[Chrisb]

For whoever may be interested the top 3 elite category (3 person coed) results were:

1 Enduraventure
2 Black Dome
3 WTF

More later. Goodnight.

Chris

[John F]

looking for the details and the stories.

[Jay Curwen]

Team Black Dome consisted of myself, Bill Fletcher (Snickers Marathon fame) and Traci Lewis (Action Learning)

Started on Grandfather, just like last year...Weather was epic...30 mph winds with gusts approaching 50. Fog. Drizzle...It made the ladders and cables a bit sketchy in places.

We got out on the course with Calleva quickly and they proceeded to drop us like a rock going over Grandfather. Getting to Serenity Farms, we transitioned to bikes and left with Calleva to go up 221 and retrieve a point (4) at the Parkway. We overtook the lead here, got 4 and headed down Elkmont Rd. to Old House Gap...South there on Yancey Ridge Trail to 5 almost in Elkmont...we exchanged the lead several times...Pineola Rd. up to Little Lost Cove Cliffs where we could send one runner over the cliff trail to retrieve 6, while the other two took his bike around to the other trailhead to meet back up...Calleva apparently had some issues here...something about the runner forgetting the passport...but we managed this quickly and made off for the TA at Barkhouse via some cool singletrack near Gingercake acres, in the lead.

After about a 10 minute TA, we set out on what looked like a rough 5 point O-course that went down into Upper Creek...Cps 8,9 and 10 came relatively easy...we were in the middle of the solo race with Charlie near us and Chip's footprints right in front of us...CP 11 was pretty straightforward...and then came the first mistake...
CP11 was just west of a saddle, near a 2565ft knob 2K south of Chestnut Mountain:
http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=35.94491&lon=-81.81018&size=l&u=4&datum=nad27&layer=DRG
CP12 was here:
http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=35.9306&lon=-81.8062&size=l&u=4&datum=nad27&layer=DRG
We chose to bushwhack W to the trail along the creek...and then be able to effectively tell where we were before attacking 11 at the correct altitude.

Upon reaching the creek where we wanted to attack 12...who do we see but Enduraventure...Apparently, the ridge trail that we took to 11...that showed as a dead end on both maps we had...did in fact continue straight down basically directly to the CP area...oops.

After some greetings by the 6 of us...we wallowed around a bit in an area that had been changed drastically by recent development, eventually punched 12 and tried to high tail it away from Enduraventure...In less than 20 minutes...Here comes Neal and Co...Charging up the trail behind us...and blowing right on by...We would never see them again...

Finishing off the O-course, we found that we were only a few minutes behind...but we were not feeling super fresh as we continued on foot down to 14 at Steels Creek...We hit 14 about 25 minutes down to Enduraventure and started up the most heinous climb I've done in recent years...from 1400 feet at CP14 to 3665 feet at the summit of Table Rock...in about 7-8 kilometers. Bill Fletcher was the beast here by towing Traci up the last 600 feet of gain near the top...We punched 15 and continued down to the bike TA in the Table Rock parking area...

We found out here that the course had been modified a bit with the omission of 2 of the next bike CPs...Then it was a matter of a loooooooong cold downhill ride to get 19 and another long section of dirt and paved road to get to the paddle leg at the NE section of Lake James...We were told here that a couple of points in the paddle had been dropped as well. We started the paddle about 1:25 down to Enduraventure and managed to make a bit of it up in the boat w/ the help of a sweet little portage...

I think we came in around 9:30...about 45 minutes down...

Chris, Michelle and their team did a fantastic job from our point of view...Every point was exactly where it should be...and there were obviously multiple route choices...especially on the o-course...The scenery was again the star of the show...from the epic conditions on Grandfather, to the views off Little Lost Cove cliffs, to the stars on Table Rock...Just a realy cool time in the woods.

Thanks to Traci and Bill as well as our support crew, Drew and Katie...As in any race, just keepin' going can be tough in itself...We powered through cramps, headaches, non-cooperative stomachs and a host of other little issues...all because the next CP was only "about1k away"...sorry, inside joke...

Good job to everyone else that took this beast on! And congrats to Neal, Lisa (and Jen I think?) of Enduraventure for tearing that course up!

I look forward to reading about everyone's adventures out there...

Cheers,

JC
Black Dome

[Neal Radford]

Hi All,

Team Enduraventure consisted of the irrepressible Lisa Randall, "new kid on the block" - Julia Radmann and "old kid on the block" - myself. This is not the dominating team from last year but with James sadly unable to race at the last minute and Bryan heavily into his body building phase (look for the poster in your local GNC store). However, we hoped to represent and keep folks like Black Dome, WTF, Chardon's and Calleva etc honest and at least force them to suffer enough to "earn" the win.

