In Route to Primal Quest: Day 3

Friday June 20, 2008

I woke up refreshed with a night of good sleep in the bank. It got cold at altitude, but this always seems to help me slumber. This is in stark contrast to the previous night when an intense thunderstorm pounded us and made me all too aware that I was in an RV.
Dave is already driving when I wake up and Shaun and Wink are still asleep. We have long since left Colorado and are cutting through the planes of Southern Wyoming. Dave entertains me with stories about racing. He tells me about jumping crevasses in Greenland and terrestrial leaches in Tasmania that are skinny enough to crawl under the cuffs of your cinched down rain pants and gorge on blood until they are so fat they can’t get out. He told me about bagging 14’ers in Colorado – a favorite past time. We discuss the run down the mountain from the day before and he tells me that this is one of the best skills to have when peak bagging. “Sometimes you have to get off the mountain in a hurry,” Boyd explained. Boyd is not bragging or trying to impress me in anyway. This is just his life.



Once we started getting into mountains, somewhere just south of Grand Teton National Park, the snow was all around us. There were big patches, fields and piles of it everywhere. Everyone was itching to stretch their legs and this was an excuse to take a break and try out our snow shoes. As always they are ready to roll long before I am. I can barely get my shoe in this neoprene booty and I have some issues ‘clipping in.’ Once straightened out we’re running down a hill of snow covered in brush, heading to a huge field of snow below us that stretched for hundreds of yards. It was pristine except for lines of deer tracks vectoring off this way and that. The snowshoes do help. I was amazed that without them my leg would post-hole down in the snow. They do have a drawback in that they shower the wearer with snow when moving faster than a walk, or maybe it was just that this was my first time ever and I have no technique. We were all wearing shorts and my legs were frozen from the snow flying up and impacting me, then sliding down my leg into my booties soaking my feet. Maybe I was doing it wrong…Not sure. Probably.
Once back at the RV everyone’s moral was high. We were all glued to the horizon as the Tetons came into view. We headed straight into the park, where I’m proud to say that my National Parks Pass has now paid for itself. We all had our eyes peeled for wildlife in Yellowstone. I had all of my photo gear at the ready in case of the chance bear sighting, but we only got a few Bison in the distance as we were leaving the park.
We made a brief stop at a grocery store to stock up on race provisions (and photographer provisions). I looked on with bewilderment at what they chose to buy. Basically they cleared out the candy isle and the Little Debbies, chosing hardly any complex carbohydrates. I asked Dave about this later and he showed me the calorie content of a Little Debbie apple pie compared to a Gu gel. The little Debbie won by about 300 calories. During a race of this magnitude, the calorie count is what important.

We finally arrive at Big Sky Resort in the early evening. As the guys get their gear organized, I went off to check in and get my press pass. I met with Will Ramos and some of the other media people. It is unclear how much support I’m going to have from Primal Quest at this point. I’m only going to be given the position of the transitions and no info about ‘good spots’ due to liability. That’s a bummer. I was really hoping for more support. But I’m a resourceful guy who knows how to read a topo. Hopefully I’ll come back with something unique every day.