The day started pleasantly with Vanessa and I heading to a
pretty solid hotel breakfast at the Best Western. The day started pretty early
because we were informed by the race organizers that we needed to check out by
9 am, drop our bags for pickup after the race, and head to the location of the
buses departing for the North Rim of the Grand Canyon (i.e., Camp 1) by 10 am.
We followed the instructions perfectly and timely made it to the meet-up point
by 10, even having time to get one last shower in, before a week of not
showering, and to pre-tape my ankles/feet in preparation of Stage 1 the next
day, which I knew I wouldn’t want to deal with later in the day.
Upon arriving at the meet-up, however, we were informed that
the competitors would leave in 2 waves: one at about 11am, and another at about
12:30pm. Because I (and several others that I had already become friends with)
had no desire to be bused out to the middle of the desert to sit in the heat of
the day for an extra 2 hours with no shade, we made no effort to join the first
wave to be bused out. We actually all just kept our heads down and acted like
we didn’t hear them calling for more volunteers to leave early.
This turned out to be a good decision, but it also made the
need to check out of our hotel by 9 am a bit absurd. Even so, we had plenty of
time to hang out and lie in the grass next to the elementary school where we
met. We also got a chance to hear about the amazingly crazy night out that some
of our fellow competitors had the previous night. In fact, without using any
names, one of them, in my opinion, was lucky to even be heading out into the
desert to start the race. He indicated that he woke up in the morning fully
clothed and not even knowing how he got back to the hotel (a little too much
whisky). Not only that, we were informed by witnesses that he attempted to
climb a 10 foot bear statue from which he plummeted to the ground. Luckily, he
only incurred very bad facial and shoulder abrasions, no breaks/tears/etc.
Still, despite this luck, we were all sure that any pre-hydrating he had done
in preparation for the event was officially null. And, according to other
witnesses, as it turned out, he was in the first wave to depart for Camp 1, and
upon arriving he spent much of the afternoon vomiting in the heat. Haha!!
Finally, after waiting around for a few hours and consuming
the bagged lunches provided to us, we did board the buses for Camp 1. After
about 2 hours of riding, we departed the buses and boarded 15 person vans for
the remainder of the trip, which was about 1 hour on rough roads, or so we were
told. This is where the real adventure of the day began.
I ended up on the first van to depart, as I was ready to be
at Camp 1 at this point (it was already about 3 pm). As such, I also ended up
with maybe the craziest driver on the planet. He was a local guy that seemed to
know the roads pretty well, but I think it was just because he had made the
trip once prior. As we sped down the dirt road at about 60 miles per hour,
everything seemed to be going great. I was thinking there is no way this will
take an hour (and it actually didn’t). However, he also didn’t seem to slow
down for turns or major dips in the road. Now if anyone has ever ridden in the
back of a large van over bumps, you’ll know exactly where I am headed with
this. It started with a few jostles here and there. Then the big dips came
along. I think at least 3 people in the back left that ride with injuries (head
hitting the ceiling, arm banging into the sidewall, etc.). At one point, I even
ended up on the lap of the Brit sitting next to me after the driver leaned back
and said “this one could be a little rough,” as he gunned it to make it up the
other side. As if the whole thing wasn’t already rough. Finally, someone yelled
out “settle down there mate, you’re killing us back here”. At that point, he
did slow down, but the damage was already done, and we were basically arriving
at the Camp 1. We clearly were in the wrong type of vehicles for this type of
ride.
As we departed the vans and grabbed our bags, it set in that
this was going to be a really dirty race, as I realized that he had been
driving with the windows open and both I and my equipment were already
completely covered in dust and sand. However, that was all forgotten in about 2
minutes when I saw the view from Camp. We were basically hanging right near the
Grand Canyon with some pretty spectacular views, which made for some great
evening pictures as the sun started to go down.
In the hours to follow, I made my way to my assigned tent,
met my tent mates (Ken, Nick, Garth, Brian, and Andy – whom I already knew from
the Gobi), mingled with other competitors, plotted race strategies, walked
around the rim of the Grand Canyon, and even learned that, unlike in the Gobi,
I would be able to use a porta pot to go to the bathroom for the week instead
of have to use a hole dug by shovel and surrounded by plastic. Moreover, I
learned that I would even have the luxury of being able to wash my hands in a
wash basin provided by the porta pot provider; life would be good. Finally,
during this time, we learned that one of our tent mates had been traded to
another tent. Specifically, we lost a French guy to the tent of all French
people (except Greg an American and Phelim an Irishman), and we received Greg. At
which point, Phelim (my new-found friend) pointed out that he was now in a tent
with ALL French speaking people, and he would go through the week totally lost!
Andy also made it known that he should have been involved in any potential
trade talks, and that tent trades should go through him for approval. Still, we
only had 7 people in our tent, while most tents had 8 people. We were lucky;
but we had to stay quiet about this fact to avoid having an unwanted guest
added to our tent.
To conclude the day, we all gathered for final race briefing
and a final meal, not out of a bag, catered by legitimate cowboys and gals. The
meal was really good, and during the meal we were introduced to the drone that
would be following us around on the course to take pictures. I honestly have no
idea why, but this introduction for some reason spurred talks about who could
knock the drone out of the sky and with what. Moreover, during the briefing
itself, we could all see a massive storm building in the distance, which we
anticipated would dump massive amounts of water on us. Fortunately, however, we
only experienced about 10 minutes of rain as the storm seemed to just go around
us.
Following the briefing, we all made our way back to the
tents where I expected to drift right off in preparation for stage 1. As it
turned out, some of the competitors had brought 1 last beer or bottle of wine
to share with others, and everyone ended up hanging out by the camp fire for
about another hour. Still, we all made our way to bed around 9 pm for a night
of restless sleep in anticipation of what was about to come.
Waiting to be bused to Camp 1:
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