Spread Your Wings in Texas

Team Vignette rides (and runs and paddles) again!  And sometimes just treks.

We flew to Texas for the 20th anniversary of Too Cool Racing's Spread Your Wings adventure race at Camp Eagle.  It's always a fun weekend, and this one was especially great because a bunch of racers from over the years showed up to celebrate.  Robyn and Art even humored me with an "all on foot" rogaine version, which got a few other takers including Jason and Kip.  Dave found a loaner bike for John so we could fly with minimal gear (thank you Dave!)

Here we are at the race start, doing a little happy dance:

Pre-race selfie, with Jim from Rattlesnake Racing in the background talking to Kip:

The race started with a trek across a low spot in the river, and Jillian was there to take pictures of everyone.  I believe my reaction was to try to splash her, and it looks like Jason's reaction was to try to stop me:

We climbed a small hill, found Danny handing out little bald eagles as verification that we made it to the top (thank you Danny!), and turned around to head back down.  Coming back across the river, and now it looks like Jason and Kip were both trying to keep me from splashing anyone:

Back at the pavilion, we traded our little eagles for our first map and instructions.  Kip and Jason and I were racing solo but teaming up for however long felt convenient for all of us.  No pressure on anyone to stay out there the whole time even if someone else wanted to.

Map 1 of the 12-hour trekking race:

And our instructions:

Our trekking trio started with the 3 checkpoints with the early time slots, heading slightly out of the way to CP3 first.  Once we figured out exactly which tower contained the checkpoint, we had fun scrambling up ladders and across a big cargo net to get there.  Quite an entertaining beginning to the race.

Back through TA and back across the river to CP12 next to a little waterfall, then wading one final time to the bank where we went to find CP5:

The "task" involved getting into a round, tippy, plastic thing that I suppose could be called a boat if you were being generous.  Jason's technique seemed doable, or at least entertaining to Jason:

The goal was to use your arms to paddle (or swim) the thing around a buoy.  Luckily the buoy wasn't far away.  Kip took several tries to get into the pool toy, tipping over in spectacular fashion multiple times (making spectators laugh):

I think he finally gave up and swam next to it out to the buoy and back:

I initially tried Jason's technique but wasn't comfortable, skipped Kip's methods, and settled on "lazy river float / finger paddle" instead:

At least we gave Jillian plenty of fodder for her photos!

From there we trekked up to the barn for the other task at CP4.  It involved running across the large barn to memorize a set of photos and then running back to put a duplicate set in the same order.  We tried not to drip too much on the paper.  Here's the finished product:

OK, enough fun and games, back to the actual business of navigating.  The topo map gave us some fits on the way to CP8.  I've gotten super spoiled with excellent orienteering maps lately and had to put myself back into "USGS" mode.  A missing road made things confusing, then we were more confused seeing Dave and John walking toward us, and finally we reached a main road/reentrant crossing and figured out where we were.  Luckily it was only a short backtrack to CP8 and now I understand better why it seemed to be placed too far up the draw.

Things got a lot better after that.  Kip remembered the area going to CP13 and told us that it could be really confusing.  We slowed down, pace counted, and took good bearings.  There's one place where it's easy to get drawn in the wrong direction, but we pushed through some brush going downhill and then we were on the proper narrow spur and walked right to the checkpoint.  Nice job everyone!

We went north and then dropped into the drainage system to the west.  After a couple small creek hoppings and a bit of contouring we popped out on the road quite close to the "Prospector's Cabin" where we found CP7.  Cool location!

Teams on bikes were also visiting the cabin, and we were completely happy not to be on bikes.  It had rained the night before and the roads were rather muddy in places.  The only effect on us was an occasional puddle to dodge (or walk through, in Kip's case).

Dave looks happy to be on a bike though!  Somewhere on their bike leg:

John seems reasonably pleased as well:

Our next couple of checkpoints were straightforward - CP1 at the windmill, where all of us declined to jump into the murky water to search for a gold coin bonus.  Then CP6 down in a draw.

We followed the southern fenceline until we located the CP2 cave.  This checkpoint turned out to be a challenge, as a bunch of prior muddy feet made for slippery rocks around the entrance.  We all dropped down into the cave easily enough, found the checkpoint off to one side, and then I tried to climb back out.  It took all 3 of us working together to get ourselves up and out.  Yay for teammates!

Next on the agenda was the top and bottom of the rappel.  We followed the trail down to the river and attempted to walk along it, but eventually ran out of room between the base of the vertical rocks and the riverbank (a cliff above the water).  So we backtracked and climbed up on trails to the overlook.  We found a checkpoint there but it wasn't part of Map 1 for us.  A small trail led to the top of the rappel and CP10.

