At the TA, we were greeted by friendly volunteers, and were soon joined by NYARA, who had just completed the short course of the last section and who were in good spirits as usual. We had a bit of a disorganized transition as there wasn’t a central area to change or build paddles, and it was a short hike down to the dock where the boats were, but we got on the water around 3 p.m. and quickly disembarked to grab CP 15 at an island cemetery. We bid adieu to NYARA here and tried to motor down the river, but we started getting buffeted by a building headwind that slowed our progress, and then morphed into a sharp sideways rain. Progress was hard-fought until we got into the drainage of the loch and the river narrowed, forming a current. We enjoyed a very beautiful little stretch of the river, which turned under an ancient cobblestone bridge and passed by an old-timey angler fishing for wild Atlantic salmon – an endangered species in the U.S. – and then we began looking for the mandatory portage around a rougher section of river. Kit was convinced we got out too early but the rest of us thought we did OK, and we pulled our boats down 400 meters of gravel road before reboarding and doing a very tough but mercifully short push through a now very fierce headwind. We beached our boats by Castle Tioram, a ruined fortress built in the 1100s, where we found CP 16. It was a fun break from the boats, and after we relaunched on the east side of the island, the wind was a lot less brutal and we enjoyed the rest of our paddle into the revised take-out spot in a cove that left us around six kilometers of road running to get to next TA. I personally was sad not to see more of the Scottish coast via boat, but I think I would have been outvoted 3-1 if I had taken a poll of our team as to whether they preferred to paddle or run the final kilometers into the transition. At the take-out, we were greeted by the same gruff, sharp-tongued volunteer Kate and I had spent many, many hours with in a van cruising around Lough Corrib in Ireland as we picked up stray paddlers who had been blown off-course in ITERA Ireland in 2016. Thankfully, I knew from that prior experience that he’s actually a really nice guy underneath his sarcastic shell, as we had a near-shouting encounter that turned into one of the funniest moments of the race for me personally. He was very vocally insistent that everyone stay off the road, where there was a lot of fast-moving traffic, but after hours in the boat I needed to relieve myself, so I ran to the far side of the road.
“What are you doing? Get out of the road!” he yelled at me.
“I’m taking a piss!” I yelled back.
Apparently, that has some secondary sort of meaning in the U.K. meaning “yanking your chain” because he was not amused and began yelling even louder at me.
"I’m peeing, I’m peeing!” I yelled back at him, and he let out a belly laugh when he finally got the meaning of my message.
When everyone had peeled off their drysuits and gotten into back their now-drenched race clothing, including sand-packed shoes, we made an impressive effort of running most of the way to TA 6, each of us making our best guess as to whether Tom would have a new bike waiting for him there. When we arrived, just after 8 p.m., we were greeted by more than a bike – our entire crew of family was waiting for us with smiles, applause, and hugs. They had worked all day on securing a bike and then driving it up in the big van to the remote hamlet of Glenuig, and had done so well they even had time for dinner at a local tavern before our arrival. We tried to get some food to go but were told the restaurant had closed (or apparently we just didn’t have the charm of Brian Gatens, who was somehow able to get them to serve NYARA 30 minutes later). While we transitioned, we heard from our family about the adventure they had been on since receiving our call for help early that morning. It was a great reunion, though all under the watchful gaze of the race staff at the TA to make sure no shenanigans took place. It felt like a fitting bookend to the first half of the race and a welcoming entrance into the next stage.
“What are you doing? Get out of the road!” he yelled at me.
“I’m taking a piss!” I yelled back.
Apparently, that has some secondary sort of meaning in the U.K. meaning “yanking your chain” because he was not amused and began yelling even louder at me.
"I’m peeing, I’m peeing!” I yelled back at him, and he let out a belly laugh when he finally got the meaning of my message.
