Discussion: Good luck to all at Wilderness Traverse!

For those of you racing this weekend coming up - as I know there are quite a few new teams and a bunch of experienced teams. Good luck to all!

I believe I read that this year has the largest number of rookie teams as well as 2 all female teams !! this is fantastic, apparently AR is on the rise! and hopefully these new people have found AttackPoint and are sucking everyone for info!

Alas, the Mountain Goats will not be attending (blame my brother and his wedding!) so no Goat noises will be heard in the deep dark recesses of the woods at 4am, but I'll send out thoughts of strength and encouragement before going to bed for sure!

Looking forward to reading some stories!
Gear Goat / Bossy Goat
Team Mountain Goat

A Goat free WT isn't a better WT.

And with the July timing of WT, I hope we can count on organizers to broadcast Tour de France updates out to our Delorme trackers on the course. Bash? You won't have much to do at race HQ...

Ha! I was already concerned enough to check the TDF route to see what I'd be missing. Here's the plan...

Friday - Flat stage, 235 km. I'll record it but I'm OK with just seeing the last 10K when I get home. It'll be a busy day at WT HQ. It will be hard not to find out who won since I'll be working on Facebook and Twitter at the race.

Saturday and Sunday are classified as hilly (but not mountainous) stages. Those sometimes have serious drama so I'm sorry to miss them but I'll probably go about 40 hours without sleep this weekend so c'est la vie (as they say on le Tour).

Monday is the first mountain stage, which is always fun, so we should all get a good sleep on Sunday night post-WT so we can enjoy that. Tuesday is a rest day so we can check out anything interesting from the three races we missed over the weekend.

We will miss the Mountain Goats very much! FB is missing his first WT since its inception - also due to a sibling's wedding. Honestly, people should be more considerate. ;)

On WT bike legs, I keep waving for the team car, but it never comes...

Btw there are 4 all-female teams registered! We haven't had any all-female teams before. So cool.

So sorry to miss this! I will be glued to all the reports! All those ladies! All those from Michigan! Woo!

Is this the first WT where Bash won't be celebrating her bday while working through the night? :

Double M will fill in by celebrating her birthday during the trek or MTB!

The first WT was in June when 'Bent and I were in Scotland for the Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon. I helped Bob with course testing but only watched the race online. After that, yup, three birthdays in a row! This year I will celebrate by racing through the night at the World Rogaining Championship with Browner!

Course info:

Leg #1 – Paddle & Portage
37 – 39km
5 – 10 hours

Leg #2 – Trek
29 – 35km
5 – 12 hours

Leg #3 – Mountain Bike
58 – 60km
4 – 10 hours

Leg #4 – Trek
10 – 12km
2 – 4 hours

Leg #5 – Mountain Bike
8 – 10km
0.5 – 1 hour

I've been hearing about the course outline from Simpy, nice to do the paddle first as I know I can sleep pretty sweetly almost anytime while in a canoe! best to get it over with early instead of at 4am! zzzzzz....zzzzzz... zzzzz.. splash!

This was the paddle warning photo - I can't imagine doing it at night.

I've done that paddle, and I can't imagine it either! :)

Sucks to miss it but I hope you all have an awesome time! Racers will be happy to hear that the mozzies settled into a more normal pattern last weekend (not out and aggressive 24 hours a day anymore)... unfortunately the FDF's are in peak season form a bit early! :-(

.. should be quite nice between 08:30 and 10:30... if you are on the water :-)

Good Luck!!

Looks like a great paddle, sorry I'll miss it!

Isn't that an amazing picture? Leave it to G-Stix (and Bash) to find us the best paddling Ontario has to offer.

Can you see the CP?

Gutted to be missing it, too. I really wanted to make it back this year but then GStix went and set a race date outside of the month where all work in France ceases. Weddings...sheesh...

Best of luck to everyone! Go Team Raid Gaspesie go!

Sorry to not be there too! That looks amazing! And the pix on FB are so awesome too. Next year!!!!

Yes, awesome pics!

So, Kyle stepped up and made his guess to handicap the field for Untamed NE. Who's ready to make predictions about this weekend's Wilderness Traverse? Does Bob the Beaver end up in Ontario? Quebec? USA? France?

FB/Phatty, if you're not racing, the least you can do is apply your years of AR wisdom and make some predictions...

Here are the teams:
http://www.wildernesstraverse.com/live-coverage/re...

I actually looked at the teams yesterday with the intent of recreating a 'Kyle like' prediction.... But I chickened out when I saw how many teams/racers I didn't know and thought about the possibility I might anger or insult those I do know

Maybe I'll take another look .... Unless phatty beats me to it. Hint hint!!

Don't worry about hurting anyone's feelings. They will be inspired to beat your predictions. Plus they or their friends can argue for a bump, good discussion.

Yes, don't worry about hurt feelings :) It's a lot of fun to watch the "back and forth" discussion. Besides, I'm sure my team "3LG" is not worried about not being predicted to be in the top 10! We're just happy to be racing and having a good time :)

Good luck to all the racers this weekend. See you there!

