In memoriam: Dave Boyd

http://www.glennonsimmons.com/gallery/dave-boyd/

The link above is a gallery of some of my favorite photos of Dave taken over the past year. He invited me to travel with him and Team MOAT to Montana for Primal Quest as their photographer. It was an experience I will never forget. Dave has impacted my life in a profound way and I'm deeply sorry that he's gone. He will forever remain an inspiration to us all.

http://www.alamosanews.com/V2_news_articles.php?heading=0&story_id=9247&page=72

Primal Quest day 8: The finish

June 30, 2008 12:43pm

MOAT finishes Primal Quest Montana greeted by family, friends, the press and Don Mann. The team covered more than 512 miles in less than 8 days despite three injuries and the wrong sized shoe. Leslie Reuter suffered from tendinitis, Shaun Bain had a severely bruised upper thigh from hitting a rock while river boarding, and Nathan Winkelmann had Iliotibial Band Friction Syndrom, a painful knee injury that was aggravated by the motion of pedaling. All have blisters, cuts and bruises. Despite this MOAT finished 5th against some of the best teams in the world. Congratulations!


Dave Boyd is interviewed just after crossing the finish line.
Nathan Winkelmann looks on with Don Mann and friends reflected in his sunglasses. The team recounted stories from the trail to Don and the press.
MOAT poses for a team picture with JP and Sydney, the two most important members of the support crew. Leslie's children where present for the duration of the race, and I have to say were the most helpful, best behaved kids anyone could hope for. They deserve special honors, as well as the rest of the support crew: Rick Sanders, Noel Reuter and Larry Winkelmann. It took everyone to make this the success that it was.

Footnote:
I will be conducting interviews with the team over the next few days and the trip home. I'm hoping to put together an audio slide show with some of the best images from the race. Look for it in the very near future. Thanks.
-Glennon

Primal Quest day 5: The Bridger Range

06.27.08

On day 5, I intended to set out with the team to follow Team MOAT on the traverse of the Bridger Range. I'll just say that I'm an experienced backpacker with MANY miles of back country travel logged in both the US and Canada. I was as prepared as any human being could be, and this is what I came to Montana to shoot. I spent considerable time prepping my gear. I would only carry one camera, the Canon 5D, and two lenses, a 16-35mm and a 70-200mm. The rest of my pack was loaded with provisions and safety gear for a night in the wilderness, including a 15 degree bag and bivy, headlamp, food and water, etc. I did not expect to be able to keep up with the team for the duration of the trek, but rather just enough to get the photos. I was ready. There was some controversy about how I would hook back up with the RV and the support crew. I basically said don't worry about it. I'll get a ride into Boseman and rent a car for myself.

At the moment of truth, when my boots were about to hit the trail, the team vetoed my tagging along. I was not only disappointed, but heartbroken. As for the reasons, Dave explained that I could be perceived as assisting the team, which would result in a disqualification. This was a risk he could not take. I suspected that this was an excuse to not have to take responsibility if something went wrong, or to protect me from myself. Who knows? I had no choice but to honor his request.

Needlesstosay, my moral was at a low.

Primal Quest Day 4

06.26.08

The team had dropped their bikes at another unassisted TA for an extended trek through the Crazy Mountains, or the Crazy Woman Mountains, or 'The Crazies' if you are a local. Apparently it is named after a woman who went insane and lived somewhere in the mountains after her family was killed in the western settlement movement. The Crazy Woman Mountains is the English version of a Crow Indian name. It is unclear to me from the Wiki article whether the woman was a Crow Indian or a settler.