When everyone had peeled off their drysuits and gotten into back their now-drenched race clothing, including sand-packed shoes, we made an impressive effort of running most of the way to TA 6, each of us making our best guess as to whether Tom would have a new bike waiting for him there. When we arrived, just after 8 p.m., we were greeted by more than a bike – our entire crew of family was waiting for us with smiles, applause, and hugs. They had worked all day on securing a bike and then driving it up in the big van to the remote hamlet of Glenuig, and had done so well they even had time for dinner at a local tavern before our arrival. We tried to get some food to go but were told the restaurant had closed (or apparently we just didn’t have the charm of Brian Gatens, who was somehow able to get them to serve NYARA 30 minutes later). While we transitioned, we heard from our family about the adventure they had been on since receiving our call for help early that morning. It was a great reunion, though all under the watchful gaze of the race staff at the TA to make sure no shenanigans took place. It felt like a fitting bookend to the first half of the race and a welcoming entrance into the next stage.
We decided the TA would be a great place to sleep, and so after bidding our families goodbye, we got our bikes built, cooked and ate some food, set up the tent behind the community hall, and prepared for three hours of sleep. Except for Kit, who decided to take advantage of the hall’s showers. That turned out to be a mistake, as halfway through her cleansing the hot water ran out, and she was forced to use her skimpy pack towel to scrub the soap off while nearly screaming out due to the cold. Sadly, the rest of the team missed the entertaining episode as we had all passed out immediately in the cozy and quiet spot we had found, and despite her mishap, Kit soon joined us in sleep.
Our alarm went off at 2 a.m. and we were all soon ready to go, the cold night air encouraging us to get moving. But just as we were about to leave, Tom discovered an army of baby ticks had infested his legs, most likely during the hike-a-bike the previous day. We all agreed he should remove them immediately, and he set to it, though that gave the rest of us not much to do but wait around. Forgetting about the rule prohibiting sleeping in TA, or maybe too far gone to care, I lay down on a thin wooden bench and let my eyes close. But the TA staff were having none of it and they told Evan to wake me up. He nudged me and reminded me of the rule but I yelled back to him, from a dark and slumbrous place, “I’m busy!” But I got the point and realized I needed to stand up if I didn’t want the episode to happen again. Internally, I was a little miffed at the rule-abiding staff for not perceiving the situation of Tom needing to take the ticks out and allowing us to wait with our eyes closed, as we had already put away all our TA gear and it was too cold to nap outside. Regardless, Tom took around 30 minutes to get all the ticks out – they were small and Tom estimated the count at more than 40 total – but besides being upset that he was the only one who had been attacked, he was good to go.
We made excellent time in a paceline on nice new asphalt, occasionally having a few odd and humorous stops at construction zones where the road narrowed to a single lane and a stoplight told us to wait. After around two hours, we arrived at where CP 17 should have been, but found only a monument to some local lords who had been Jacobite supporters. We searched around the memorial for a while, then spread out beyond it and were lucky to find the point wrapped around a bench, which matched up with the clue of “viewpoint.” At the time, though, it was pitch black and we couldn’t see anything. We were told later we had missed a spectacular view, which is both a humorous and sorrowful part of adventure racing. We then searched for and found the road under the Glenfinnan Viaduct, also known as the Harry Potter rail bridge, though again, we couldn’t see much as it was just getting light, and began a mounted and then dismounted ascent of a beautiful pass through a treeless mountain range.
Our alarm went off at 2 a.m. and we were all soon ready to go, the cold night air encouraging us to get moving. But just as we were about to leave, Tom discovered an army of baby ticks had infested his legs, most likely during the hike-a-bike the previous day. We all agreed he should remove them immediately, and he set to it, though that gave the rest of us not much to do but wait around. Forgetting about the rule prohibiting sleeping in TA, or maybe too far gone to care, I lay down on a thin wooden bench and let my eyes close. But the TA staff were having none of it and they told Evan to wake me up. He nudged me and reminded me of the rule but I yelled back to him, from a dark and slumbrous place, “I’m busy!” But I got the point and realized I needed to stand up if I didn’t want the episode to happen again. Internally, I was a little miffed at the rule-abiding staff for not perceiving the situation of Tom needing to take the ticks out and allowing us to wait with our eyes closed, as we had already put away all our TA gear and it was too cold to nap outside. Regardless, Tom took around 30 minutes to get all the ticks out – they were small and Tom estimated the count at more than 40 total – but besides being upset that he was the only one who had been attacked, he was good to go.