Disclaimer – My picks are based on several things… Familiarity with the team (or at least recognition of them from other AR events), the type of course WT typically is, the start that they will have this year (which could seriously handi-cap weak paddling or inexperienced nav teams) and (of course) team photo’s on the WT site. :-)

If teams struggle on the paddle that may push the trek into darkness which will be harder on teams not used to this terrain (and what our wonderful beavers are able to do to it).

My top two picks are not only good racers (with good Nav) but they are coming off of big races, which I always found made the next 24-36 hour race seem sooo easy and fast.
1) O-Store
2) Osprey

The next 10-12 guesses are pretty random… I think 3-5 could push the top two if things go well and Epitact has come a long way, so I expect them to be serious about this… the transition from the mountains of France to the swamps and islands of Parry Sound may be tough to overcome first time out?
3) Storm Beowulf - Solid. Despite Gally’s heroic effort to get in at least 30 mins of rowing per week it may be too much to ask Mrs Gally to carry him to a top 2 finish 
4) Adrenalin Rush – Solid nav and experience. A lot of weight in a canoe for that start, but they will recover. (pray for no wind on Saturday a.m.)
5) Michigan AR – could be dark horse
6) BiT – Advantage of recent UNE... could be higher but I don’t think they have the horsepower to challenge top two.
7) Long Sault Longshots – possible top 5?
8) Epitact – don’t know anything about them, but I did see the French team at the world cup of football… look to see them rolling around holding their ankles and screaming for no apparent reason :-)
9) Whiskey Tango Foxtrot – been around
10) Mercators – been around
11) Wonderbroads – Looking for a good battle with Speedbunnies. Get the nod for 3 in canoe at start and awesome team pics!! AND Hermes crossfit addiction!!
12) Speed Bunnies – Strong Nav (I think) and 3 AP’rs!!! May have some catching up to do off the water.
13) Raid the Fridge – Solid chase packer’s
14) Lather Rinse Repeat - Solid chase packer’s
15) Swamp Monsters – Can’t count out a team will Carolyn on it!!
16) Walking Dead Reckoning – Look for them in chase pack
17) Only Mostly Lost – Look for them in chase pack as well

Lotsa rookies – hope to see some surprises!! No Particular order really… EG) DAS is last because I missed them and wasn’t about to change all my numbers
18) Pure Adrenalin Cycle – Strong cyclers?? They’ll likely be doing it in the dark
19) Don Valley Paddling Club – start should favour them/ curious to watch them try to hold on if they have a good paddle (Hint – Follow O-Store and/or Osprey off the start)
20) Ripkin
21) Eco-Logical
22) Muck Dynasty – Special mention for ‘Outward Bound At Risk’ cause. Pulling for these guys!!
23) 3LG - 2 AP'rs I think!!
24) Beer Barons
25) Race for Breakfast
26) Birthday Boys
27) Notta Walkers
28) RickVanSenk
29) Adventurists
30) Breakfast Club
31) She Made Us Do It
32) To the Wire
33) Monkeys With Lazers
34) Das
Best of luck to all! Go out and crush my ‘predictions’!

Nicely done, FB. Can't argue with your podium, although wish we could call O-Store Team Snowpants. Too bad Team Spirit isn't in this list. The French team adds an interesting wildcard, as who knows if they're ready for a Canadian Shield bushwhack.

I'm quite comfortable being characterized as "Solid Chase Packers" and we humbly accept the challenge to beat your 14th place expectations.

We could call the defending champions "SnO-pants" although I like to support O-Store.ca as a company.

Go "O-Pants...shop at O-store.ca"!

That works! :)

If O-Pants O-Store wins, does Bob the Beaver spend 3 months in Alberta?

No. But that's a nice try. :)

Hmmmm, okay FB I'll give you Wonderboards ahead of SpeedBunnies only because they are 3 and only have to portage 1 canoe....& because I'm still beat from Portugal...& because I haven't been on the bike....& because....oh sheesh, let's hope I don't DNF. :-D

That is a great list and with your disclaimers and rationale - I agree, team pictures is up there in importance!!

Work4justice put Michigan AR down twelve spots in 17th. I kicked her out of the Michigan AR Training AP group, but she can still borrow my canoe this weekend because she already dropped off cookies.

Mid pack full course! Mid pack full course! Ah, why bother defending...I'm a rookie hack myself anyway. ;)

:)

Good luck all, wish we were there. For all of the Rookie teams - just keep going... you signed up for "up to" 30 hours, you will face adversity but if you are in for the duration you just might surprise yourself. We certainly did last year. Have fun!

Good luck to everyone!!! Great, great race - loved racing there last year and hope to be back some year. Enjoy and Keep going!!!.....and Bob the Beaver does need to make it to the USA some year....just saying :)!

Having just seen the glowing endorsements from Mike K and Nathan F on the BiT comments section I'd like to push them to the top of my predictions :-)

:) Wow. I feel honored. :)

I get the feeling Storm Beowulf will really represent. Gonna be a fun weekend, but Bash took our wifi to HQ so I only have my iPhone tethered for internet.

All teams have completed check-in and the race briefing has ended. Most teams have headed to their hotels but a few are still here working on their maps.

