Pete Curtis
A software architect, endurance athlete, and musician living in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA.
This is my own humble place to share the things I enjoy.
contact (at) petestuff (dot) org
Just for completeness... this is the teaser video for the Wild Spring 12 hour on May 10, 2009. It's an edited version of the long video, but with a little more of the rapid scene-to-scene cuts that seems to be so popular in TV and movies these days. It's posted on Youtube and embedded on the Wild Adventure Race site - but this version is higher resolution.
Part II of the MIX race report ended with a paddle down the Manistee River, ready to go into a nighttime trekking section before we'd see our support crew again.
(as if I haven't posted enough about MIX already!)
Both Brian and Molly have also put together race reports with their own take on the Michigan race.
Molly's report is aimed for those less familiar with the sport and is set up in a slideshow format, with pictures that she took on the course in addition to pictures from our support crew. See it here.
Brian also posted his take on his Attackpoint log.
Here's my first major attempt at video production. It's a highlight reel from the Wild Adventure Race Spring 12 hour in Red Wing back on the 10th of May. Enjoy!
Part I of the MIX race report brought us to the beginning of the rafting section on the Sturgeon River. We had just completed a 33-mile overnight trek through the Chandler Hills. It was mid-morning and we were ready to be off our feet.
We had a good run for our first big race of the year! We arrived in Traverse City on Monday night, checked in with race staff on Tuesday morning, and had our maps and instructions by 3 PM. So that was a reasonable amount of time to plot the points, choose routes, and assemble a course walkthrough in addition to getting our gear set. Chris made us a pan of chicken lasagna to make at the house so we didn't have to waste time going out for dinner.
So at 7 AM the next morning, we're all lined up at the boat launch on Elk Lake, about 10 miles NE of Traverse City. It was a water start, with all of us sitting in 2-person plastic 16-foot canoes on the water. The sun was just up and there was a stiff headwind from the ESE.
At least for the next several days. We're leaving for MIX on Monday morning. The race starts Wednesday morning, and the latest race update says that we're going to be carrying SPOT units - so that means *LIVE* GPS tracking.
Follow us at Checkpoint Tracker.
I've been busy the past few days getting ready for the first big adventure race of the year: the MIchigan Xpedition race. It's based out of Traverse City in the NE part of lower Michigan, and six or seven of us are driving out there. Brian, Dave, Molly and I are racing and Rick and Corey are doing support for us. The race starts on the morning of Wednesday the 13th and ends on Saturday, with a total length of about 300 miles.
Part of our mandatory gear is aerial distress flares. I think it's going to be hard to restrain ourselves from setting one off just to see what it can do!
I've only paddled the Snake River once, but it sure was a doozy. Our team started the Memorial Day 2008 practice race by putting in the Snake River just downstream of Mora. We had six solo kayaks, for me, Mark, Roz, Dave, Brian, and Rick. The water was up, as usual in late spring, but the section between Mora and Pine City is generally a slow, lazy, winding river with heavily wooded banks hiding the frequent cultivated fields.
Yours truly on a most awesome ridgeline - just south of Sacagawea Summit in the Bridger Range northeast of Bozeman, Montana.
It easy to see in the photos the unique nature of the central Montana mountains. Each range is fairly isolated and distinctively sticks up out of the lower valleys, so, from the top of any one range you can look out and see the others appearing as islands in an ocean of blue-green. From atop the Bridger Range we could look out to the east and see the Crazy Mountains; to the southeast, the Absaroka Range; to the south; the Gallatin and Madison ranges; and to the west, the Tobacco Root mountains.
More photos below the fold.
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