We made excellent time in a paceline on nice new asphalt, occasionally having a few odd and humorous stops at construction zones where the road narrowed to a single lane and a stoplight told us to wait. After around two hours, we arrived at where CP 17 should have been, but found only a monument to some local lords who had been Jacobite supporters. We searched around the memorial for a while, then spread out beyond it and were lucky to find the point wrapped around a bench, which matched up with the clue of “viewpoint.” At the time, though, it was pitch black and we couldn’t see anything. We were told later we had missed a spectacular view, which is both a humorous and sorrowful part of adventure racing. We then searched for and found the road under the Glenfinnan Viaduct, also known as the Harry Potter rail bridge, though again, we couldn’t see much as it was just getting light, and began a mounted and then dismounted ascent of a beautiful pass through a treeless mountain range.
The hike up was mostly dry, minus a few stream crossings, and took around an hour, but the descent was a muddy mess and even while trying to ride a few sections (and mostly failing, with both Tom and myself going over the handlebars – I ended up with a nice tattoo of my shifter and brake on my right leg), it took us an hour-and-a-half to descend to CP 18. This was where we had another major navigational decision to make, but with CP 19 only being a one-hour penalty and it likely being a four- to six-hour journey over another pass to get it, having already short-coursed, we decided it most definitely wasn’t worth it and we continued on a double-track cement road on the north end of Loch Arkaig, which was some of the most fun riding we did in the race, minus the two or three oncoming cars that nearly crushed us as they came over the frequent blind ascents on the hilly road. But avoiding disaster, we made it to the end of the loch, turned south and down a fun mix of roads and trails along the unoriginally named Loch Lochy, and blitzed down a rail-trail through Fort William, along Neptunes Staircase along the Caledonian Canal, to the TA at what appeared to be a cattle holding pen near the base of the tallest mountain in Scotland, Ben Nevis.
We arrived around noon, though it felt later since we had been up and active for most of the night. It was a nice, sunny day – hot even – and we set up ourselves in the shade on the side of the large building. The next section was what we thought could be the crux of the race – a long hike over Ben Nevis and a cirque traverse along a high, rocky ridgeline, then down into a remote valley and back up a 3,000-foot climb up the Mamore Range and down into Kinlochleven. We knew it was important to get as much done as possible in the daylight and when the weather was good, but we also felt like we were in good position, considering we saw Sweco sleeping around the side of the building. We thought they were leading the race, but were told by race volunteers and Tom Gibbs, who was manning the TA, that they had made a severe nav mistake that had forced them to ride an extra 50 kilometers to get CP 19. That made us very happy we had not gone for that point, as only a strong team like Sweco would even consider continuing after such an extraordinary effort. We made sure to get a lot of solid food eaten and headed out after a 1:30 TA, which was not the fastest but wasn’t too leisurely either. We had a pep in our step as walked out of TA, though we were burdened by our heaviest packs of the race, as we had lots of foul-weather clothing as well as mandatory helmets for the mountaineers’ route we were going to take up to the ridge of Ben Nevis. It’s always fun to move from one big stage to another and we all were happy to be feeling strong. We had even put on sunscreen, which Tom Gibbs commented on by saying, “You’re lucky to be needing sunscreen on a day when you’re climbing the Ben!” Apparently, the mountain is renowned for its bad weather…
We hiked up some fun mountain biking trails, which caused minor navigational annoyance for Tom and Kit, before finding the hiking trail that led up to the hikers hut in the middle of the bowl under the cirque. At this point, the solid food hit our systems and we needed a bathroom, but we were told there was none at the hut, and there was nowhere to hide in the valley, so we clenched up, donned our helmets, and made our way up a scree field along a marked route to the base of the mountaineers route. We had been told this was going to be intense, involving Class 3-4 scrambling with exposure. Furthermore, we found ourselves now shrouded in a thickening cloud fog, though fortunately, there were expert guides positioned all along the route warning us of what to expect ahead and giving us suggestions for how best to approach the obstacles. From my personal perspective, it was never that scary and felt similar to some of the more technical parts of Mount Katahdin in Maine, but there were some killer views and Rob Howard from Sleepmonsters got some great photos of us on one of the steeper pitches. We got to the top of the climb by 5:30 p.m. and made our way through a steady stream of hikers of all types to the monument marking the highest point in the U.K. at 6 p.m. We had a quick celebration and then had a rock-hopping descent down to the knife’s edge ridge, which had intense relief on the left-hand side that only came into view in short bursts as the low-flying clouds cleared for brief intervals. As we picked our way through the technical route, we encountered a number of very ill-equipped hikers who did not appear ready to able to spend a night on the mountain. One group was wearing jeans and the apparent leader was fiddling with a compass. I asked him if they were OK and he said they had found a sign that told them they needed to keep a bearing of 61 degrees to get down from the mountain. I wished them luck and then privately wondered if we were liable to help these people, who clearly had no idea how much danger they were putting themselves in.