Competitor maps and instructions have been uploaded to the WT Live Coverage site. Grant will be making our main news and tracking site live shortly.

Luis Moreira is taking awesome photos, Joel Perrella has been capturing video from every angle, and 1L has been working at HQ and taking photos simultaneously (an impressive trick I haven't mastered).

Photos will be on Facebook and/or our new Flickr gallery, which will be linked to the tracking site. Thanks everyone!
http://www.wildernesstraverse.com/live-coverage/li...

MAPS! thanks Bash. just getting to CP1 is going to be a huge accomplishment!

Sounds like a good smooth start! Nice to see the maps and info on the Live Coverage page, nice... was planning a 3-4hr run in the morning, but just might be up too late going over the maps as well.

Just got in from a SUP out on Lake Ontario, water was fairly smooth and a super clear full moon, keeping my fingers crossed for you guys tomorrow night that the clouds stay away.

I'm sure glad they are starting on the water, I can hardly imagine trying to find CP1 in the dark... good lord!

The Mtn Goat armchair navigators like the route! wish we were doing it now more than ever! Bossy is off to bed as she says with no headache (she usually has a headache the night before a race).

Looks to be a good race, my thoughts are if possible to get through as much of the first trek with day light it will set the teams up for a good night and the hydro line on the bike with the moon and bright lights will be a dream... but again, sitting here in the comfort of my office, no bugs, bright lights, no mechanicals... all is easy to say!!

So here's my guess for winning team.... 21-21.5 hours
I have a bit of inside scoop because I am familiar with the 1st trek and the last 5 km or so of the paddle... plus some of the overlap with last years bike and final 10 km to finish.

If I were racing to win this race, this would be my targets/plan (to nearest 1/2 hour)
Paddle - 6.5
Trek - 5.0
Bike - 5.5
Trek - 2.5
Bike - 1
0.5 - 1 hour for transitions

This is based on 08:00 start and about 13.5 hours until it's dark
1 hour for that last bike will be pretty good riding in the dark if I remember the trail correctly... should be pretty straight forward in the light I think.

I hope this prediction is at least as good as my overall rankings guess :-)

WIllderness also pointed out that I was WAY OFF on my prediction for Ripkin (among others) ... apologies, I think he's right :-) ... just sooo many teams to sort out and lots of potential issues that are tough to recover from in a 24 hour race :-(

Excited to see how it unfolds!!

We can't believe we are missing this. Phatty was just talking through how if he had planned things better he could have done his road race in Italy, gone to a trade show in Germany and then flown home for the weekend. I think that says a lot about what he thinks of Bob's courses.

The racers have just left on the bus. Hammer and Etoile are paddling to CP1, located on a little point inside a little bay inside a little island in the midst of dozens of other islands in Georgian Bay. :) They saw a bear along the road as they drove into Bayfield Inlet. It's the Canadian wilderness!

Lee, a group of us were just saying the other day ' I can't believe Phatty didn't go from his Italy race straight to a trade show in Germany or somewhere and then scoot back to Parry Sound Ontario Canada for the weekend to do the WT. What a selfish jerk!' .... Or something like that. :-)

Wow, so many great options for spectators at home! Will this be the thread to follow? Or Bash will you even have time to post on AP?

Wow, CP1 looks like so much fun!

Did Adrenalin Rush have someone unable to start?
My tracker has them unranked?!

Yes, we have 3 unranked teams, all of whom started unranked because they had only 2 members. Adam Mallory is a new Dad who wasn't able to come.

I probably won't have time to come here very often. I recommend the main news site and Facebook - but feel free to discuss away here!

Just a quick note. If you're seeing funny times or you're not seeing all the CPs, get out of the site and bring it up from scratch. A few of us had that problem.

Another bear spotted near TA2!

Seems to be a lot of jumping around of teams and/or their times?

Hopefully get sorted out soon. Looking forward to an update from staff after they hit some CP's TA's

Appear to be moving well. Awesome day. Gonna be hot though... hitting the trek in the FDF peak!!! Lot's of incentive to swim as much as possible! :-)

Who's idea was it to give some of the teams a hyper-space button?! :-)

Good to see the Wonderbroads got sorted out!

On Mac with Google Chrome, I have to reload the page to get the correct times. Positions are updating with map refresh but not times. I've reported it to Grant. If anyone else notices the same thing on any other platform, just post it here or text it to me so I can tell Grant.

On my regular PC, lots of jumping around, and teams not showing at all, or to the far east.

Teams look to be killing this paddle... great news for the less experienced nav teams as they'll have plenty of daylight for the trek .... going to be a busy forest this afternoon!!

Looks like Wonderbroads are about 1 km behind Speedbunnies, but with three in a boat and a straightforward paddle the rest of the way I see WB coming off water first... then it's a nav battle to the bike!

W4J, what is your browser on Windows? If you reload as opposed to allowing the map to auto-refresh, does it get fixed?

I love it that the top 20 teams are within 20 mins halfway through the paddle!!

If it had been Leg 3, some teams would have spent awhile wandering in those islands!

