For 2022 the United States Adventure Racing Association was putting on their national championship in Bishop CA. Last year Tower Racing entered the Mammoth to Bishop 36 hour race and did quite well - placing a strong second. This year's chanmpionship race would be put on by the same crew and probably include at least some of the same areas. It was the most obvious race for me to enter, and at the beginning of the season was one of the races I planned to do with Tower Racing along with the Teton Ogre 2022 race. I also ended up joining NorCal for Expedition Oregon, but that is a whole different story. In any case, the race was in my area in mid September and I was in.
About a month out from the race Jameson asked if I had any good leads on a woman to join our race - and I asked Jenica, who was interested and was able to get the time off from work. She had never done an adventure race, but had run and mountain biked and climbed a bunch in the area and it didn't look like the paddling would be too hard. She had a 50K mountain bike race a few weeks before the AR race so that was good training. She was also able to start running again in a limited capacity.
As the race approached there were a number of hints about what exactly the race would entail including 2 dark zone podcasts ( podcast with race director, podcast speculating about the teams) and a bunch of posts and pics by USARA. As a local I pored over the information and made all sorts of speculations and guesses about where the race would go. Some were pretty good, others not so much. For training and preparation I scouted out some of the places I suspected the race would go including a portion of sand canyon and a good bit of the sub gorge. Also Jenica had probably biked or run most of the trails near Mammoth. We hoped this local knowledge would help us in the race.
Sam and Raquel came on the Wednesday before the race. They had a bicycle I could borrow. It was essentially new, but hadn't been ridden much, but a big upgrade compared to my alternative. That afternoon we took it on a little test ride down Chipmunk Canyon - the disk brakes alone were worth the switch. I mounted a seat bag to hold an inner tube and patch kit and put a chalk bag on the front (and later a feed bag too that I borrowed from Jameson).
The day before the race we met up in Mammoth and signed in. Then we took our bikes up to the summit of Mammoth Mountain to stage them there. It was cold up there with a biting wind. It made us nervous about the conditions for the next night. We knew we didn't want to totally pack for our fears, but we also didn't want to freeze over the night, especially if we had to wade. Then we went to Jenica's where we packed the food. We debated just doing 3 10 hour food bags but decided it might be quicker to pack bags for each TA so that we wouldn't have to carry as much at any one time. Sadly I didn't have my food with me so I would have to finish putting my food bags together back in Bishop later that night.
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The morning of the race Jenica got up very early to walk her dog and drive down to Bishop. The rest of us got up about when she arrived and finished loading the bins before taking them over to the staging area. Fun Fact: the truck or trailer the race was using got towed that night by accident. I'm sure that caused a little panic. Eventually we were all packed up and headed over to load onto the buses. Not without a few returns for a last chance to use the bathroom. We got our maps and loaded up the buses. There we furiously pored over the maps planning our route. We were pretty close on our route guesses for the first part, so that was nice. Then we drove up to the Horseshoe Lake area near Mammoth and unloaded. There were a few announcements, and then we were ready to start - about 30 minutes late, so the time cutoff would be 14:30, not 14:00 the next day.
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The race started with a jog down to the edge of Horseshoe Lake where we grabbed a Mammoth Mountain MTB trail map and then headed back up to climb the Backbone Trail to the summit of Mammoth Mountain. We had speculated that this would be the route up and Jenica had run up a few times in the previous weeks for training. One of Jenica's friends jogged by to offer encouragement. We didn't totally redline it, but we didn't go slowly and made it up to TA1 in 6th place. Before we left I noticed that my back tire was a little soft, so we took turns pumping hard with Jenica's little pump and then headed off.
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We were a little concerned about how technical the downhill pro points would be based on the descriptions, but once we got the maps Jenica knew what trails we had to take and said they weren't that bad. We did get off to walk a few of the rockier drops since it was better to take a moment to dismount rather than blow a turn with consequences. Jenica knew where the bad sections were and when we needed to slow down early because of soft pumice sand. In fact it was a lot more fun being able to follow someone who knew when to slow down and when to punch it and even called out which side of the trail we wanted to be on. For the first few intersections Jameson took the time to look at the maps and confirm we were going the right way, but then we just followed her blowing past intersections and other teams. This made a huge difference, possibly saving us an hour or more. Jason with Bend Racing knew we had local knowledge and just followed us. That worked well and we moved into first place - but then at the conclusion of the downhill trail riding we hit a maze of roads and we all had to work out exactly where we were and where we needed to go. We did a pretty good job of this and stayed in the lead across 395 and all the way to where CP8 was supposed to be - except it wasn't there. Team Toyota Tundra (the defending national champions) caught up to us there and while we were looking for the CP, Cyril pulled up in a vehicle and brought out another CP to replace the missing one. Instead of the normal passport and CP punches we were using an electronic "punch" that I just wore around my neck and stuck in the recorder at the CP. This was much easier than a piece of paper that you had to find the right space to punch and was prone to getting lost.
