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<>Canoeing the Dumoine
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Zipline with bikes
Rafting the Ottawa
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Tree Huggers Race report-
RTN Champs 2005- Ottawa River We had a detailed whitewater orientation followed by a chance for teams to paddle whitewater rafts around the bay. Rich and I tried it, but our team would be the only one that would paddle a raft together for the first time during the race. Oh well, it’s not rocket science. After an amazing BBQ dinner at Esprit, the race briefing began. Course designer Bob Miller had done a great job of linking outdoor adventure highlights over a 280 km race course running through western Quebec. It would be a 3.5 hour drive northwest to the starting point. I planned our trekking routes and left the mountain bike nav to Hingo, which ultimately turned out to be a good division of labour for a 3-day race. It was nice to get a mental break, and also I find that the navigator seldom gets enough time to eat, drink or pee! Because of my knee injury, I knew that running was out of the question. It sometimes makes sense to aim for roads where the route may be longer but we can do some running. Since I couldn’t run in this race, our best bet was to move forward in a relatively straight line. Also, I screwed up our last long race by depending on roads that were incorrectly marked on the map, so this time I was determined to rely on features in the terrain. (I’m SO glad I’ve practiced my orienteering this year!) We had inflatable pack rafts, so it made sense to use them to take the load off my knee while travelling along large bodies of water or crossing rivers. The crux of the race would be a 40 km trek in a remote area with few roads. I hoped that my knee would hold out, since it could be difficult to get rescued if I became unable to walk. As usual, I got just over 3 hours of sleep on the night before the race. I used to worry when this happened, but I seem to do pretty well with sleep deprivation (this skill is left over from my days in engineering school, I guess), and it’s better to spend more time with the maps up front when I’m conscious and have a place to spread them out. Thursday Sept 22 Off to the start: We piled into a crowded school bus for a very unpleasant, bumpy 4-hour ride to the start line. This is nothing new – almost every adventure race starts the same way, although usually the ride is shorter. Richard and I shared a seat intended for children, along with our backpacks, kayak paddles, PFDs, throw bags and other paddling paraphernalia. Wayne and Paul piled into another behind. The floor of the bus was covered with several layers of unbreakable canoe paddles. Our trip highlight was the unexpected luxury of a Tim Horton’s stop. Yum. I’d figured that the worst scenario for my knee injury would be a “Lemans Start”, and it turned out that the race began this way. Teams had to run 3-4 km along a dirt road to reach the Dumoine River, where we would pick up canoes for a 40 km river trip. Since our team couldn’t run, we had the discouraging experience of seeing almost everyone disappear out of sight as I hobbled along in my neoprene knee brace. The impact of my foot on the road made my knee hurt. And this was only a road – what was going to happen in the bush? We got on the water a full hour after the race began. The only bright note was that one other team also walked to the river – and yay, we walked faster than they did. ;-) We spent the next 6 ½ hours paddling part of the Dumoine River, a classic Canadian experience that’s been on my “to do” list forever. For the first time in AR, I paddled in the bow with Richard to avoid the tendonitis that I got from steering in whitewater at Appalachian Extreme. In this race, I was going to need healthy arms on the treks in order to use two ski poles to reduce the load on my knee. The Class I and II whitewater paddle was scenic and fun, and both boats stayed upright (unlike last year’s Charlevoix race, where we dumped 4 times) – yahoo! Paul took a whitewater course last summer and has become an excellent sternsman. Richard and I chose most of the lines through the rapids, with Paul and Wayne following closely behind. I was a liability on the portages, since Richard decreed that I couldn’t lift heavy whitewater boats after wrenching my knee lifting gear boxes. Richard schlepped the fully loaded canoe over the rocks on shorter portages himself. This really slowed us down and made me feel useless, but it was too early in the race to take risks. The second half of the paddle had more flat water and some heavy rain. We arrived at TA1 in rain just as darkness fell, and learned that a black bear and cub were in the area. The next part of the trek looked fairly straightforward even for night navigation – about 13 km along a river valley, much of it on the marked “Sentier du Dumoine” hiking trail. We didn’t know that the joke was on us – the trail doesn’t really exist anymore. We would find little stretches of it, then it would disappear completely and we would bash along near the river until we found it again. We travelled with another team for awhile and, against my better judgement, we crossed the river earlier than planned. We had been warned that we might need to swim several hundred meters in current, so it was quite tempting to cross the river at this place where the water was only knee-deep. Plus there were some islands and other signs that we had almost arrived at the junction of two rivers that I had planned to use as my attackpoint. BIG MISTAKE. What really bothers me is that if we hadn’t been with another team, I would have stuck to my original plan. Usually I’m better about ignoring outside influence, but I’d really not been looking forward to the river swim, so I guess I was more easily convinced than