I use Firefox...and the reload doesn't seem to work. Tis fine...I just follow the leaderboard and it seems that the trackers catch up eventually. I'm not on all the time...so maybe it's just me!

On another note, they are killing this paddle! WOW!

Great weather and lotsa teams to 'follow' likely saved some stress and frustration!!

I'm continuing to update the Live Coverage 2014 page as we get more info sources. Keep an eye on it!
http://www.wildernesstraverse.com/live-coverage/li...

Tracking has been flakey but we're asking volunteers at TA1 to ask racers to adjust trackers appropriately. Leaderboard is up to date and I'll work to keep it that way.

We're about 30mins from the first teams hitting TA1.

I wonder if it would be inappropriate of me to pull out my iPad right after the wedding ceremony?!

Keep up the good work guys, racers, volunteers and HQ!

A beautiful day for a race, and agreed they are all killing the paddle!

Bash - I'm finding the same reload with Chrome on my Mac. Using BiT (#14) as an example the Leaderboard shows them in 8th, but the pins on the Tracking Map show them show them in about 14th, and that is after refreshing the browser. The count down timer to the left of the Tracking Map does seem to work though, but the inconsistency is still there between the Map page and the Leaderboard.

Alright, settled in with several pages open here in Annecy. I like how things have started. It appears O-Pants Store.ca is toying with Raid Gaspesie in advance of the trek. So coy, so cunning, so strategic. Things are about to get interesting...

... wonder if Osteo and I will be at the same wedding in Oshawa? :-)

luckily I have will to follow on his phone and feed me updates... more 'acceptable' for him to be on his phone the whole time vs me!! :-)

You can even pretend to be annoyed at him.

He could, but only if he wants to get punched in face :)

After all, it *is* a 2nd wedding. ;) **

**Quote from Willderness

Teams 9 and 34 have hit the shore of Wilson Lake in first. Not at TA1 yet.

Well, I've turned my phone into a hotspot and am watching along in the car on route to the wedding. Alas FB our wedding is in Peterborough.

On the topic of bears, there seems to be a ton of them arpund this year. Has been a lot of problems (relatively speaking) with them around go home lake aswell (just south of parry sound). My boss actuallu had one right on his deck that he could not scare away, even when firing his rifle (not at the bear).

Just realized I forgot my camera... I could appear to be taking pictures with the iPad, meanwhile keeping updated in the race instead!! Haha!!

Surprised O-Store is back 4 or 5th... Maybe they are not gelling, which surprises me.

Bash is getting leaderboard info for TA1 - start refreshing! :D

Team Epitact Sport in the lead at TA1!

Big treks are O-Store's specialty. This will be interesting.

O-Store has caught up so far and will be higher up in ranking at CP4, likely first. Both they and Raid Gaspesie took the "preferred" route north of the two lakes.

And... Benoit's O Pants (1) are in the lead by 9 minutes over RaidGasp (4) at CP4!

Wow, our very own BugsinTeeth just arrived at CP4 in 5th place! Nice.

Nice!!

... And late breaking news Wilderness and his Mom just missed the cutoff for the wedding ceremony!! Doah ! :-)

And Gally's bushwhacking magic has moved Storm Beowulf up to third @ cp4.
We'll see if that Northern route they're taking pans out.

Looks like a pack raft might have been good from Dogfish lake to CP5?

Ceremony and pictures are done, time to kill and get caught up!

Good work BiT!!

Whaaat!! Looking at the leaderboard and maps looks like some teams might be going for a swim!

@FB, Will is up here. He filled in on a team that needed an extra member. Thanks.

'Bent, the terrain is quite open there so it wouldn't be worth pack rafting. It will be interesting to see what happens when it gets dark. We've seen a bunch of route choices already!

I like the northern route!!

O Pants thru CP5 at 16:50. What's really annoying is that Bob's time estimate spreadsheet for CP5 says the fastest team will arrive at... 16:50. He's going to be impossible. ;)

Haha!!
Looks like BiT went for a swim and are now in 4th. Simpy was telling me swimming was a only if necessary option a few days ago and if they had to swim it was a strip down nekked swim to keep everything dry then a quick change and move on. With this heat and it being early, I'm thinking they just hopped in and crossed.

Benoit is like machine and easy to predict. :-)
At RtN Algonquin I predict arrival at the ropes at the 20 hour mark. As soon as the 20 hr mark hit Jaimie (ropes guy) looked at me and said ha ha you missed it .... Just as Benoit's headlight burst through the trees. I'm counting on him to make at least one of my predictions come in!!

FB, not sure I'm on board with your 21hr prediction... But I can't analyze the maps on the iPad, as I sit here at McD's with their free wifi! I'm feeling the leader might be a tad quicker...

Bob's estimate for the winner is around 18 hrs.

I'm hoping the bike in the dark will slow them down a lot.

...if they bike in the dark at all. Bob's prediction is ~4 hours for the quick teams and they're definitely a 'quick' team. The south section may be mentally easier to get through in the light which could separate them and Team Raid Gasp. Trackers don't seem to updating at the moment so it's tough to say where some of these top 5 are at the moment.

