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| DART Gregory 2005...
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Leaving the TA we were pushing to get as close to the canyon and CP14 as we could before the darkness of the second night fell. We discussed our sleep strategy as we were all starting to get tired. We concluded that we would think about it again at CP15 after the steepest part of the canyon. The navigation was hard, following a dried riverbed up to CP14. There were many other dried riverbeds around to confuse the issue. Once again Cyril nailed the navigation and we woke Luke, the volunteer, to get him to sign our passport at CP14. He then gave us brief directions to get to the canyon. He also reminded us that going down the wrong canyon could put your team in a life-threatening situation. Cyril disagreed with some of Luke's advice and they disagreed fundamentally on where we were located on the map. Not good. This obviously concerned Jen and I. Cyril lead us to a canyon, we did not see any ropes or yellow Montrail ribbon as we had been told would be there, but Cyril was convinced this was the right canyon. It was extremely steep with loose ground at the top giving way to massive boulders as we got lower. This was a 10-20 foot wide 60 plus degree canyon. We had to downclimb as a team or risk kicking loose huge boulders on each other. The darkness made the rock walls look like we were descending into hell. We traveled for hours down this canyon, praying that it was the right one, but not getting any indication that it was. I have never been asked to travel anything this insane in a race. It was obvious that the race staff had never descended this canyon in the dark. Part of this sections mandatory gear was a 30 meter 6 mm climbing rope that I figured I'd just be carrying the whole race and never actually use. I was wrong. We were continually arriving at sections that looked like we were cliffed out. At one we found a climbing rope we assumed some hardcore climbers had put in, we just couldn't believe that this was put in by the race staff. Cyril used it to downclimb but never clipped into the rope until he looked over the edge of a 60-foot overhang. Whoa. Standing on a dangerous slope, he clipped in and rappelled down, we followed. At one point there were two ledges of 30 feet or so that made us really think we could be stuck there forever. We started to troubleshoot as a team what our options were. With 90 feet of rope we could get down to the next ledge, but we'd have to tie one end of the rope off, meaning we could not bring it with us to get down the next section or whatever else was below. We had no idea how much climbing we had below. Using the 45 feet of rope (after it was doubled over) Cyril down climbed and we noticed in the darkness another black rope we had not seen before. Without this rope we were not going to make it. I had visions of having to bivy in the canyon and being helicoptered out the next day. We downclimbed to the rope, tied on and were able to double over ours with enough length to make it town to the next section. We were on our own, no safety crews or rope teams checking your gear. We had to be our own safety team, one that had been racing hard for over 48 hours on no sleep. Cyril would rappel, I'd check Jen's harness and rappel setup and she'd go. I'd then set myself up trying to check everything possible before I rappelled down. We eventually made it out along the river bottom of thick brush six hours after starting down the canyon. I thought for sure we were in the wrong canyon, and were now so far behind the leaders that left CP14 one hour before us, that our race for first place was most likely over. Cyril somehow got us to CP15 and I asked, “What's the damage? How far behind are we?” The volunteer at the CP replied, “You are the first team through, you're in first place.” I could not comprehend this, and it took them repeating it over and over for me to believe. I gave Jen and Cyril a big kiss on the cheek; I didn't know what else to do I was so happy. We didn't even discuss sleeping; we were winning the Baja Travesia, no time for sleep.
We charged down the rest of the canyon; we had a long way to go and many obstacles: cliffs in our way, scaling steep slippery rock walls that fell away into the darkness below, traveling in and out of the river, jumping from rock to rock, etc.— but it all paled in comparison to the descent of the steep section we had just done. That was epic. The next 12 hours of climbing however required total concentration. Nearing the end of the canyon as the sun came up I thought many times that we were close to the end of the canyon only to be fooled. Jen and I were hallucinating pretty badly. She thought there was a highway road above us on the ridge after she thought she heard a truck. I didn't agree, but I thought I could see power lines that weren't there. Shadows were playing tricks on us as well. Almost out of the canyon with the sun in full glory, drying us out, we decided to sleep for 15 minutes in the warm sand; it was glorious. The first few minutes I kept thinking I was hearing teams come through and I'd sit up and look, finding nothing. I got about 10 minutes of sleep when my alarm went off. I had to yell and clap to wake Jen and Cyril, then we were quickly on our way again.
As we exited the canyon race staff were cheering for us. This felt great, but was short lived as we wasted 90 minutes looking for the TA that was in the wrong place. This was my lowest point in the race that far. The cumulative sleep deprivation was bad enough, but now we were in the middle of the desert with the sun beating down on us in 100 plus degree heat. I was suffering. I was seeing taco stands, cars, people—all sorts of things. I was quickly unraveling. Eventually we arrived at the TA where Paul Romero, the crew and the rally car were waiting for us.
