Subaru Primal Quest - Telluride, CO
July 4-12, 2002

28th Place; 6 days, 10 hrs, 35 min.

(Version by Barb Dutrow)

TSF members Barb Dutrow, Carl Gable, and Joel Krypel, together with Brad Fawcett , competed in the first Subaru Primal Quest held in the San Juan Mountains of South Western Colorado. They were joined by a superb support crew consisting of Jessica Harrison, M.D., of Tucson, AZ, Bill Roth and Jennifer Harrison (no relation) of Santa Fe. To keep our family and friends informed,  daily updates  were e-mailed by Darrell Henry.  These are posted to the website of Barb's local running club and can be viewed at: http://www.lawired.com/csr/home.htm . Pictures of TSF during the race can also be viewed at: http://www.geol.lsu.edu/dutrow/tsf_pics.html

The Subaru Primal Quest Adventure Race, was an "expedition" length race of 251 miles and was advertized as having 68,000' of elevation
gain!  Immense. Four racers must stay and finish together to be an officially ranked team. Racers navigated their way (via map skills as no GPS units were allowed) through check points (CP's) by mountain biking (151 miles), trekking (68 miles),  fixed ropes, and kayaking (32 miles). "Wild single track, dirt road, steep couloirs and ridgelines that stretch across the skyline for days" is how the race director described the course. Nearly all of the race was above an elevation of 9,000'; many passes were in excess of 13,000'  making this the highest adventure race to date with some of the most vertical. The altitude was one of the most challenging aspects of the course. At the races end, Barb recorded 54,790' of
vertical gain on her altimeter, short of the projected gain, but nearly equivalent to climbing two Mt. Everest's from sea level! The total elevation change was over 120,000'! This race was also unusual in that it had a HUGE purse,:$250,000; 1st place received $100,000, 2nd - $50,000, 3rd - $25,000 - to 15 place. As a result, the best teams in the world were our competition!

After spending the morning of July 4 loading the support vehicle, Bill's flatbed truck, TSF was off to Telluride Arriving at Mountain Village, the scenery was breath-taking.  The condo provided a great staging area for the race.  Although SPQ had scheduled teams with a specific time for checkout, if we came early they would work us in.  That was a blessing.  We headed off for checkout, complete with ALL of the required gear - including bikes, early July 5.  And, what a thorough, but pleasant, checkout it was.  There were teams of volunteers to speed one through.  Selected required gear was tagged to make sure it didn't get swapped for lighter gear later!  For the ropes skill test, the ropes were, of course, anchored to the bumper of a Subaru!  Having the whitewater checkout in the pool, fully geared up with gondolas overhead, made for a surreal sight.  We were finished, our photos taken, our goodie bags gathered, by 2pm.  Now we had a full 2.5 days to reorganize gear, again and again.

On July 7, racers lined up in a chute, after receiving their GPS unit for tracking, for the start of the race at 3pm near the base of the gondola
at Telluride, 9,500'  for the first fitness test! Weather conditions were great, even if hot!  Trekking was the first event, taking racers on a short leg - 24 miles, over 4 passes. Once the countdown began, racers were off in mass, up the Telluride ski slope!  Up was followed by down, across a high mountain meadow, ablaze with wildflowers.  After a strategic move to contour around at 13,000' and avoid the ridgeline, we
descended and then climbed Ajax mountain for the descent to the Imogene Pass Road and into Telluride.  This was a major mistake!
At the top of the mountain, the couloir leading down was a 1000' unstable rubble pile.  We waited about 30 minutes for Team Stryker to clear the debris area, before continuing on.  It was clear from the teams immediately ahead of us and behind us that many did not know how to safely travel on such unstable scree slopes.  We set off, keeping another team close by, down the unstable and dangerous slope - following the few glow sticks that hadn't fallen by previous rock fall.  About half was down the slope, the team above us moved - although we had yelled for them to stay put - and sent a tire sized boulder careening our way out of the darkness. TSF jumped to the side, and thankfully we were missed only by inches.  This could have been a life-threatening and certainly race-ending event had we been only a few feet over.  Joel had a nasty cut on this thumb, but it was still functioning and attached!  After the adrenaline rush was over, we finished the descent and were off to Telluride to the biking transition.

Transition to biking was preceded by getting the checkpoints for the remainder of the race.  Realizing that the next bike leg was over 100 miles, we quickly were on our way.  This leg was a mixture of single track, roads, and the all too common, hike-a-bike.  Unfortunately for Barb - who likes uphills and roads - the technical single track in the dark was a scary beginning.  Daylight soon came as did friendlier roads and
gorgeous scenery.  Completely circum-navigating the Lizard Head wilderness made for spectacular scenery.  During the middle of this long bike leg, we were allowed to meet our support crew. Fortunately, they had prepared a feast for us - plates of steaming pasta.  And, they had prepared boiled potatoes, hard boiled eggs and peanut butter and jelly's for us to take on the next segment.  Our transitions were too long, because they fed us too well!  By the end of this bike leg, our seats were so sore everyone rode the downhills with their quad on the bike seat!