They really killed the paddle. I thought there may be more carnage (headwind, river flow volume etc). But these things tend to balance out in the end. There has been some good rains lately. Hopefully the loggers or atv's made a mess of some of those trails ' cause not much else will slow down those top teams. Many of the others will struggle in the dark :-(

O Pants at TA2 at 17:48-ish.

I'm wondering if it's better that Team Spungebob O-Pants DOESN'T see Team Raid Gasp...that's-a-long-name at the TA. It might mean that Team Raid gets a better chance to close the gap while in the bike vs. Team O-Pants seeing them in the TA and knowing that they've got to really hammer.

Wow Failing something crazy they'll crush my prediction. Well over 3 hours of daylight will put them so far into the bike. They can all ride well !

With only 9 minutes between O Pants and Raid Gasp at CP5, I'm sure they'll see each other at TA2.

Sunset is 21:07.

But I that power line they'll have decent vision till at least 21:08 :-)

I'm getting the evil eye from wedding party :-(.....

Only 6 minutes between O Pants and Raid Gasp as they left TA2 on bikes...

Powerline ride...time to make up...teams seeing each other before departing...lots of trails that 'sort of' make sense...impending darkness = I'm not sure either team will eat, drink, or talk much as they hammer away heading south. I just hope no mechanicals reek havoc on what is a great race at the front.

In other thoughts, Go CoachLD Go...I hope they're humble nav move pays off for them!

We've just had a terrific report about Coach LD's team from a volunteer who was on the beach as they finished the paddle. Although they were the last place team off the water, they were cheerful, relaxed and clearly having fun. One woman picked up a canoe and posed for the camera saying, "This is my first time portaging a canoe!" Then she started on a 1.2 km hike up the road to the TA. Not surprisingly, the "woman with the muscular legs" also carried a canoe. For Coach LD, it was *not* her first time. :)

I'm ashamed. I didn't realize coach LD was even racing. I hope I ranked them well!!! :-)

She was a late addition to Team 3LG.

How's your sister's wedding, FB?

Awesome.... I think :-)
Someone put Wilderness on the old enuf to drink list. I think tomorrow's father son run is a wash out :-(9

Ha! Check out the leaderboard. CP4 (the remote CP where John Yip flew in by float plane) finally got me times on all but the last 3 teams, who haven't arrived yet.
http://www.pinnacletracking.com/live/Leaderboard.a...

Super tight battle between O Pants and Raid Gasp for 1st and 2nd. Also super tight between Epitact (France) and STORM/Beowulf for 3rd and 4th. Fun to watch!

Just saw the updates! First...CoachLD is awesome! (heard from my teammates who are racing with her). And go go Michigan Adventure Racing! Woo!

I'm sad to say that Team #11 3LG has chosen to withdraw between CP3 and CP4. They were doing really well - right on course. They assure me that they are OK. They have hiked out to a road and will be picked up by a volunteer shortly.

:-(

Big thanks to Grant who has spent some time fixing a problem with the tracker. Times are auto-refreshing properly now.

How is the weather?

We don't have rain at HQ right now. The forecast for the general race area is warm at 18C overnight but with intermittent rain.
Edit: that would be 64F for our friends in Canandaigua.

My ears are ringing like crazy, but at least I can read! Less than 10% battery in my phone, gotta check the leaderboard and tracking map... Thanks for the written updates.

We've got a bit of running commentary going on at:
Live News

Here comes the rain again.

Oh dear, lots of rain.

Wow, what a race! Go Pants Store! :)

Near as I can tell the top team looks about an hour in front of my prediction. But I am at am open bar for several hours. :-)
Keep up the awesome work!!!

It won't be an 18 hour finish. The powerline is very muddy for biking.

Thanks, Clean. I've lived in Europe so I'm not a stranger to temps in C. :)

An aside: So is a "hydrocut" the area under the powerlines? Why do they call them that? Isn't "hydro" water?

Is there a trail on the hydrocut? Or do they really cut the shrubs short? I can't imagine spending much time in most powerline clearings. They're full of thorns and poison ivy around here.

Around these parts we typically refer to electricity as "hydro" because we get a lot of it though hydroelectric plants. :)
Many "hydrocuts" sport mountain biking trails, and this one has one winding all the way down.

Or at the moment, the verb "flowing" might be more accurate than "winding". :)

That sounds slippery, especially in the dark.

So, Team Epitact is ahead of Storm Beowolf right? Their tracker is not moving.

Yes, Epitact came through CP8 48mins ahead of Storm Beowulf.

Glad to see Speedbunnies through CP6!

First short course teams (7 and 32) have finished. It's raining pretty hard.

BugsinTeeth in 5th at TA3 - well done! Anyone got a message for them while they're in transition?

You pansies all went to bed, didn't you?! ;)

It looks like it's in the bag for O-Pants.com barring any mechanicals. They really ripped the bike when they needed to. Good on Raid Gasp. for the chase. That was quite a course to go full speed on. We've now changed our focus to Wonderbroads and hope they opt to continue on and brave the power line track.

Apparently they were in good spirits when they reached CP5. We will see if they can avoid the Bermuda Triangle at TA2 where many teams are opting for short course or pick-up.