Since we didn't have rappel equipment (they hand it out at CP9 at the bottom) we couldn't go down on the ropes.  We punched our passport and found the switchback trail down the hill.  After careful perusing of the instruction sheet, we determined that the ropes section was not a required task (like CP's 4 and 5) so we punched CP9 and moved on.

One final checkpoint for Map 1, CP11 across the river.  The water was deep in this area and the best way to the other side appeared to be walking across the little dam.  We made our way onto it and carefully trekked over to the checkpoint, then carefully returned to the west bank.  We might have been an interesting sight to the adventure race team in a kayak but they seemed too tired to be curious about what we were up to.

Coming into TA we ran into Helena and Tammy, a couple of adventure racing friends from way back.  Jillian took a nice picture of them:

We retreated to the foyer of our dorm room to resupply and eat and drink.  Everyone was game to continue onward, especially since it wasn't particularly hot and no one was trying to speed through the course.  Whatever we could accomplish together, we would be happy.

Map 2 (the remaining checkpoints for the 12-hour rogaine):

And the camp map, which might come in handy for some of the closer points:

We headed south, picking up CP25 on the way to CP15 and CP14 near the road.  These were obviously bike points for the adventure race, and we jogged a bit on the easier terrain.  I wish I had taken a picture of the beautiful smooth rockface around the reentrant of CP14.

Next we were aiming for the overlook that we had visited in the first half.  But how best to get there?  We tried the road to the left that might help us access camp (depending on the fence situation) but it had a "no trespassing" sign.  So we continued up Hackberry Road until it crossed the river at a shallow ford.

Looking up river, it seemed like there might be a way to stay along the west bank?  We knew the river wasn't crossable further to the north (deep and cliff-lined).  The other option was to go back around to the rappel area, but a more direct route would save time and energy.  Also, it would be more of an adventure!

The nice path along the bank devolved into a bit of cross-country but nothing too bad.  The open question was the fence at the camp boundary.  If only we had the foresight to check it when we were near that spot earlier.  And it turned out to be... good luck for us!  There was a way to hang onto the last pole and easily swing around it to the other side.  It's fun when taking a chance works out like you hoped.

We climbed up to the overlook to punch CP26, dropped down west into the drainage and followed a trail for a ways, thrashed through some trees to find CP21, then climbed a steep hillside up to CP24.  There was a shaded bench under the giant zipline and we took the opportunity to rest and grab a snack.

Then 3 checkpoints in draws (CP17, 19, and 18), descending and climbing on repeat.  I messed up the bearing slightly on the way to CP18, ending up at the road.  The slight backtrack was minor and no one complained.  I believe we had some cloudy skies that afternoon and we were all thankful for the moderate temperatures.

Returning almost to the zipline, we hung a left to trek along a ridge and then drop down to CP20.  Back over the ridge and down to CP22 and now we were on the park map.  That helped with the trails to CP23 and down to the main road.

Only one checkpoint left and none of us was ready to quit before clearing the course.  We followed the road north and then some tracks in to CP16, finishing with a trek back to the finish line.  We were all so pleased to finish the whole thing, together, and having fun along the way.  Thank you Kip and Jason for an excellent day!

At the awards breakfast the next morning, where Dave and John received hugs from the race directors (Robyn and Art) for their excellent showing - 2nd place overall in the adventure race.  Well done!

Our group of trekkers was collectively 3rd in the rogaine division, which pleased us greatly.

Sunday was a relaxed day, chatting with friends, picking up some controls, taking a nap...

Hanging out for Sunday afternoon happy hour - with Jim and Becky, their son Andrew, and Danny who got to experience the whole Spread Your Wings weekend for the first time (yay Danny!):

More friends and family having a jolly good time at happy hour:

Sunday evening featured yet another excellent bit of entertainment - Andrew hosted a murder mystery race and of course we were in.  Andrew explained the rules as people started applying fake mustaches.  Nice touch, and maybe that would make us smarter.

Or at the very least, it would make us laugh!

We ran around camp collecting clues, solving on the run (as we tend to do), high-fiving other teams, and wearing headlamps because prior iterations had happened in the dark.  I mean, we're already wearing dark mustaches, might as well embrace looking silly.  Not sure what John was pointing at, as we were on our way back to the finish line.  It was all super fun, thank you Andrew!

Hooray for an excellent weekend - and I believe Robyn, Kip, and I were dancing at the prospect of getting together again in August:

Photo credits include Jillian, Dave, Jim, and probably a few others!