Everyone was looking forward to the mountaineering leg and being on our feet again!  Much of this segment was traveling cross country, over many steep couloirs that were scree slopes instead of the nice snow chutes they would have been in a wetter year. Midway through, a ropes segment was setup to ascend a fixed rope, the rappel down the other side and zip across another long scree slope.  As Carl, Joel and Brad sat below watching Barb descend, a loud crash signaled that a rockfall (with 3 sofa size rocks) had spontaneously broken off just above Barb off to the right - and funneled directly down into the descent line.  Fortunately the angels were there, if Barb had been a minute further down, she would have been pummeled by rockfall!  We all felt very lucky!

Only a short bike ride away was kayaking.  Unfortunately as we headed up Corkscrew Pass, we realized that this was going to be another hiking section!  At the top, just as Barb started down while she was changing gears she hit a rock, and fell over to her right - her arm and hip coming down hard on rocks.  After a scream and some tears, the guys checked the bike and all was well.  The rocky downhill made it painful to grasp the handle bars, but that soon ended in a fabulous long smooth downhill where you could cruise at high speed.  We fortunately got to boating transition about 6:30 am - enough time to change, be on and off the water by the mandatory 9pm cutoff.  However, when
 Barb looked at her arm, there was swelling to the size of a grapefruit.  A quick cold compress and wrap followed.  Trying to squeeze into a wetsuit with a non-functional right arm was difficult, but Jennifer kindly helped!  (Three weeks later Barb discovered that she had fractured her radius).

We were all looking forward to boating, to be off our feet.  Ha! With water levels so low (150 cfs vs.  the average 1500 cfs) it was soon clear this would be hike-a-boat.  We put in about 8:30am, a good time that should allow us to be through the canyon by 9pm and not have to spend the night.  Carl and Barb soon mastered the one-foot out and one-foot in push along the river technique as well as the scoot technique.  It seemed that you couldn't go 10 feet without getting stuck.  Brad and Joel chose instead to line their boat, Brad not caring so much for this
segment.  We arrived at camp 1 two hours before the cutoff. However, as the day wore on, Carl and Barb got too far ahead for Joel and Brad to see how they ran the rapids.  The pace slowed, too much.  Carl and Barb were about 0.25 miles from takeout when 9pm arrived.Joel and Brad further back.  After being met by river guides, we deflated our boats and carried them to camp2.  For each minute we were not at camp 2, there was a 5 minute penalty. We ended up with a 8 hr penalty that had to be served there.  We were not prepared to spend the freezing night in the canyon, so despite the time - sleep was not restful.  At 6:20am we could leave, and started the trek out.  Nearing Purgatory we were met by a camera crew who followed us into camp - and then on the next biking leg! (We did appear in the OLN TV presentation of the race - but with no trailers, you couldn't tell it was us!)

It was a relief to know that the final biking leg was soon to be behind us.  Reaching the summit about sunset made for gorgeous film footage.  But then came the "bone-jarring downhill", as the race instructions stated.  Barb said lots of explicatives as she road, but the team was very tolerant.  The pain of her broken arm made her go faster as she wanted to get through this as fast as she could.  Of course this mortified the guys, they didn't want her to crash again!  She didn't. Riding up Lizard Head Pass, 13,100', again was wonderful!

After a transition with more delicious hot food and some sleep, TSF was off at 2am on the final trekking leg.  This section displayed the stunning San Juan scenery, viewed from atop several passes.  It also brought the final, grueling uphill climb - in the heat of the day on a south facing slope.  Once at the summit, Joel shared smoked salmon that had never tasted better.  Down Bridal Veil Basin to the rappel and then to the finish line! Nearly running downhill, we arrived at the rappel about 8:30pm in the light.  There were three unranked teams ahead, so we, as a
ranked team asked to go ahead.  They told us no!  So we sat and waited nearly two hours before rappeling.  Rappeling in the dark brought its own set of challenges.  Barb, Carl and Joel all ended up rappeling into the trees - all had a different strategy for getting through.  Barb crashed through the 20', Carl ascended the rope to put it down on the correct side and Joel bent the tree down under the rope.  After a treacherous path off the mountain, the finish line was near.

Team Santa Fe finished at 1:45am Saturday morning, July 12 to a small crowd of wonderful supporters. Overall it was a great race.

TSF would like to thank the generous (equipment) sponsors:  Leki, Thorlo, Scrade Knives, OR, Ortlieb, Varsity Sports (Baton Rouge), Litespeed bikes, Black Diamond, Petzl, Suunto, NiteRider, Golite, Snow Peak, AXO Cycling, LP composites, Spinergy, SweetWater, and
SealLine.