OME had a LOT to live up too...two back to back epic races plus ALL the pre race press & hype on TB and elsewhere...I am sure Chris and Michelle were sweating ....BUT OME delivered! Jay somes it up best above:

[jfarmer]

Congrats to the top teams. That was a tough course to try to do fast. Lots of technical stuff, especially on foot. Unfortunately, that's not Carol's forte, but Team Forty Is The New Twenty sucked it up for a victory in the 2-person co-ed division (Elite division in our minds). Thanks to Jay and the Black Domers for a sweet $100 gift certificate to the store for our efforts. Carol and I have raced together twice this year and we won the masters at Blue Ridge and then this race. We're starting to get a little cocky Carol had a good birthday, I think, despite being stuck out there with me all day. We had a little birthday celebration at CP14 with the candle and brownie I had stashed away in my pack. It was delayed a bit because of the fact that we had it plotted on the south side of the creek, rather than the north side. There was a campsite on the south side and we were not very good at crossing creeks, so we explored the south side WAY TOO LONG. Oops

Couple of questions to fuel my navigational curiosity. Of course, we didn't plan on getting everything and our route choices were different than most because of our team's abilities and such. But I like playing the "what if" game, so here goes.

1) Teams that got CP 12 (you can see CP12 on the link that Jay posted): Did you look at humping west up the ridge to 181 and taking that back to Bark House (http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=35.95535&lon=-81.85266&datum=nad27&u=4&layer=DRG25&size=l&s=50)?
I think it would have been quicker than taking the trail. Was that illegal? I didn't look a the instructions since we didn't even consider going for that one.
2) I know that teams had problems with 11 and 12. For 11, I would assume that you went for the knob labeled 2565 and went 150 meters or so to the west from there. True dat? 12 definitely looks like a bear. There are two creeks shown flowing from south to north and the point is in between them. However, the drainages on the south ridge all look the same. It would be incredibly difficult to discern one from the other. The confluence of the creeks from the north may not be exact either. What did you guys see out there?
3) Knowing how heinous the MTS trail is, did anybody consider going from Bark House to CP14 via 181 and the 4212 jeep road and then whacking straight south down to the CP? Risky, but could've saved a bunch of time for a team that could go through the woods fast. CP 14 is at http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=35.91351&lon=-81.84134&size=l&u=4&datum=nad27&layer=DRG

The one thing you learn from this race year after year is that the Mountains to Sea Trail does not do what it says it does on the map. You have to read terrain or you'll tear your hair out. Just following the freakin' thing is painful. I went right past a turn 2 or 3 times despite the fact that I knew to look out for that.

[Neal Radford]

Lisa did all the nav but I'll try and answer for Enduraventure:

[gholland]

Too tough to follow this only on topozone.

Jim, can you upload the map?

best
Greg

[jfarmer]

Sorry, but if somebody can scan it I can post it. If you zoom it out to 1:100,000 say, you can see the big picture.

[Chipw]

I failed to get CP11 despite spending a good amount of time checking several Draws. I’m pretty sure I ran down the ridge to far before I started my search. Since the trail wasn’t on the map can someone tell me how far off the trail the CP was? Did the trail take a left turn and veer off the east side of the knob right at the draw w/ the CP?

In hind sight I probably should have headed back up and kept looking for cp11 but with it starting to get dark, I figured I better go and get 12 while I still had day light. I lucked into 12. Basically just crossed the creek where the road equipment was, looked up and caught a bit of orange through the trees.


Neal, Good to know I won the solo, thanks! We left early and figured Charlie would be in any moment with all the CP’s for the win. Charlie, sorry to hear of your mishap. After I missed cp11, I figured I was racing for second solo.

Thanks Chris and Michele and your volunteers for putting on another great event and Thanks to Jay and the Dome for sponsoring the race!

[mdillon]

Three headed dog did the be hiushwhack that Jim is talking about. We headed out the back of Barkhouse to the FS road and up to 181. Down to the next road which was overgrown but still visible. We followed it to the end and set our compass bearing for due South. My team mates were already against the idea as it was a bushwhack and dark (11 pm). I convinced them on the basis of the distance it would save. Like everyone else, it's hard to say as it has the potential of being very good or bad. Going down at first was not bad as it was mostly pine with some mnt laurel scattered in. Found a drainage ditch to follow down. The last 500 meters got dicey. There were lots of boulders, slippery rock and water running through the drainage (small trickle). Add more mnt laurel and suffice it to say, my team mates were not happy. We spent a lot of time at the end on our bottoms sliding down the hillside under limbs and over rocks.
However, I think it's still a good move. A fast team (and daylight possibly) should have blown down this. We popped out right on the road about 50 yards west of the checkpoint. The mnt to sea trail was directly across the creek from us. It took us 30 minutes to get from Barkhouse to cp 14 with some slow going and hesitancy on the hillside. I will say, my two team mates Mark and Susan sucked it up and didnt kill me afterwards. The energy level of the team dropped for a while but came back on the recovery hike back up the mnt to sea trail and all the way up to table rock.