Bonus race report from Dave:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YnaWKMg1_aIrkEcBVdjeBHd38PIuoER9mRZ7IF5r0VA

Cocodona Sweep with Robyn

Robyn and I had a good time doing sweep for the Bigfoot 200 last year, so we decided it might be fun to sign up for some sweep shifts at the Cocodona 250.  The race is sort of in our backyard, starting north of Phoenix, meandering through various mountain ranges and valleys, and ending in Flagstaff.  We have both been curious about it and I'm finding that sweep volunteering is useful, good hiking training, and a great way to see parts of a race course.

Plus an enjoyable way to spend hours with friends!  John joined us for the first section since we were responsible for our own transportation (different from Destination Trail races) and a self-shuttle between the remote aid stations would have been very challenging without his help.  Thank you John!!

We picked up Robyn at the Phoenix airport and had a couple hours to check out the Capitol building.  I enjoy seeing state capitols and we hadn't been to the one in Arizona yet.  It's perhaps the least obvious of all the state capitols we have seen so far, not easy to spot when driving around downtown.

The exhibits inside were much more interesting, including a giant Lego state flag:

Here's the building, if you're ever looking for it in Phoenix:

Well hello little cactus!

John drove us up to Crown King a few hours before our shift started, which was fun for racer-watching.  They also fed us well, much appreciated.  We took a little nap and then it was time to get started:

Gotta love a nice Jo(h)n!

Our overnight walking went well.  Except for some initial complaining about the course markings being tied to the vegetation instead of attached by clothespin.  Another plus for Destination Trail.  We had needed to wait for the previous sweepers at Crown King, so we started with a gap on the racers ahead of us and didn't see anyone that night.

The sun came up as we trekked along the doubletrack road that took us to our midpoint aid station.  They seemed a bit surprised to see us but managed to scrounge up some snacks for us.  A brief music/dancing break to a Train song was the highlight of that stop.

The course splits at that point, with the Bradshaw Brute 100 taking a longer path to the left.  Those course markings were still up, so apparently that sweep team was late.  We continued along the 250-mile route and gathered the markings we were responsible for.  When the courses converged again, Robyn had the presence of mind to ask whether we might be missing any 100-mile runners in the previous section (since the markings were still present at the other end too).  We didn't have cell coverage to see the race tracking map.  A quick InReach chat with race command confirmed that we were still behind all runners and good to go.

Looks like someone forgot a tool at some point in not-too-recent history, seemed photo-worthy:

The end of this section climbs up, up, up, toward a tower visible from a long way down.  We eventually caught up with a couple runners and stayed with one until the summit.  Then she took off to run the next downhill mile while we continued picking up course markings.

On our way into the Kamp Kipa aid station - hi Kip!  Also, Robyn found another tool, less rusty and worth carrying the short way in:

John was there to greet us, we had an excellent aid station breakfast, and we met the next sweep team.  We offered to drive their vehicle down to the Prescott aid station where they were finishing, and they appreciated not having to come back up to retrieve it.

After a quick pop-in at the Whiskey Row aid station, we dropped John off for the shuttle that would bring him back to Tucson.  Thank you again John!!  Then it was off to a hotel for showers and sleep.

The next morning we swung by the aid station at the Dells to see my friend Jil (aid station captain there) and it was great to chat with her.  It was also the 100-mile finish line, and a super scenic location:

Just so pretty!

Next stop = the top of Mingus Mountain, where a couple podcasters had set up a basketball challenge for the racers.  What's that, you might ask?  We kept hearing about it and got quite curious too.  They were using a real basketball court and had set up different points for different shot selections:

One of the brains behind the MBA (Mingus Basketball Association):

We shot some hoops (poorly) and admired the leaderboard listing the highest scoring runners.  Apparently many of them appreciated the quirky diversion and some even scored some points:

On to Jerome, where we wandered into the kaleidoscope shop.  The woman working there took this trippy picture of us, too funny:

We headed down to Sedona for an EV charging and coffee shop break.  Then over to the Deer Pass aid station to park Tug-E and pick up our taxi ride.  That took us to the Jerome aid station, where we hung out for a while and sampled the delicious cinnamon roll waffle invention:

And - birthday cake!  Which was fortuitous because it was also Robyn's birthday that day!  Glad someone managed to take care of her (even if by random happenstance) - happy birthday, Robyn!!

Hanging out with the aid station guys into the evening, when it got cool enough for one of them to break out his, I'm going to say donkey?, suit:

Our last runner barely made the cutoff, and various people helped him with food and supplies while they encouraged him to keep going.  He sat down just outside the aid station for a while after that.  While we waited for him to collect himself, I noticed the big Jerome "J" lit up on the hill.  I didn't imagine what kind of memories this picture would spark later:

The runner got going eventually and we slowly followed.  The bright "J" was no longer visible and I lamented to Robyn that she hadn't gotten to see it...

