage our raft around the dam and put in right on a class four rapid. We were instantly wet from the waves and spray and with the wind blowing it was going to be a very cold ride. We paddled hard and stayed in the raft, got plenty wet and completed the leg in under an hour. We had great water and a great ride and at take out we were less than a half hour behind the lead team. We caught up primarily because we had better water than they did.
Then came the hard part, swim across the river. After bracing ourselves for the cold we swam across arriving at the other side shivering. We got our equipment together, put on some dry stuff and started on the hike section which would take us to the next leg, the mountain biking. We were still very cold and when Zach took the map out to read it, he was shivering so much it wouldn't hold still, so Cathy and Kristin took it to get our bearings. The hike was mostly uphill and provided an opportunity to warm-up. We passed some teams that were slow deciding to swim the river, some that were slow starting the hike, and some that were slowing down. By the time we reached the transition to the mountain biking we were in 10th place and seven hours into the race.
We were hoping to complete the mountain biking in three hours. The first section of the biking was down a forest service road with a left turn onto a trial at the end of the road. We reached the end of the road and no obvious trail to the left. Our guide book said there was a trail to the left. We looked left again and found tire tracks but not much of a trail. We ran into another team going down the "trail" and there were pretty certain it was the right one. There didn't seem to be any alternative so we ventured forth. When we were a good ways down the hill and were running into other teams trying to find the trail we knew something was wrong. We were a long way into the climb down and didn't want to turn back figuring we could bikewhack to the lower trail. Bikewhacking is just like bushwhacking except you also have your bike with you.
What we didn't know that that week the forest service had extended the road more than a half mile and we were not on the map where we thought we were and we were not going to hit the trail in the direction we were going. We found out later that the race director didn't know about the road extension and virtually every team went the wrong way. Some found faster ways out; we didn't. We met up with three other teams and started bikewhacking our way to the lake and lower road. The farther we got the more difficult the terrain became; fallen trees everywhere, sticker vines constantly wrapping around us or our bikes, and steep drops and climbs. Progress was very slow. It was getting late in the day and two teams split off from us, deciding to leave their bikes and walk back to the last checkpoint. We found out the next day they reached it at 1130pm.
We went forward with the other team, Team Naive; Ray, Michele, Mimi, and Wigs and at one point broke contact with them while we discussed our next step. Zach was pushing for throwing the bikes in the lake and walking out, but we moved on into the dark. Around 830pm we found Team Naive on the shore of the lake starting a fire. We decided this was a good place as any to spend the night. We gathered a lot of fire wood and put as much clothing on to layer ourselves for what was going to be a cold night in the mid 20's. We had emergency blankets that are very thin Mylar which do not keep you warm but will keep you from freezing to death. We also had one sleeping bag per team. The only way to stay warm was to stand right next to the fire or be in the sleeping bag. Each of us got a few hours in the sleeping bag but it was a long cold night.
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