We sat in a full-on rally car with a professional driver who just went where Cyril told her to. We navigated an orienteering course with only one mandatory CP and two-hour limit. We finished 20 minutes early, getting all the CPs, so we had to wait for our two hours to expire before the CP staff let us go.
The next section was over a marathon's distance (26 plus miles) to the Sea of Cortez with a mountain range to cross over. It took about two hours to crest the saddle. From there we descended to the valley floor, which to our surprise was almost perfect for running. It was sandy and soft. The only problem was the dangerous vegetation. For the first hour or so, Jen and Cyril were constantly stopping to take prickers and burs out of their shoes and socks from the cactuses and other dangerous plants. Eventually we all figured it out and I led the run to the Sea of Cortez. I felt really good and it was fun choosing the route out of the valley. Then Cyril started to slow and I did my part to help on the navigation. We discussed what we thought was happening and where we were. Miraculously stopping under the power lines we were looking for that were hidden in the darkness. Following them to the CP, we hit it and started running straight east to the TA that put us on the water to the finish line. This was one of my favorite parts of the race; we were running so well. We knew no matter how strong a running team the others were our pace was untouchable. After 50 plus hours of racing nonstop there was no way anyone was gaining on us at this pace.
I ran with my compass, changing my bearing occasionally and purposely off-shooting South so when we hit Highway 5 we knew to go North on it to our road to the beach TA. We hit it perfectly. Running on Highway 5 was very dangerous and every time a car came from behind we stepped down slope, completely off the road, to avoid getting hit. It didn't take too long before the Mexican Police arrived. I was running a few feet ahead of the team as the cop pulled over to the side of the road and charged out at me with his machine gun in his hand. Was this really happening? I tried to explain we were racing, showing him my compass and Baja Travesia jersey. With Jen and Cyril catching up we were able to convince him that he should let us go, after I kept saying “race” and pointing at my watch. We had no idea how close the following teams were after all. From there another cop escorted us with his car lights on so we could see where we were running and assuring that no cars hit us. It was great. We thanked him repeatedly as we turned East again towards the beach on the Sea of Cortez for a few miles worth of dirt road running.
This is where Cyril started to die on his feet. Racing sleep deprivation, which racers call “sleep monsters,” is unavoidable and debilitating. He tried everything: eating, drinking Coca-Cola, telling stories, etc. He even started screaming at himself and counting down the minutes until we arrived at the TA.
Getting to the TA for the three- to four-hour kayak section the volunteer (who I found out later was the owner of Seda Kayaks) asked me, “so what are you guys going to do, rest and wait for the tide to come in and the sunlight?” To his surprise I replied, “No we're leaving right now, we have no idea how far ahead we are.” The tide had taken the ocean out about one kilometer, so we dragged the two Seda Kayaks down to its edge. This felt like an enormous task at the time, the Seda double was so heavy. We fussed around, getting our gear down to the water after a couple of trips. Then we were off, me in the single, Cryil and Jen in the double. Paddling into the darkness we were all weak and being in this beautiful, light and tippy single kayak scared me. Cyril had his hood on because it was so cold, so he could barely hear me. After what seemed like hours of trying to figure out what all the lights meant and paddling back in too far and beaching our boats repeatedly, we got moving in the right direction. A few hours into it we were approaching the last CP before finish line. It was at this point I saw two glow sticks that appeared to be catching up to us. Cyril, scared as I was of being caught after all we had been through says, “You have to run like you've never run before.” Understood. The dust from the bike section was still bothering my lungs and I was having what felt like a small asthma attack. I didn't care. I ran with everything I had after 66 hours of racing. Getting back to the boats it looked to me like the chasing boats was very close. We covered our glow sticks and paddled in complete darkness in an attempt to hide ourselves from them. Jen was falling asleep, and Cyril was in her ear. I could not believe how she could be falling asleep right now. We were in a sprint to the finish line, my adrenaline was bubbling over as I wheezed and gasped for breath. The finish line UTMs were wrong, it was further down the beach than we had it plotted. In a full on panic I charged up two beaches repeatedly yelling “Baja Travesia! Hello!” Back into the boats we rounded the lighthouse and saw a beach with people on it that weren't fisherman. However, at this point I thought the chasing boat had gone directly to the finish and was thinking we just got snaked. After 69 hours of racing and less than 15 minutes of sleep, we paddled into the finish line. After a few minutes to catch my breath, I worked up the gumption to ask someone what place we had finished. “You guys are in first place, no other team has even arrived at the last TA for the kayaks yet.” We won the Baja Travesia by more than 12 hours. With the win came the Explore California Adventure Race series win. This race, more than any other I have done was a true adventure; we had a destination and covered two distinct ecosystems in 69 hours. This race was badass.
By Matt Hart
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