Team Tundra was a little faster than us and gradually pulled away on the dirt roads and past the dump. We also missed a potential shortcut (beware the shortcut - since sometimes they aren't actually shorter) but this one probably was and instead went a little bit out of our way on a better road to the Benton Crossing Road. Then we pacelined along this road over the Owens River and to the next TA.
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Next up was paddling - kayaking down the convoluted Owens River and then across Crowley Lake. Sadly it would be into a headwind. We made a pretty fast transition since all we had to do was grab some food and then the paddling gear and boats and cast off. We were using a 2 person and a 1 person sit on top kayak with the supplied paddles and pfds - probably better for us since we don't actually have fancy carbon fiber wingblade paddles. We did make sure to grab paddles that could be feathered and then off we went - onto the river and immediately under a wire fence, a bridge, and another fence. We took turns scooping water to filter (with be free filters) and eating a bit, then clipped the single kayak (with Jameson in it) to the back of the double and off we went. He was relieved to be on tow both because a double is a lot faster than a single and because then he was close enough to talk and he could take a break to grab food or water without crashing or falling too far behind.
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The river was very meandering and shallow, but also clear and pretty. We saw lots of fish both jumping and under the water and the main goal was to stay in the current and the deeper water. We still grounded a few times, but only once so badly that I had to jump out to push us off. We stopped for a bathroom break while the river was still a river, but probably below the level of a full Crowley Lake. Team Bend caught up with us as we got back on the water and we dipped our last drinking water and leap-frogged down the river into the lake - a very shallow weed-choked delta area. We ran aground on mud and were passed, but then passed Jason as he fought his way through the reeds and was calling for the double boat ahead of him to put him on tow. We pulled ahead again while they sorted that out and moved into the lake. This meant no more weeds, but instead we started to get some waves along with the headwind. This also meant water splashing onto us. Jenica got the most on her legs and lap. I got a bit of spray onto the face with almost every stroke. The water was quite green - hopefully just with algae and not toxic cyanobacteria - but I did try to make sure I kept my mouth firmly shut.
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The lake didn't looks so very long as we started, but it was. At some point a party boat went by and then turned around and went next to us as they interviewed us and Bones, and Bones caught up and tried to draft behind the boat. Bones passed us shortly after the interview and slowly slowly pulled ahead. We could also see Tundra off in the distance. We were all getting a bit tired of paddling at this point, but sadly were probably only half way across the lake. My left tricep was getting pretty tired from trying to course correct, but kept on grinding it out. When we finally saw Tundra hit shore we knew we were getting a little closer. Also the wind and waves were a little less here. We finished the paddle less than 10 minutes behind Bones - they and Tundra were clearly stronger paddlers, but over 3 + hours they only gained about 20 minutes on us - compared to over 3 hours on the bikes they gained much more.
When we got out of the boats we could barely walk as our cold legs were cramped up. Jenica had taken on the most water and was the coldest and decided she needed to change her shoes and put on pants. In hindsight the shoes were a good idea but the pants were unnecessary as we did warm up over the next trek - but long pants would have been nice for a few bits of bushwhacking.
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The next section was supposed to include a swim like last year, but fortunately? toxic cyanobacteria were present where they wanted us to swim, so we trekked around. We could have followed a road almost the whole way, but we went cross country. I'm not sure if this was quicker, but it did require paying a bit more attention plus the added up and down might have helped warm us too. After the end run around where we were originally supposed to swim we headed up and over/around a bulge getting passed by VERT dropping into 4th place? before heading down to an old dirt road that went parallel to 395. We took this to CP09 where we crossed under 395 to TA4. On the way we hiked past a house where Jenica had house/dog sat.