O Pants arrived 2 minutes ago to claim Bob The Beaver once again!

If they receive Leanimal's Trail Mail, they'll soon realize that the short-course ISN'T an option for them. Tough love, I guess.

Congratulations to Team O-Store.ca. Well executed and seamless race. That's 4 in a row now? Wow!

Bob le Castor parle français très bien maintenant.

Il pleut beaucoup.

Your 2014 Wilderness Traverse podium:
O-Store.ca (1)
Raid International Gaspesie x:act NUTRITION powered by Osprey (4)
Epitact Sport (9)

Seriously, this is some of the heaviest rain I've ever seen in Ontario - and it just keeps going.

Forecast is "a few showers this morning".

They must mean the showers the teams will be taking.

That hydrocut has got to be awful. More rain, more mud, more slippery shield rock. This is a WT for the history books. Go Speed Bunnies! Go MAR!

wow, wow and wow...

It didn't rain that hard down here, at 4:00a it was a sprinkle. I recall the rain 3yrs ago going onto that ATV trail from TA1, it was like being in Forest Gump, down rain, sideways rain, up rain... but we had some tree cover, that hydro line and those sharp cut rocks too... puddles you can't tell how deep are as your light reflects off the top... ach...

Anybody know how frequently/fast those GPS transmitters send out a signal? I realize dense tree cover might cause a signal to be missed, but looking at individual routes now is interesting.

I'm impressed with the amount of data you can get from the Tracking Map. Many of you have probably already figured this out, the option to click on the team pin on the actual map, the pop up that comes up and you can then select their history which shows their breadcrumbs.

The trackers weren't as reliable as they usually are for some reason, but I think they were set up to try to broadcast every 10 mins.

Thanks.

Keep up the good work too Bash! you're doing great!!!!!!

You haven't seen the dark circles under my sleepless eyes!

Awesome job by all. I missed a lot of the excitement but sounds like another terrific race!!!

Stina always says, "It's either fun at the time or it makes a really good story later." I suspect this might be the latter?

Thanks for the coverage Bash!

Great race Slice / O-Pants!

Rankings on the Full Course (Premiere / Open):

Premiere teams on the Full Course:
1. O-Store.ca - 19:58
2. Raid International Gaspesie / x:act NUTRITION powered by Osprey - 20:47
3. Epitact Sport - 22:21
4. Storm Beowulf - 23:44
5. Long Sault Longshots / Mississauga Fire - 26:53

Open Teams on the Full Course:

1. BiT - 25:47
2. Mercators - 26:30
3. Rickvansenk - 26:50
4. Swamp Monsters - 28:14

Overall Full Course Ranking:

1. O-Store.ca - 19:58
2. Raid International Gaspesie / x:act NUTRITION powered by Osprey - 20:44
3. Epitact Sport - 22:21
4. Storm Beowulf - 23:44
5. BiT - 25:47
6. Mercators - 26:30
7. Rickvansenk - 26:50
8. Long Sault Longshots / Mississauga Fire - 26:53
9. Swamp Monsters - 28:14

Check out the goings-on over night here:
News!

Bash, the race coverage was awesome. I wish you a long restful sleep tonight!

Yes, thanks so much Bash. The tracking was pretty poor so we were relying on that leaderboard and we know you were on it within minutes. We finally decided that we could get some sleep last night. Weeanimal is pretty proud of Aunty Slice!

Intermittent rain, HA! I think we might have been able to packraft the hydrocut trail faster than biking it. Fortunately the rocks weren't slippery.

Clean and 1L shared HQ duties with me and did nearly all of the Facebook, Twitter and live coverage site news articles this year. It's such a treat to just say, "Oh, here's the password" and - boom! - these talented people knew just what to do for the next 48 hours.

LosDobos, Luis and Joel from Breathe Mag provided professional multimedia coverage. I look forward to enjoying all the news, photos and video when I'm awake!

I mostly work in the background to manage HQ, update the WT Live Coverage page, and maintain leaderboard and team status info as I communicate with checkpoint staff and racers who call in. This was pretty much non-stop for about 28 hours - in spite of Bob's comment at the awards ceremony about how "quiet" it was at HQ overnight. (I think he took a nap, haha!)

Big thanks to the heroic volunteers who type team arrival times on their phones in remote locations where rain is falling and bugs are swarming. Without their prompt notifications, we couldn't keep the leaderboard current.

Untamed helps from afar to keep the live coverage site running and, of course, Bob is the one who makes WT happen every year. We all owe him bigtime because WT is a ton of work, and it's largely a labour of love.

Although I appreciate the thanks above for the coverage, I'm just a piece in a very big puzzle. :)

I really appreciated the updates on the WT news page, Clean. I was on limited coverage as Bash stole our Wifi for HQ, and the updates / leaderboard were great for me as the map didn't load very well.

Stay tuned to the WT Live Coverage page over the next week or two as I add racer reports and other info.

Amongst other things, a volunteer gave me 7.5 GB of photos from the start of the final portage. She tried to get a photo of every racer. That might take me awhile! :)

Although it's linked from our Live Coverage page, it's worth putting the link here too. The Breathe Mag Live Coverage Flashblog was excellent as usual with Pete Dobos writing, Joel Perrella taking video and Luis Moreira rocking the photography. We are so lucky that the media team that covers the AR World Champs is willing to provide professional coverage for our event.