I hung around the RV most of the day. I had no way of knowing exactly where the team was going to pop out of the woods, and I was getting a little distressed at all of the waiting around. Around sunset the team rolls in with grins on their faces. Dave Boyd has a hole in his shoe. Dave's own size 14 and Nathan's size 11.5 had been placed in his pack for pickup at the unassisted TA, and he had no choice but to make it work for the extended trek through The Crazies. He had to cut a hole in tip and remove the insole so that his foot fit, and luckily it did. The shoes themselves were identical in every way, expect for the size. Looking at the shoes on Dave's feet there was an obvious difference, but when they were placed in the pack it was not so clear. It is also unclear who was responsible - it could have been any one of the three of us. Because I had been providing assistance, generally handing things to people when asked or microwaving things - all seemingly trivial tasks - I did not feel that my actions had significant consequences. This was clearly not the case. MOAT and all the other teams racing Primal Quest teams are only as good as their support. Support crews are critical, rate limiting, equally important as the racers themselves.

Dave did not seem bothered by the incident. He even said, seriously or sarcastically, that the smaller shoe was lighter and it felt good - the only harm done was ruining the shoe. Obviously this could have been a disaster. From this moment forward I did not provide any direct support and focused solely on photography. However, because of my lack of autonomy, opportunities were far and few between....frustration levels were starting to build.

........

Footnote:

Yesterday, or maybe it was the day before, while riding with Rick to the next TA I saw a little bird attacking a hawk. I watched it for a while out of window of the SUV. I turned to him and described what I saw. Without saying a word he reached over and flipped down my visor so that I was looking at myself in the mirror. This pretty much sums up our relationship. I can blame this friction on lack of sleep, but most likely even in the best of circumstances our personality types are not terribly compatible. To make matters worse there was a conflict of interest between me and the support crew. My goal was to get images of the team, especially action photos, where the crew was entirely focused on providing support. This included transporting critical gear, feeding and providing a comfortable place for the team to sleep and helping with strategy decisions. Obviously there was a hierarchy of priorities. However, I was supposed to have had access to a vehicle in order to be able to work independently and to prevent any conflicts of interest - this was not made available to me. The second vehicle instead was solely an additional support vehicle. To make a long story short without going into too much detail, I felt very limited in my abilities to follow the team.

Primal Quest Day 4: Dealing with pain.

Just before midnight the team rolled into the TA. This would have been the end of the kayak on the Yellowstone but it was canceled due to high waters full of debris. Huge trees were drifting by at surprising speed in the current. It was dangerous for anyone to be on the water. The big joke is that the race is turning into a duathlon. At this point it is pretty much just biking and trekking. But biking is good for MOAT. It plays to their strengths.

The medics at Primal Quest are top notch. AJ Johnson, an active military doctor with tour in Iraq and Afghanistan under his belt, took a look at Nathan's knee and diagnosed his injury. Wink suffered ITB Syndrome, or Iliotibial Band Friction Syndrom, for all you medical professionals out there. Any other doctor would have probably said, stop doing what is injuring you. Stop paddling, riding, trekking - racing. But this is Primal Quest and dealing with pain is definitely part of game. Almost all of the teams that I have seen have at least one member with an injury. Most are limping around.

Johnson injected the site of inflammation on Nathan's knee with lidocaine and sent him on his way. This was to relieve the pain for about three hours, enough to get him through the next twenty or so miles of biking to the trek. The repetitive motion of pedaling was particularly painful, and it is the kind of motion that can't be adjusted to relieve the pain. At least on the trek he could change his gate to relieve the stress on the IT Band. Nathan was a trooper and was the first one ready to leave the TA. Despite this injury, MOAT's biking edge did not seem to be noticeably dulled.

Primal Quest Day 3

06.25.08
We waited at the transition area on the banks of the Yellowstone River wondering how MOAT survived through a night of lighting storms and rain. Bikes and food were dropped at an unassisted TA. In the morning Rick Sanders and I drove back toward the bike drop to find MOAT so that I could get some bike photos. We were also worried about Shaun's condition because he had injured his right leg during the river boarding the day before and no one was truly aware of how serious it was. The all night trekking could have pushed their limits too far with an injured team-mate.