usual. So off we went into the wrong section of forest, looking for a cliff that wasn't there. Not just any forest, but nasty, slow-moving, tangled forest. Sigh. Friday- After we realized that we’d crossed the river too early, I altered the bearing to go further downstream. Finally we returned to the river so I could be 100% sure where we were. It’s always hard to find the top of a rappel site, and I didn’t want any uncertainty. We followed the river for awhile – sometimes walking in the water, sometimes pulling ourselves up steep embankments, sometimes slipping on rotten logs and beaver lodges. It paid off as I watched the compass very closely and became convinced that we were nearly at a 90 degree bend in the river. Sure enough, we found the spot – and we could see lights on the cliff where the rappel was located. Woo hoo! We were still an hour away from the top of the cliff – a long scramble up through an area of large, mossy boulders with leg-eating holes in between. After being at last year’s Primal Quest, I’m very cautious about loose rock, so was glad to reach the top. We found the rappel crew by a fire. Looking embarrassed, the guide said that they’d had “equipment failure” and the rappel had just been closed. We later learned that the ropes had been abraded so badly that an experienced mountaineer on the previous team had cut off one rope, then the other rope was subsequently declared unsafe. Did I mention how fond I am of that previous team?!? We warmed up and rested by their fire, then had another tangled bushwhack to a road which we followed to the TA, arriving at 9 a.m. Once again, it was frustrating not being able to run on the road, especially since we needed to make up time after the nav error. I can’t imagine how my teammates must have felt, since they actually could have run if they’d wanted to. The good news was that bushwhacking didn’t bother my knee all that much. I put a lot of weight on my ski poles and I could feel the hamstrings and quads holding the knee together nicely. The next stage was a 90 km mountain bike ride on logging roads in a stunning, hilly area. We didn’t see another human for hours, just lots (and lots) of climbing and descending with beautiful views of hills, valleys and autumn leaves. Gazelle’s altimeter recorded 1500 meters of cumulative elevation gain – wow. At first, my knee felt great and I was riding past the guys up the hills, but the pain began and I started walking parts of some hills to save myself for the trek. Regardless, I loved this section – an absolutely beautiful area with roads in good condition and no traffic. Hingo did a fine job on the nav through the confusing logging road network, with only one unintentional detour that turned out just fine. We arrived just after sunset. The TA was at a tourist camp and we were hospitably invited to sleep in their warm garden shed (with a big snow shovel hovering over me and Bent's head inside the riding lawn mower exhaust). Since this was our second night and the team had only had a few 5-minute cat naps, we decided to have a good 2-hour rest before starting the 40+ km trek. It made all the difference! We set out on pack rafts shortly before midnight, with bright moonlight illuminating the lake. It was 9 km of paddling to the first checkpoint. We ran aground several times in open water, which was very confusing. We later learned that two lakes had been flooded by Hydro, which turned them into one lake. There is actually a place where you can walk across the lake in water no more than ankle deep! This would have saved us some trouble, but we eventually got into deeper water with light damage to the pack rafts. With two people per raft, but only one paddling at a time, it was easy to get chilled, so we took a long break when we saw that the CP staff had a fire. Saturday We carried on pack rafting to the east end of MacGillivray Lake, where we planned to get on MacGillivray Creek and continue pack rafting if possible. We found the hydro dam and a road leading from it, roughly parallel to the creek. At first I thought it was a portage, but the road kept going. Walking was faster and warmer than pack rafting, and we were going in the right direction, so I didn’t head down to the creek until the road veered onto the wrong bearing after 2 km. By this time, the others were chilled and I was getting worried because Richard was shivering and losing dexterity. Just before sunrise, we were pushing through tall shrubs and weeds coated with tinkling ice. We hit the creek and inflated the rafts, but found that the water was too shallow to get very far. After a few hundred meters, we put them away and planned to walk in or near the creek until it met the Noire River 5-6 km away. We hit ATV trails and followed them roughly east, keeping the creek in sight as long as we could. Eventually I thought we’d hit a branch of the Noire River, except something didn’t look right. I could see a beaver dam, and the high water seemed to be on the wrong side relative to the direction the current should have been flowing. I headed down to the dam to check. Wayne seized the opportunity to pull out instant oatmeal and a baggie, which impressed Paul, who started a conversation - a conversation that may have saved my life!! As they discussed the finer points of instant oatmeal, a Quebecois man came over the hill with his huge crossbow loaded with some evil looking missile. “I thought there was a moose until I heard you talking.” Then he pointed down to the bush where I was moving. “So that is not a moose either?” Having established that indeed none of us were moose, in spite of today being the first day of hunting season, he pointed out our location on the map, which is always handy, and assured us of the existence of the road across the river that we hoped to follow. We used one pack raft to ferry the team across the Noire River, which we probably