Thanks to G-Stix, Bash, 1L, Clean and the rest of the many many volunteers for allowing us to race this past weekend. I can't tell you how much i enjoyed it and each of you made it possible.

I have a love hate relationship with the woman who was manning CP8/TA4. She had the best homemade treats but also told me the second bike section was fast, totally ridable and will be a dream compared to the north section.... Not sure she has ridden said section before. ;) I would like the recipe to her squares though. :)

She was a rock star volunteer in so many ways! She was also at the water's edge when you came off the paddle and took 7.5 GB of racer photos that I haven't started to go through.

Virtually none of that bike course was the same in the rain as it was during course testing... It's ironic since Bob made a late course change because the planned bike section was too wet this year and wouldn't be much fun. If we'd stuck with it, we would have needed to make PFDs mandatory!

BTW... i'm not saying we shouldn't have biked it. It was AR biking, hard. Thats what I signed up for.

I love the fact that I was able to follow the race with my limited access and I can still go back and get so much of a 'more complete' story from the other sources.
Am I weird that I still get a thrill from finding out more details from a race that I already know the final results?!?!
I don't enjoy watching a tv show or movie when I know the end!

Once again really enjoyed following this thread...thanks everyone!

Reading this thread has been thorough entertainment for me this morning as I sip my coffee back on my comfy couch in Alberta. Thanks to everyone for following the race so closely! It really reminds me of what a special community we have here in the AR circle and it was such a pleasure to be back "home" with so many familiar faces on the trail and at HQ. Bob put together a race that pretty much defined AR in Ontario and it met all of my requirements for the best short trip home possible; I got to perfect my swamp-crawling technique, swat at giant deer flies, crash through the bush, ride my bike on amazing technical slick-rock-like terrain, get exhausted by heat and cooled by clean lakes, and eat wild blueberries and raspberries along the way!

Racing with O-Pants was one of the best race experiences for me in a long long time. The sense of teamwork and positivity that those guys emminated fascilitated a very supportive and efficient racing machine. We are super happy with our result, and the fire for racing together in the future has certainly been lit. :)

A little race recap from me based mostly on what I remember and not the maps since I didn't ever have them in my hands. :)

In the boats we obviously didn't get off to the greatest start. I hadn't paddled a ton this year, and managed to convince Jackson5 to let me sit in the back as he could just power through and be the motor in the front. I'm not quite sure why more teams don't do this. It works quite well in the right conditions. We were able to keep up with Benoit and Vince pretty easily, but once a tiny breeze kicked up I spent a lot of energy using corrective strokes. Sitting further on the back of my seat eased the effort, but eventually Jackson5 and I switched so as to give me a break and we kept ticking along. Anyway, there were lots of different options for channels and unfortunately we chose badly. In proper Benoit form, instead of waffling and spending too much time decision-making, we decided to forge ahead through a bushwhack along our intended route instead of doubling back to find the other channel. This turned out to have cost us about 20(?) positions and we spent the rest of that paddle trying desperately to reel teams in. We did quite well with this and managed to pull off the water in 7th and moved into 6th just ahead of Beowulf after the portage to the TA. We saw Epitact as we ran up the road with our canoes so we knew they weren't too far ahead of us and allowed us to zero in on the competition.

We had a quick TA with bags pre-packed in the bin and all ready to go. What happened next can only go down in the books of whatever kind of magic Benoit manages to pull off. We ran along some snowmobile trails for a bit and then headed into the woods. We ran and crashed through the woods, swam across a swamp, and in what seemed like no time at all we emerged to John Yip, etc al, who were cheering madly as we emerged on the lakeshore at their campsite. First team to CP4! yessss!! I love that feeling. One of the guys had a flask of whiskey.. I think I was the only one on the team to endulge after which more cheering ensued.

We discussed the need to stay focused in light of the excitement we were all feeling. The team was functioning very well with load sharing (Vince and Alex are very strong and very supportive of the entire team), swapping delicious race treats and salt tabs, and telling old race stories. We followed along some lake shores while scrambling up and down rocks. We got bitten by deer flies and Alex and I both got stung by bees. Soon enough we were rolling into TA2 and feeling on top of the world.

Seeing Raid arrive at TA2 not far behind us was a little bit stressful. I imagined that we broke well away from the rest of the pack with Benoit's amazing nav skills, but I guess those guys had a really terrific trek too. Seeing them there was actually quite good as it forced us to realize that this race was far from over and we really needed to stay focused! Oh yeah, I should mention that at TA2 Benoit had his first little bout of stomach problems. I hope nobody stepped in the pile....