We made it all the way back to the bike drop and waited for a bit. We got excited when we saw who we thought was MOAT in the distance. At that point one of the TA officials said that the team would be DQ'ed if we were there when the team arrived. Why? Because we were giving them moral support. What BS! We didn't argue and left immediately.

We cruised down the road and I had Rick drop me off to snap a few photos as they made their way down the dirt road. As it turns out the team was not MOAT.


Rick got a call from Noel Reuter, Leslie's husband, letting him know that MOAT had reached the bike drop. We were somewhere near the town of Emigrant eating hamburgers. Rick wasn't comfortable with going back after the TA official's reaction, so I got no shots of MOAT on the bike until they were at the TA next to the Yellowstone.


The paddle on the Yellowstone was canceled due to high waters and it was replaced with additional mountain biking. This was good for MOAT, who are very strong on the bike.

Shaun was hurting, as we expected. But he was able to tough it out.


Noel had picked up some buffalo burgers and the team got some well deserved hot food before heading out on another long bike leg.

Plotting points

Sunday 06.22.08

The race is tomorrow. Today, all the Primal Quest teams met and Don Mann described what they all got themselves into. A Google map flyover of the entire course was shown while dramatic music played. The room cheered when the course would find its way onto the summit of some ominous distant mountain peak or snake its way along a ridgeline. Team captains picked up their maps and booklet of check points and guidelines and were sent off to plot the locations of the check points.

The hotel room is a well oiled machine. While the team works at plotting and strategizing, the support crew is also busy. If it were not for them, the race would not be possible. Leslie’s husband Noel sews patches onto MOAT’s Primal Quest jerseys while their kids played quietly on the computer. Rick Sanders takes notes to prepare for the road ahead – getting the RV and critical gear to each transition area. I take pictures and blog, but otherwise try to stay out of the way. I’ve also been responsible for sending out e-mails and updating forums…Hopefully a lot of folks are following MOAT’s adventure!

As for photography, Primal Quest is officially NOT helping the press outside of Will Ramos’s photography team and the TV crew. This is for liability reasons. They can’t send me off to where the ‘good shots’ are because they could be sending me to my death. That means that I can get directions to the transition areas only, and I will not be given transportation. So if I want to get to the summit of a mountain, I’ll have to snowshoe up there while the official photogs will get a snow mobile ride. I’ll do my best and we’ll see what happens.

The unfortunate side-effect of being in the field is that internet access will be sporadic at best. Posts may be shorter, but I’ll try to keep the pictures coming.

The big show starts tomorrow at 10am, so wish us all luck!

Team MOAT hard at work plotting points.
The Primal Quest race course consists of 33 checkpoints spanning 500+ miles and over 100, 000 ft of elevation gain.
Noel Reuter sews the team and sponsor's patches on their jerseys.

Rick Sanders takes notes as the team discusses routes. He will be responsible for transporting critical equipment to transition areas requiring hundreds of miles of driving.

Skills tests and Moose Drool

Saturday 6.21.08

Life in an RV is kind of like living on a submarine: cramped, stinky and full of dudes. No one took a shower until arrival at the Big Sky Resort . It was nice to get all cleaned up and to finally get a good night sleep after all of the driving.

Everyone woke up refreshed and the mission for the team was to get the various skills tests out of the way. The first of which was a swim using body boards and fins. The water tests were performed in a small lake by the hotel that is fed from snow melt. The water was COLD. MOAT donned dry suits for all of the water activities, struggling to put on unfamiliar gear for the first time. After a lot of grunts and groans, MOAT headed down to the water. They were made to swim across the lake and back, and then float in the water for a few minutes. The swim was followed by paddle tests in both high-side (white water boats) and Necky kayaks. They had to turn the boat 360 degrees left then right, then flip the boat in the cold water and re-enter. In the Necky Kayak they had to perform both a self and t-rescue.

Lines were starting to form for the other skills tests including: climbing, mountain biking and gear checks, plus a medical check. The team broke off to get these knocked out, and I went to the airport in Bozeman to pick up Noel Reuter, Leslie’s husband. Noel Reuter and Rick Sanders are providing support for MOAT during the race.

