Cascadia laces were frozen, so I packed my spare Roclites.
We were encouraged to see not too many bikes on our arrival. We operated under the assumption that anyone we didn't recognize skipped canoe points. :)
We elected to do the north section first to get a good feel. 50 gave a good opener. 51, saw the veg change as our cue. Since we are adventure racers, we risked the shortcut to 48. It worked well, but DoubleM may have gotten a slightly damp foot. I hopped grass lumps and had SealSkinz.
Continuing a clockwise theme, we went to 41 and 42. Then we headed for 40. Approaching the circle, we saw Phil and Hil, I think, leaving. Ah, good confirmation. Only there was no flag. WHAT?! Then other skilled folks converged - Endorphinated, Untamed Tecnu. No one saw anything. Figured parallel error was a possibility if Luke farmed out the setting, but neither nearby swamp had a flag, so I called it in.
Then the blunder - kind of looked in every swamp leaving the area, and lost position. ARGH. Looks to be a 22 minute-ish error. I should have just marched a NW bearing up to find topography. Maria was calling out good features to use in relocating, but I couldn't do it and we used a park sign. Amateur hour. But, in the spirit of rolling with it, I didn't let it bring me down since that is pretty unproductive, and we got back into it, and nailed 49 once we knew where we were.
I was afraid of 47, but it was easier than I thought. We were cautiously managing trail jumps, but still trying to push the pace when we could. 52 bang, cautious to 44. En route to 44, I thought we should try the swamp shortcut, but surveying it from 44, Maria and I, ever of one mind, said "NFW!" and opted to hustle at 5 mph around rather than 1 mph through. We found a sweet pair of logs that escorted us across a swamp that was my favorite part of the race. Minor bobble to 45 - I should have read the low spur and ignored the footprints. 46 and 43 were trivial and we saw a crapton of bikes in the trailhead lot and were encouraged.
I see relocation practice in my future!