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This was the long bike ride I was most worried about because of the huge elevation gain. When we got the maps and new set of rules Jameson plotted the points and we tried to help him out - opened food for him and got out the things he needed. I pulled out my big headlamp and put it on my helmet and Jameson and I changed into dry shoes. I also pored over the rules to try to get the most efficient (and legal) route. We weren't allowed to head S bound on old Sherwin/Rock creek Rd between 395 and Paradise (I decided that meant N of Paradise since the road doesn't quite touch 395 on the S end) and we weren't allowed on Rock Creek Road S of CP10, about half way up. That meant a bit of trails on the way up and a little detour or cross country on the way down. Then we headed out. Almost immediately Jamo asked about the rule sheet, which I didn't have so we turned around and it was there next to our bin. oops. That would have been a very costly painful mistake. Then up up up the road at a pace faster than I would normally bike uphill and probably slower than Jenica would go. We stopped briefly to let Jameson's heart rate stabilize and then continued up. Turning back for the rule sheet had the advantage? of letting a few teams pull ahead a little so we weren't right on their tail. We just slowly ground our way up the road with our pace picking up a bit as the grade lessened after Iris Meadow. Then we pulled off up a side road to CP10. From their south we weren't allowed on the main road so we took trails. For a while they were pretty good, but then they deteriorated (in hind sight we should have crossed the creek and taken some better trails/dirt roads, but we were lured by the trail on the map). Sometimes it completely disappeared or crossed a swampy bit. It was in this section that Bend Racing caught up to us - at first we could just hear Jason talking. We stuck with them - or vice versa all the way up to the road that went to the rock creek lake campground. Some of this involved what should have been fun riding except there were boardwalks with log/boards parallelling the track with gaps big enough to drop a tire into plus occasional big nails sticking out. There was also some steep hike a bike up stone stairs at the end. They went ahead where we stopped to get water at a spigot. The next checkpoint wasn't quite where I thought it was - or somehow I missed it and we circled back to find it. Then another section of hike a bike up towards the Sand Canyon trail. We were moving along and eventually passed the Rootstock Racing all women team somewhere in here. This is also where I discovered that my back shock had almost no pressure. Fortunately I was able to lock it out so I was essentially riding a hard tail at this point. Finally we made it to CP15 where it became mostly downhill. After a little bit of downhill riding I got everyone to stop so I could put on my raincoat as a windblock. I was already wearing basically winter gloves, which were finger savers. Then we bombed down the trail/road usually going a few miles before a short break to check the map and shake the hands out. My bike light wasn't quite tight enough (tightened all the way) for the skinny handlebars so it would rotate down when I hit a big bump - which was pretty frequent and I would have to wait for a short straightaway to lift it back into position. Fortunately I was following the other 2 and had a bright headlamp so I could still mostly see.
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This road is pretty steep and sandy/gravelly. It was in pretty good shape from the recent rains but at 12 to about 20 mph at night it still commanded attention. We mostly just tried to keep our weight back and not skid out the front tires or hit any bigger rocks as we bombed down. It was sort of fun and sort of terrifying. At one point sweat or dust got in my eyes and I could barely see. Fortunately the others stopped for a quick map check and I was able to wipe them clear. At the bottom of Sand Canyon we rode through a bit of Swall Meadow and then turned north and uphill on the paved road before dropping down into Lower Rock Creek Canyon and CP 16. Then we headed down the pretty technical descent of the bottom of the Lower Rock Creek trail. I was getting pretty tired at this point as I presume the others were too and we made a few little mistakes - fortunately Jenica knew this trail well and slowed down or stopped before the most technical sections. We walked stuff we could probably normally have ridden, but walking is quicker than crashing. I did fall over once when my handlebars got caught in alders and I tipped over down the slope. The fall was no big deal but untangling myself from the bike and branches took a while. Once we finished this trail and made it to Paradise we bombed down the paved road to the 395 crossing. We started up towards the ORG (Owens River Gorge) and made a quick stop to take off some clothes as we had about 1000 feet to climb. I also discovered that somewhere on the descent my red LED blinky had broken open and I lost the back cover and the battery. I strapped my little headlamp in red blinking mode on. Then we slowly (not so very slowly, but it felt slow) biked uphill into the wind towards the lower gorge parking area and TA5.