It was good to see everyone on the course (the three minutes we saw anyone at all. We made a few minor nav errors but met our goal of finishing the race (getting two OP points of 8 and 13). Congrats to Mark Wilson for his first over 9 hour race on a very tough course.

What happened to Charbons going up to table rock. We saw them hiking up the road to the bikes. Didn't most teams attack table rock from the trail going to 15 before going up to 16?

[jfarmer]

30 minutes from Bark House to 14. Dude, that's super fast considering the whack down to 14. I was thinking more like 45 minutes for that section. Good work. That was definitely a time saver then.

Not sure what you mean about Table Rock. Did you attack it from the south or from the north. From the north was the best way IMO.

[mdillon]

Without having the maps, I am pretty sure we went from the North. From 14, we went mnt to sea up and over to the FS road and then caught mnt to sea again up to 15. Left 15 and stayed on trail up to 16 (top of table rock) and then down other side to the bikes. Going down on the bikes, Charbons was hiking up to the bikes. We assumed they were heading to go over table rock and down to 15 and then back up table rock to get 16. Maybe they had 15 already and were attacking 16 from the South?

[macleod]

Our legs were having some "technical difficulties" at that point in the trek, so opted for the long and consistent road grade to Table Rock over the MTS. I've done both options before- trekking up the road with an enormous climbing pack when the gate was closed and backpacking up the MTS section used in the race- and both were equally painful memories. At least on the road I was able to find a good rhythm in pulling Cathi and stuffing my face with food without hyperventilating.

We had a slight snafu from our approach, as I recommended we go up the first side-trail on the MTS going from the parking to the summit. I guess some multi-pitch trad seemed a worthier method of getting to the CP .

Overall, I had a blast and was able to race with two of the finest people I know in the sport. Daniel and Cathi's nav kept us on track, so a heinous pace wasn't ever necessary to make-up for lost time. We were able to hit 2 out of 5 OCP's in daylight, with the light fading on the way to OCP 10. I loved the course and appreciated Chris putting in some fun, technical single-track. Oh, and the paddle was pretty sick too, considering it was balmy when we put in and only had the option of hitting one point before motoring to the finish. This year, we had a 20 min buffer to the cut-off over last year's 10 and dropped like 10 places in the elite category, so I couldn't have asked for more.

Our running joke was Daniel stating how nice it would be to see sunrise from Table Rock, but wouldn't be able to experience that unless we really slowed down. Well, we were on the summit a little after sunrise and then had Christmas in the parking lot when Chris cut like 6 points from the race (sorry for flicking you the bird with my sparkly middle finger before the good news- I'm sure I wasn't the first). We'll be back next year and looking to really put the hammer down!

Hunter

[julia]

I was glad to jump in for James last minute with team Enduraventure, but knowing the big shoes (what is it, James, size 19?) I had to fill, this was quite intimidating.

Since the hike over Grandfather Mtn was not timed, we decided to hang back, go slow, and attack from the back once back on the clock. Lisa did an excellent job with the navigation the whole race.
We made up time quickly on the bike and caught Calleva, despite Neal's flat tire (at least Neal enjoyed having two girls fix his bike for him).
On the trek, after leapfrogging back and forth with Charlie and losing a little time searching for CP11, we took our chances with following the 'dead-end' ridge trail down to CP12, where we were thrilled to see Blackdome, knowing we now had a slight lead on them based on our starttime after Grandfather Mountain. Blackdome started sprinting away from us, but now Enduraventure smelled blood too. We passed Jay's crew and caught up with Chip.
The hot noodle soup at CP14 was awesome. Neal got all powered up by the shot of bourbon he bummed of the nice guy camping out there. Neal carried my pack for most of the trek section, which allowed us to keep a steady pace all the way up to Table Rock. The stars at the summit were just amazing.
We were excited about the modified bike course that was almost all downhill. Happy to finally be off our feet, we moved pretty fast on the bike.
With only one muscleman in our team, we decided against the canoe portage, and just kept paddling along in the dark. Neal kept us (and himself) awake by singing until the sun finally came up. The finish line was a welcome sight! Lisa's mum felt better and was there to see us finish.
Thanks to Lisa's excellent navigation, we were able to move fast and keep motivation high for 24 hours. Great job, team!

Today, everyone at work is admiring my Table Rock nail polish and inquiring about my slow walking pace that is starting to become the norm on Monday mornings...

Congrats to everyone else who tackled this tough course and thanks to Chris and Michelle and everyone else who jumped in as our "support crew".

Julia

[jfarmer]