Off we went on the bikes and it all went quite well except for Benoit was suffering a bit - likely from heat and exertion. Again, Alex and Vince managed to pick up the slack and we did a pretty good job navigating the terrain with the occasional stop for Benoit to settle his tummy. The powerline was actually pretty fun to ride (I guess it must have been way worse after the rain!). Once darkness fell and we were cruising along some muddier tracks with deep watery holes, we all heard a loud ping and then a slow hissing sound..... Benoit's tubless tire flatted as the rim lost some structural integrity from a spoke that had broken! Benoit curled up and rested as Alex and Vince and I worked quickly to remove the broken spoke and put a tube in. It was done lickity split and we were off and on our way as if nothing had happened. The final few kms of this bike ride were actually quite hard as the steep steep hills were relentless. There was a lot of bike pushing. At some point I felt a bit crappy too, but I really concentrated on getting some electrolytes in and a little bit of salty food into my tummy and it settled down with no problems.

At the next TA it was obvious that Benoit was needing some serious help. We basically had to organize his whole bag and almost put his shoes on his feet and headlamp on his head. Poor guy! Luckily we had some trekking poles so we gave those to him so he'd have the easiest possible time. We saw Raid coming in on the bikes as we trekked out. We thought they were maybe 30min behind? It was enough to bring the anxiety level up as we pretty much had to walk most of the trek due to Ben feeling like &%$. We had one big swim of about 200 or 300 meters which was super cool and fun in the dark. I actually think it refreshed us by bringing our core temps down because we all felt quite good afterward. We'd discussed putting on rain gear to keep our soaking bodies warm but decided pushing hard was a better warm-up option. As we were doing our second swim (after CP 11?) we looked back and could see Raid's headlmaps on the shore of the lake about to cross the bigger swim. Oh no!! They were catching us! We stayed super focused and made no mistakes and just kept walking as quickly as we could with Benoit trying to keep his suffering in the backseat of his mind. There was some dry heaving and he pretty much couldn't keep anything down. I can't imagine the discomfort he was in!!

We knew that, barring any complete disaster, if we got out of the next TA on our bikes before Raid came in that we'd have the race locked up. I was so relieved to find that this was the case. The first wave of torrential downpour hit us just as we started rolling on the asphalt for the finish line. It was insane and I could barely keep my eyes open as the pain of the drops slashing into my eyes was terrible at high speed. It was kinda fun in a crazy way though, and our bikes got nice and clean!!

It was so great to pull into the finish with a great group of guys. We worked so well together and Bob, et al, put together such a beautiful and challenging race. It was a true wilderness experience and I absolutely loved every minute of it. Thanks to all the wonderfull people at WT for making this happen!

And as far as Bob the Beaver goes, he is now in Montreal but is considering a greyhound trip to the Rockies at some point in the future. A little sightseeing never hurt a Beaver! :)

Congratulations, Slice! So well executed and I'm really glad to hear that it was such a positive experience. Too bad it won't end up on TV!

What a Slice!

Great recap and that Benoit sure knows how to suffer.

Awesome report Slice - nice to hear it from the front runners and how it all went down!!!

Thanks, Slice! The list of race reports on our Live Coverage page continues to grow. Let me know if I've missed yours!

We also have some interesting GPS tracks from Arthurd who carried a GPS logger (i.e. no display so it's race-legal).

Bob has also posted the splits.

http://www.wildernesstraverse.com/live-coverage/li...

Great to read how O pants had to work for it. Watching online it seemed like everything was so easy and just fell into place (except for that little paddle detour.. which was actually the way Bob and Bash pre-raced it, I believe).

Good stuff!

We portaged into the river, which is what our Internet research had said we would need to do. But on a later course test, Hammer and Bob found the channel.

We had gone down that channel a little ways and I figured out we were on the channel that kicked north. We climbed out onto the rock to have a look and decide our next move and here comes O-pants, who didn't waste any time jumping out onto the rock, grabbing their canoes and headed into the bush, chattering in French. I've raced long enough to know that some navigators you defer to, Benoit especially, so we grabbed our canoe and followed them to the river, where they quickly motored out of sight.
Speaks to how strong and fast your team was that Benoit can be sick and you still race that well. Congrats and well done.

Great coverage and input from everyone. Really enjoyed reading Slice's race report with a view from the top! Can't believe how sick Benoit was throughout but despite that they were able to take first place.

Great race report Slice, thanks for the awesome race ! Anytime.

Jackson5 remembers getting me through a TA at WT where I felt pretty much like Benoit and I had to do the T/A lying on the ground as I couldn't even sit up. He's amazing at getting an ailing teammate to the finish kindly.

I feel for Benoit big time- I've had race gut issues too, but it's worse when you're leading the race. You guys were all rock stars.

I'm continuing to update the Live Coverage page with reports and other info, and lots of photos are appearing on Facebook and Flickr. If you haven't seen it, check out the excellent video race report by Brad Jennings of Team Ripkin AR for Get Out There magazine.
http://www.getouttheremag.com/races/3004/wildernes...

Loved the video!

Filming on course was super fun! What you don't see in the video is Dan our rookie (makes the painful face) in a very dark place. He desperately wanted to be removed from course via emergency service because he just wasn't in it mentally. We likely lost 4+hrs (and full course :( ) due to his constant stops. Poor guy, the first 24hr is always hard. We pulled him through and he was overjoyed to have finished. Great race though! We'll see everyone on course at BPMR & Gaspesie with cameras in hand!