Musing and Errata on the world of Adventure Racing from the Yak
presented by MPGear.com

Heavy snow (yes snow not rain) combined with winds gusting to 50+ mph forced Raceday to stop the show at about 7pm Saturday night. The decision was made out of concern for the safety of the teams that hadn't dropped out by that point...not many.

Those teams incuded the three leaders who had already departed TA2 (bike to trek) and a few others that had not yet reached TA2 and had not called for their support crews to pick them up. All teams were informed of the decision at manned checkpoints or by radio and immediately began working their way off the course, but one team...Team Layers (#29) remained unaccounted for.

Layers were still on their bikes far behind the leaders, heading towards TA2 and had not been in contact with race management or staff since 9am that morning. By about 9pm search and rescue efforts were underway. The team was eventually able to radio HQ to report that they were in fact very lost. They launched a flare which was observed by a member of the search team on an ATV who then located the racers and got them off the mountain. All team members are ok and outside of enduring several hours biting cold and blowing snow, were unscathed.

I'm editing photos this afternoon (no HD crash or stolen gear this time) and will start uploading tonight. With the race cut short the decision was made that teams would be ranked in the order they reached CP17. ASM took third as they had not made it to CP17 when the race was called.

1. Hooked
2. Subaru
3. ASM

UPDATE: My early reporting as is sometimes the case with 2nd, 3rd or 4th hand information has turned out to include some inaccuracies. Fortunately, Mac of Team Layers has been in touch and provided more details on the events that led to their snowbound tribulations.

The team was never actually lost. In fact they knew where they were from start to finish. They chose to continue through the worsening weather when most/all other teams dropped out and remained within striking distance of the top ten for most of the race. After all it's April in NC...how bad could it get?

Pretty bad. When they realized Mother Nature had their number the team immediately began working their way to a location where they could be retrieved. This required them to carry their ice encrusted bikes for 2km along the ridgeline between CP12 and CP13 through 2' snow drifts in 50 mph winds.

When the team finally reached a spot accesible by vehicles they were able to make radio contact. They did fire a flare to mark their location, but the search team was not able to see it in the near white out conditions. It was Dave's directions to their precise location that ultimately got the team off the mountain.

Thanks Mac, for setting the record straight. All I can say is that in the face of such inclement weather it's a good thing you guys were wearing your...Layers :-)