Primal Quest day 1

Day 1:

The start of the race. A thick fog covered Lone Mountain at 9am, obscuring Lone Peak from view. At 11,166 feet, it is the tallest peak in the panorama, and on top are the first checkpoints of Primal Quest Montana. My Texas legs and lungs were not quite ready for the climb. There are more than 3500 feet between the start at Big Sky Mountain Village (~7500 feet) and the summit. My goal was to station myself just below the first check point, and well above the snowline, to get shots of the racers ascending. I hiked directly up the head walls of a ski slope along the Swift Current lift. When my legs started post-holing in the snow I donned snowshoes and continued up the mountain. Nothing about what I was doing was graceful. It was only the second time ever wearing snowshoes plus I was sucking wind bad. I kept reminding myself, I’m a photographer not a racer, but no one was going to delay the start so that I could get into position. I pressed on.

At a little past 10 AM the race started with a blast, literally. 25lbs of explosives wear detonated near the top of the mountain close to my position. It felt and sounded like it was right on top of me. That was my cue to station myself and wait. I focused down the mountain anticipating a herd of racers in blue jerseys to come charging up the slope to me. The fog was burning off and a coyote scampered across a nearby ridge line. Forty-five minutes after the start of Primal Quest Montana, I was alone. I call down to the support crew and question my route– they should have been here by now. I walk about 25 yards farther up the slope, up to where it is so steep that it is more climbing than walking, and there is an endless stream of racers as far as I can see just on the other side of a snow bank that looks impossible to cross. They came up behind where I was positioned…MOAT was just slightly above me.



Dave Boyd called out to me and I captured a couple photos before they powered on up and entered a field of talus.



I noticed that none of them had on their snow shoes, but I did, and they were acting like greased up skis on the steep slope. Any slip and I would have unintentionally glissaded all the way down the mountain, eating a few trees on the way down. It was very difficult to stay in position let alone make forward progress, especially with cameras dangling around my neck. I crawled, no swam, through the snow to the trail the racers were on, but by that time MOAT was out of sight.

I did get a few shots of another Texas team, the Werewolves of Austin (and Houston), with Ashley Edwards leading the way.

I also got a couple shots of Team HART.

I hiked back down and caught up with MOAT at the transition area.

The transition was fast, one of the fastest of the race, and I tried to keep up with them to get a few more shots before MOAT disappeared into the wilderness. JP, Leslie's son, ran along with me. My tank was empty long before his was and it was all I could do to keep him from following them...