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Iris was at TA5 wearing a puffy down jacket and a hood and ski goggles to block the wind and dust. She couldn't really see very well. We checked in and changed into long pants since I knew there would be nettles and brush in the gorge. Then we plotted points and checked the rules. We could only go into or out of the gorge at CP18, 19, and 20, It got cold as we stopped moving, and I filled up my water bottle with hot coffee and hot chocolate and ate a number of cookies before we cast off. Once again we were in an area I was at least somewhat familiar with, and it was made easier by following other teams as well as the glow sticks along the climber trail dropping into the sub gorge. In my scouting I dropped into the gorge a little upstream but once down along the river I started recognizing features. I couldn't remember what was next, but I was usually able to remember where I crossed the river and where I had climbed over rocks. The deepest wading was just under crotch depth on my short legs - if you were careful. I pulled out the GoPro to try to get some pics and video and the battery was pretty much dead. Sigh. (later I learned it turned on and recorded an hour or more from inside my pack during the previous bike ride). It felt like we were making pretty good time through this section with only a few minimal errors on my part - most notably crossing the river a little early at the end before CP19 (because on the scout I bushwhacked downriver too far and backtracked so I didn't recognize the crossing just heading down river). We had the shortest split from virtual VP02 to CP19, probably where my preview helped the most.
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After CP19 we had a hard decision to make - should we continue down the canyon to get all the pro points and clear the course with the risk that if it took too long we would not make the final time cutoff at the end. You would lose 10 points every minute after the cutoff so finishing just 2 minutes and 1 second beyond the 30 hours would result in the same score as skipping the lower gorge and any later would be a disaster. We also considered that all the teams going full course were ahead of us so we would not actually move up in the ranking if we continued unless we were able to pass a team (unlikely), so we opted for the safer (and probably wiser) move of skipping the lower part of the canyon. So we hiked up to the rim on a trail and then proceeded down the dirt roads and cross country to the penstock and followed it down to the end and then down the hill to CP20 at the bottom of the gorge. There we got a bit more water and then hiked along Pleasant Valley Reservoir as the sky gradually began to get light. TA6 was at the campground east of the Pleasant Valley Dam and we were glad to get there, put on our bike shorts, and prepare for a ride. This is also where they interviewed us for our 5 minute media stop. Sadly there were also mosquitos there.
Interview at TA6  |
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We were back on bikes - Jenica's happy place, and a lot faster than walking. At first it was easy - a paved road and a bumpy dirt road to CP21, then we had to cross a creek to roads on the other side. I knew it wasn't super casual as I had taken some time to cross the other way when doing a packraft bike shuttle once. It was worse than I remembered with 8 foot vertical walls of dirt. There were other teams here trying to figure this out. We pushed on upstream eventually going over a few barbed wire fences and all the way back to the Pleasant Valley Road (that had a bridge) and then across a field and following cow paths through the brush and nettles until we got back to desert terrain and some roads. We followed those roads contouring around the hills to some more CPs. This is where I realized that the back shock wasn't even holding itself locked out - so it would compress and I'd be riding a bit of a low rider. Not too bad except then the strap of my headlamp tied onto the seat bag would rub. So I took the seat bag off. I also felt like my wrists were getting pounded excessively and realized that somehow my front shock was locked out too. At least that was easily fixed and provided some relief and possibly faster rolling over the washboards. I was surprised that highway 6 wasn't off limits, but I didn't see that anywhere in the rules so we probably should have ridden a bit more of it, but the parallel dirt roads weren't much slower and were safer. Then we rolled into the TA.
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This was a pretty short stretch of river to paddle - but it is also very meandering. We quickly unloaded all but mandatory gear into our bin and grabbed pfds and paddles and cast off down the river. This was a little more twisty with pushy water so we didn't put Jameson on tow, instead he lead and we followed. We managed to pass 2 teams on this paddle, not paddling full power, but paddling steadily and mostly sticking in the current. As we neared the end we could see the power lines ahead. Then Darren popped out of the reeds next to Jameson startling us. He had been trying to get to a spot to get a pic, but got caught in the reeds. It took a little bit of time to pull out at the steep bank, but then we dropped our paddle equipment and headed off.