The highlight of the day was a bike trip to Half Moon Saloon for dinner. This was intended to be a relaxing fun ride, not a training ride by any means. I hit many firsts on the way down the mountain to the Restaurant. I have never been winded on a downhill before. I have never maxed out my gears, never understood what drafting feels like, and I have never hit 50 miles an hour on a mountain bike. Ok, it was actually 47.8mph (77kph), but that’s damn fast! I pedaled my True Fabrications 29’er as hard as I could to keep up with MOAT, who didn’t even seem to be pedaling. As soon as I fell off of Leslie’s wheel, a major gap formed that I had a hard time closing. Dave was telling me later that it was all about the tires – my big knobbies were no match for their low rolling resistance treads on the descent. As soon as the ground leveled, they pulled away. Nathan dropped back and towed me up with a bungee attached to my stem. He pulled me with such force and acceleration that it was like I had just added an invisible motor to my bike. I caught back up and we hit some sweet and way too short single-track while it lasted.

Dinner was ok – the view was just terrible, sitting out on this patio deck with the raging Gallatin River in the foreground, mountains in the background – just awful!. Everyone was carb loading ordering pasta with chicken on top, and a few of us had ‘Moose Drool’, a dark beer a bit lighter than a Guinness. Very tasty.

After Dinner Dave, Nathan and I rode off in search of more single-track, but discovered that it ended shortly after we picked it up on the way down. Noel had driven the van to meet us, and he shuttled us all back up the mountain (Thankfully – I don’t think I had that climb in me!).

On the way up we had been passed by several exotic cars with “bullrun.com” on the back. Bull Run is a rally race from Calgary to Arizona, and there was a check point at our hotel. Apparently a female team had been arrested going 130mph, and we did see a cop parked on the side of the mountain. It was entertaining, and we heard loud engines racing up the mountain late into the night. Hopefully everyone slept well.

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.

In Route to Primal Quest: Day 2

June 19, 2008

We got up early today and hit the road with the goal of putting in as many miles toward Montana as possible. So the day was spent on the road, but we made time for an evening hike as a reward for a lot of hard driving. We bagged Horsetooth Mountain, a 7,255 feet peak in Fort Collins, Colorado. It was a pretty easy trail with a bit of scrambling required to get on the summit. I struggled to keep up with the MOAT trio of Dave Boyd, Shaun Bain and Nathan Winkelmann. They had their Primal Quest gear on their backs, including snow shoes. I carried all of my photo equipment up the mountain to get a feel for carrying it during the race. I was lugging a Canon 5D with a 16-35mm lens, my 30D with a 70-200mm on it and a 300mm f2.8 in my pack. I quickly fell behind, but instead of watching MOAT ascend the mountain without me, they took my gear and we continued up together – still at a fast pace. Without the heavy photo gear I was able to keep pace and get a few pics too because I kept the 5d in my hand. I took my pack and gear back for a run down the mountain. I kept up briefly, but they pulled ahead in no time. I stopped only briefly to take a couple pictures, but I made the run, although slower than MOAT. We hit the road immediately and found a nice spot around ~10, 000 feet to spend the night.

Dave Boyd's tears cure cancer, too bad he never cries.

Nathan Winkelmann empties a sock at the sumit of Horsetooth Mountain

Check out info on Team MOAT on a new social networking site called PEAK.com. You can find Team MOAT's profile at www.peak.com/teammoat

Don't forget to follow them on Primal Quest's website: http://www.ecoprimalquest.com/ They will be carrying a satellite tracking device that will transmit real-time location data to the PQ website. You should be able to follow them on a Google map.

On the road to Primal Quest!

Somewhere past Fort Worth it hits me. I’m on my way to Primal Quest. I'll be posting images and words as time and Internet connections permit.

Photos from Terra Firma Promo's Muleshoe Bend Adventure Race

USARA Sprint Adventure Race National Championships