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| Mountain Goat Adventure Girls |
Upon hearing that Nationals was going to be in Oregon, I knew that I wanted to go. I had a great time on a coed team at last year's nats, but I wanted to create an all women's team for this year. Lisa and I had paired up over the past few years as she was the one who seduced me into trying this new sport. Now all we had to do was pick up two strong women. That was a no brainer. With a little coaxing and a trial run at the OMAR 24 hour back in the spring, Susie Farmer joined the team. When Kristy McBride made a FB post after she buckled at the 2026 Marji Gesick, about wanting to try something new in 2026, I reached out about joining our team. We even did an 8 hour adventure race in Muskegon, Michigan in the early summer, where we won the women's division and cleared the course. I had her hooked! I knew that we could give the Women of AR, 2-time defending champions, a run for the money.
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| Practice makes perfect |
What I failed to realize was that October in central Oregon was NOT the same as October in Tennessee. Being at elevation (5000-8000 feet), it could be cold, wet, and snowing! And if you know me, anything below 50 degrees is COLD. So I packed my fears = ALL my winter/waterproof gear + a case of Hot Hands chemical warmers.
I enlisted Dave and Debbie's help to drive out to Diamond Lake. We left a week early so we had time to enjoy Bend for a few days. Despite the long drive, it did make logistics much easier. I did not have to worry about TSA or the airlines stealing, breaking, or losing our gear. And we got to enjoy 3 days of Bend single track, which had been on my bucket list for 15 years.
We picked up Lisa at the airport and made the drive down to Diamond Lake, hitting Crater Lake on the way. Susie and Jim arrived Wednesday as well as Kristy. Thursday was all about packing our gear, arranging our TA bin, as well as our emergency bag. So many decisions for a 32 hour race, all because of the freezing forecast.
The race started at 7 am Friday, in the dark and cold (26 degrees). The first leg was a 35 mile bike, mostly downhill on double track and forest service roads. I made sure to dress appropriately: 3 top layers, 2 bottom layers, and enough chemical warmers to warrant a sponsorship. The ground was frozen from the previous days' light precipitation, causing the tires to flick up pieces of frozen dirt/gravel. I had them pinging off my helmet and glasses.
Our first issue we encountered was that Lisa's dropper post failed to stay up. The cold and wet had messed with either her cable or hydraulic fluid, causing her seat to slowly sink. Despite her frustration, she carried on with gumption. I was thinking that this might slow her down a bit, as she always flies out the gate like a bat out of hell, but NOPE!
We did end up on some pristine single track, the North Umpqua Trail. This led us to the most exciting CP of the ride: the Umpqua Hot Springs, where one member had to sit in the hot springs for 1 minute before being allowed to punch the CP. Kristy, being the youngest, got the call up. With no qualms at all, she stripped down to sports bra only, and gave a brief 1 minute interview to Brian Gatens, as her time ticked away. Only in an adventure race would there be a dozen naked people out in the wild, in freezing temperatures!
Our first little nav error was after getting back on the bikes from the hot springs CP, we took a rogue fisherman's trail instead of the North Umpqua Trail. This cost us about 10 minutes, as we started up a steep reentrant dragging our bikes, before we realized our mistake. We quickly got back on track, which was very fortunate, because if we had pursued that route choice, we could have been penalized.
Upon arrival at TA1 around 11 am, we dropped our bikes (but kept our helmets), and started out on Leg 2, an 8 mile trek. This was an 8 mile trek, mostly on the North Umpqua Trail, but did involve some steep off trail bushwhacking. This area is rich in waterfalls; 1 of the 3 waterfall CP's involved getting wet (remember, it is in the 30's still). Kristy took off her shoes, socks, and pants for this one.
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| Trekking to Tokatee Falls and CP 5 |
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| CP 9, where Kristy took off clothing to get and this fella trying to use a stick to reach |
We arrived at TA2 around 1:30 pm. I was proud of our transition time (about 30 minutes) to the pack rafts, as this involved quite a bit of work shoving our gear into the air tubes of the pack raft, inflating our rafts, changing into paddling gear (semi-dry suit for me), and then hoisting our rafts down a rocky embankment to the river 30 feet below. I caught myself thinking about the Navy SEAL's going through hell week, "Whose gonna carry the mutha fuckin' boats?"
Leg 3 was a 10 mile paddle down the North Umpqua River, followed by a 7 mile trek. Mind you, the most aggressive river I have ever paddled down has been the Nantahala, in the summer. This river was spicy, what with its seemingly never ending class II/III rapids. Holy smokes! I didn't have enough time to even think of being scared. I was too busy paddling and calling out obstacles. Susie and Kristy led the way and Susie was absolutely amazing at negotiating the rapids. Lisa and I had a couple close calls and even ended up going down one class III backwards!
Finishing the whitewater rodeo was only half the battle. Back to Navy SEAL hell week shenanigans, where we had to carry our packrafts and all our paddling gear, which was now 20% heavier because it was wet, 50 meters up a 45 degree deadfall littered embankment to to a trail. And then a 1 kilometer slog to where we could drop our paddling gear and continue on with a trek to TA3.
The Women of AR team had a good idea, when they divided up their gear into 4 contractor size garbage bags and carried them on their shoulders. As opposed to us, who packed our gear into 2 paddle bags, with each member carrying one side of the paddle bag, which constantly banged on our shins or calves.
Finally, arms and legs burning under the weight of 50 pound paddle bags, we made it to the drop point. It felt so freeing to be just trekking with a pack. We collected the 2 CP's along the way, leap frogging with the Women of AR. Those 2 points were HARD! CP 12 Pro involved going 200 meters straight the F up a spur, crawling on all 4's the terrain was so steep. CP 13 Pro involved log and rock scrambling 500 meters along a creek to reach the point, which was of course, in the middle of the water. Lisa opted to grab this one in full gear, getting her feet wet. While unlike the rest of us, whose feet would freeze, her hot flashing body welcomed this brief respite from the internal infernos.
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| Rock and log scramble to CP Pro 13 |
We made it to TA 3 (mile 60) just as the sun was setting, around 6:30 pm. The Women of AR arrived just ahead of us. The competition was beginning to heat up as our adventure would continue to carry us on into the dark and back into the high country ... (to be continued).