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We probably could have just walked to the end, but Jenica had way too much energy for that. We backtracked a little to go straight up to the East Line St instead of looping around on the gravel road approach. Then we started jogging. Darren interviewed us as we started the final jog to the finish. We were tired but in good spirits. Fortunately there wasn't a team close to us or we would have probably really pushed - which would have hurt me. We jogged the entire 3 miles back to the finish line catching up to Lost Arrow around Hanby St. We cut across the field by the community garden and across the finish line holding hands - and then I immediately went to punch the finish CP and we were done.
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We talked to others, drank and ate a bit, took off our shoes, and napped (for some of us) until the other teams came in and then they had the awards at 4. We came in 4th in the co-ed 3 person division and 5th overall. We probably could have ended up 4th and 4th overall had we pushed our way through the lower gorge section, but it would have been a risk. The GearJunkie all male team ended in 4th overall since they cleared the course even though they finished after us (point total is more important than time). It was nice to catch up with some friends as well as talk to new people. It was also nice not to be racing anymore.
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In hindsight we probably should have gone through the entire gorge. The other teams that did it took from 3:12 to 3:55 to go from CP19 to CP20. We took 1:30 to go around so if we kept the same pace as the other teams it would have added less than 2 and a half hours to our total time. We finished at 26:04 so the added 2.5 hours would have put us at about 29:35 - a little close for comfort, but not crazy - and maybe we would have gone faster through the gorge since I had at least a little bit of familiarity with it - although a lot less than the upper part. We also would have probably pushed a little faster along Pleasant Valley Reservoir and on the bikes. It would have been a lot more stressful. Any mishap like a flat tire could have spelled disaster, but it would have been nice to clear the entire course and we could have possibly beaten the all male GearJunkie team to finish 4th overall and 4th in the co-ed division. It is unlikely we could have passed any of the 3 teams in front of us unless they made substantial blunders - which they didn't.
A number of the strong teams either didn't make it to the race (Teton - got covid) or dropped out (Bones - after a 4 hour time penalty for riding a road they weren't allowed to). I'm not sure what happened to Strong Machine and Kuat, maybe a sick teammate? The other 2 teams that got the same number of points were the Rootstock all women team that finished about an hour behind us and NYARA which finished about 2 hours behind us. Tahoe Adventure Racers and Orienteering Utah both had serious penalties and the rest of the teams skipped enough points that they couldn't beat us.
Local knowledge helped a lot, especially in navigating on Mammoth Mountain and in the gorge. It also helped in that for a number of CPs and TAs we knew where they were and didn't really have to look at the maps at all. I am guessing that saved us at least 1-2 hours and a good bit of stress. I packed food a little more suitable for a longer or slower race so I was riding the edge of nausea some of the time. I needed more simple carbs and less fat and complex stuff. It worked, but I could have done better or just carried less food and had a lighter pack since I didn't really want to eat some of it. Fortunately I had enough I could stomach to keep from bonking and I am generally able to eat almost anything.
The best part of this race was how well we worked together as a team - sure, sometimes we weren't entirely in agreement, but we worked it out, made no big mistakes, recovered from our little mistakes, and generally had a good time the entire time. Thanks Jameson and Jenica. You pushed me, I think I pushed you a bit, and we all had a great time and definitely exceeded expectations. 4 stars, would definitely join again.
While I am thanking people, the race crew did a great job putting on a challenging but not impossible race, from our end there were no mistakes other than the one CP not being there when we arrived - and that was quickly rectified. I would also like to applaud the volunteers who worked long hours under some rough conditions and really made the race possible. Thank You. Also good job to the media team and tracking. I wasn't dot watching, but I think it went off without major issues and it looks like there were plenty of updates during and shortly after the race. The people that told me they were watching said it was good entertainment. Most of the pics on this blog were pulled from FB or the race site.
For gear we wore bike shorts for almost everything. I also wore shin guards and 3/4 length Prana pants for the gorge trekking. I had Leki trekking poles for all the trekking sections but the last jog to the finish and was quite glad to have them, especially for the first big uphill and in the gorge - especially for the river crossings. I wore a 25L Ultimate Direction running pack with a bike bottle, a .6 L BeFree filter and a 2 Liter bladder that was rarely if ever completely full. I had inov8 and Altra shoes and I had flat pedals on my bike so just wore them for the biking too.
Main USARA 2022 Nationals Page - lots of links