We hiked up some fun mountain biking trails, which caused minor navigational annoyance for Tom and Kit, before finding the hiking trail that led up to the hikers hut in the middle of the bowl under the cirque. At this point, the solid food hit our systems and we needed a bathroom, but we were told there was none at the hut, and there was nowhere to hide in the valley, so we clenched up, donned our helmets, and made our way up a scree field along a marked route to the base of the mountaineers route. We had been told this was going to be intense, involving Class 3-4 scrambling with exposure. Furthermore, we found ourselves now shrouded in a thickening cloud fog, though fortunately, there were expert guides positioned all along the route warning us of what to expect ahead and giving us suggestions for how best to approach the obstacles. From my personal perspective, it was never that scary and felt similar to some of the more technical parts of Mount Katahdin in Maine, but there were some killer views and Rob Howard from Sleepmonsters got some great photos of us on one of the steeper pitches. We got to the top of the climb by 5:30 p.m. and made our way through a steady stream of hikers of all types to the monument marking the highest point in the U.K. at 6 p.m. We had a quick celebration and then had a rock-hopping descent down to the knife’s edge ridge, which had intense relief on the left-hand side that only came into view in short bursts as the low-flying clouds cleared for brief intervals. As we picked our way through the technical route, we encountered a number of very ill-equipped hikers who did not appear ready to able to spend a night on the mountain. One group was wearing jeans and the apparent leader was fiddling with a compass. I asked him if they were OK and he said they had found a sign that told them they needed to keep a bearing of 61 degrees to get down from the mountain. I wished them luck and then privately wondered if we were liable to help these people, who clearly had no idea how much danger they were putting themselves in.
By this point, darkness was beginning to fall and the weather was getting colder and wetter. We finally got to the correct ridge to begin our descent to CP 23, which was in a saddle that marked the beginning of a trail through a swampy river that would meet up with another trail going over the next mountain. We were supposed to stay within 100 meters of the river at all times, but as it snaked its way back and forth through the valley, and with darkness now fully upon us, it was hard to follow the watercourse. Worried we were out of bounds, the team started running along a hypotenuse toward the river. I wasn’t feeling it; I called for them to slow down. We took a quick stop to get out our lights, take off a layer –it was 15 to 20 degrees warmer in the valley – and I also got out our secret weapon, our portable stereo. Then we continued at a brisk walk down to the trail junction, where we saw a string of lights heading up into the clouds. To join them, first we had to ford a river. After we got across, finding the water to be mercifully shallow, I hit play on the stereo and we began climbing. Kate had made the playlist and it was random, upbeat, and perfect for a middle-of-the-night pick-me-up. With the stereo lodged in my backpack’s top pocket and pointed toward my head, I couldn’t hear anything that was being said, but there wasn’t much to do other than hike uphill, so it wasn’t a problem. We made good time up the 1,000-meter climb while jamming to the greatest hits of the ‘80s and ‘90s, passing several teams, including one sleeping in a hole on the summit with their bothy thrown over them like a blanket. Then we found CP 25 at the Stob Coire a Chairn summit and began our second ridgeline traverse of the hike, until we got to a sketchy section that appeared to cliff out. I turned off the radio, Tom crawled ahead to see if the route was correct. Evan and Kit wondered if maybe we had gone too far on the ridge. But Tom’s route-finding was correct and we successfully descended the ridge, hit the play button the music again and planned on flying down a trail the map showed ran right into TA 8. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the trail. But we saw the lights of Kinlochleven at the bottom of the downslope, and so we just pointed ourselves downhill and did our best to stay upright as we made our way down a steep grassy hillside littered with sheep and cow dung. It was a long, painful descent, followed by a bit of tricky navigation into the TA, but we finally made it in at around 4 a.m., tired but feeling triumphant we had gotten through the crux of the race.