wouldn’t have bothered doing if we hadn’t been so chilled earlier. Then we went up and hit the road, following it for a few km until it turned, then we took a bearing straight cross-country. We bushwhacked for several hours, then had a lovely pack raft ride across a scenic, sunny lake with high cliffs. As we approached the next checkpoint, we found more ATV trails heading in our direction. We met two other teams at the checkpoint and realized that we were moving up in the race as a result of this trek. Yahoo! Most people bushwhacked north and followed a long, circuitous road route from here. I wanted to bushwhack pretty much straight east to the main road, which would be half the distance – and easier on my knee. From talking to people later and looking at the results, apparently this was a good choice. Wayne, who is an awesomely fit, team-oriented and experienced adventure racer, set a good pace in this section and followed bearings flawlessly. We hit the main road and arrived just after dark at Camp Jim after an epic 41 km, 21-hour trek. We had to wait for awhile, as only the first four teams had made the 3 p.m. cut-off to paddle on the Coulonge River, so the rest of us were being bussed to the take-out point where our bikes awaited. The good news was that we had moved up to 6th place in the race after having the 5th fastest trek! :-)) This gave us some spare time to visit the bar at Camp Jim, where hot beef noodle soup, orange juice and flush toilets made our short stay more luxurious. Hingo was rightfully concerned that we not get too comfortable, since we can be slow getting ready at TAs. We promised to be ready before 9:30 p.m., the scheduled bus departure time, but Paul played it safe and took a pass on the bar. We started getting our gear ready shortly before he headed off to sleep in the back of FAR’s big rental truck. About 10 minutes later, the race volunteer came running down to say there was a minor medical emergency and he was leaving to pick someone up along the road. We didn’t think anything of it at first, then we saw the big rental truck driving off toward the bumpy access road. Oh no, poor Paul was sleeping in the back – did the volunteer even know he was there? Three members of another team were in there too, so their remaining team member stood alongside us with jaws dropped as we watched the truck go. It was almost 9:30 p.m. and we were all so worried about our respective teammates that we almost stopped howling with laughter after a minute or two. When the shuttle bus arrived on schedule, we were ready to go – but the truck was still missing. Luckily, the bus waited until all teams had arrived so we could all be moved forward to our bikes at the same time. Phew. Sunday We had an unfortunate mix-up after reaching the bikes. Rich's bike had somehow been trashed, but it wasn’t immediately obvious. The chain was off, the tire was flat, and the pack holder (required for his recumbent bike) was damaged. In the confusion of the large group of cyclists leaving at the same time in the dark, he got left behind with no map or bike tools, and it was awhile before it became clear that he really wasn’t just behind us. With temporary repairs, we limped over to the zip line at Chutes Coulonge. Based on the daytime photos, this was an impressive, beautiful, scary zip line over a big gorge, flying across with our bikes beside us. At night, I could hear a waterfall, but had very little sense that a gorge was there. Probably just as well – I simply pretended that I was zipping over my back yard and thus remained completely calm. Too bad, actually, since the scenery looked amazing. Getting out of the gorge was a challenge. We'd been told that we would be pushing our bikes up a steep, rocky embankment in cycling shoes, but realized when we arrived that this was just another way of saying "cliff". It took two people to maneuver Richard's recumbnet up to flatter ground. The leading team SRS dropped their bike down the slope, but it was caught by a security fence beside the gorge. Yikes! From there, we biked to the put-in point for whitewater rafting on the Ottawa River. To get onto Grand Calumet Island, we and our bikes had to take a raft across a flat water branch of the river. I started getting serious sleep monsters, so Wayne and I began an animated conversation about the merits of growing up in Brantford, home of Wayne Gretzky. There was a dark zone on the rafting, so we were able to set up our tent and sleep for 90 minutes. Perfect. We rafted down the middle channel of the Ottawa River. The water is low and it was actually very easy after canoeing on the Dumoine River. For the 15’ waterfall called Dragon’s Tongue, we pulled to the side and picked up two guides who piloted us down, then jumped out again. Pretty cool! From there, it was a 90-minute bike to the finish. We poured on the speed and rode in a paceline that Team Discovery Channel would have been proud of. We were only 3 minutes off the fastest bike time for that section, well ahead of some very good teams. Hingo's perfect bike nav played a huge role, as some teams got lost in this section. Nice to finish on a high note! We were awarded 5th place medals and prizes, although there is some controversy because we were very close to the 6th place team, and there are various time credits and penalties still to be sorted out. Regardless, we were thrilled to do reasonably well. I’d come to the race thinking it would be a huge victory to cross the finish line with my knee injury, and I didn’t feel competitive with other teams at all – only with myself. I guess this shows that anything can happen in an expedition race. I should have tried harder to maintain a sense of urgency throughout the race. I really had no idea that we were remotely in contention for any prize, so hadn’t pushed as hard as usual.
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