It didn't take long to catch up to the guy, who was second-guessing his decision to leave the aid station.  His feet were hurting, which was understandable after so many miles.  We paused for a moment to admire the "J" that appeared again up on the hill, making me happy that Robyn hadn't missed it after all (it's the little things in life).  There was a brief moment of wondering whether our runner had missed a turn, but we were in cell phone range now and could verify on the tracker map that he was indeed going in the right direction.

We caught up to him again at a gate that was hard to open.  He had given up on it and was lying down next to it, so we figured out the gate and the group of us continued on down the hill.  Our course manager got ahold of us to find out our status and to clear up some confusion about what Spot tracker we were carrying (a repurposed runner tracker because the next sweep team was way behind and unable to hand theirs off).

It was good to have contact with the course manager because our runner finally decided he needed to quit (he wasn't going to make the next cut-off at that pace).  We coordinated an extraction, followed our guy down to the next road, and handed him off to her.

Now moving at our own pace, we continued collecting a huge amount of signage.  Walking through deserted Clarkdale in the middle of the night was a hoot.  Back on the trail, along the river including an odd swampy spot, then to the calf-high river crossing.  Next we went through a section of Tuzigoot National Monument I hadn't seen before, past a weird abandoned car if I remember right, and then into the Dead Horse Ranch state park trail system.

The cutoff times for this and the next section were really tight, faster than we could move with all the course markings to collect and carry.  That, plus the extraction, put us well behind the aid station scheduled closing.  Luckily we had an excellent course manager who made sure to leave out plenty of food options for us, even though everyone was long asleep.  We resupplied at the Dead Horse aid station, thankfully dropped off the pile of signs, then continued on up the trail.

Amazingly, the giant bright "J" was still visible.  Every time we thought we were heading away from it, into the hills, we would turn a corner and there it was again.  Were we going in circles?  OK, now that has to be the last time.  Nope, there is it again!  The race course twisted and turned and kept coming back around to point toward Jerome.

Finally we exited the state park and set off across the desert as it was starting to get light.  This section felt very long.  We didn't see another racer, although I tracked a woman I thought we might catch.  Then she got extracted (I watched a medic Spot track drive in to collect her) before we could reach that point.

Taking a break in the shade before the final push:

Carrying course signs in my arms as we approached hints of civilization:

We trekked under a highway via tunnel and into the Deer Pass aid station, where we could drop off another load:

We were again well past the aid station closure, and this time there weren't any provisions available but at least we had the truck and our own supplies.  We took a nap before driving up to Flagstaff to prepare for the final leg of our journey.  Showers at Planet Fitness, food and race watching downtown, then over to the Tuthill campground for the night.

That was a good spot to sleep (actually, oversleep!) because our last sweep assignment was the beginning of the 40-mile Flagstaff Crest course which started at the fort.  I missed my alarm but only by a little.  We threw everything in the truck, ate a quick breakfast, and we were only slightly later than planned at the race start.  We watched the runners depart and headed out soon after:

The walking was lovely, through ponderosa forests, along familiar routes, on a nice cool morning.  We chatted with 250-mile runners - mostly walkers by this point - all of them moving well.  We didn't even have to pick up course markings (except 40-mile specific signs) for several miles, until this split:

We hoped none of the 40 milers missed that turn.  The difficulty in this sweep shift turned out to be the lack of Spot trackers on the racers (since it was a shorter course).  We had gotten used to verifying that we didn't accidentally walk past someone who might be off in the woods "on business".  Now we were on urban trails, around non-race runners, and it was harder to keep track of the people we were supposed to be following.

The aid station in the middle of our section featured happy people, snacks, and this funny elevation chart that looks way worse than it is:

Our mistake was not thinking to contact race command to verify that all the 40 mile runners had crossed the aid station timing mat when we arrived.  I learn things every time I sweep and maybe someday I'll get proficient at it.  A short way down the trail we got a text that a runner had come in behind us.  Somehow we had missed him, presumably one of those "doing your business in the woods" things because he turned out to be someone we would never have overlooked if we had seen him.

So we waited for him to catch up, chatted a bit, then continued our task of collecting race markings like this one that Robyn peeled off the sidewalk and plastered to her front:

That made me giggle and decide to collect an arrow of my own - we might have been a bit punchy by this point:

The rest of the walk involved trying to keep track of our runner.  He disappeared into a park bathroom when we weren't looking and managed to end up behind us AGAIN.  For a seemingly easy sweep section, this one turned out to be challenging in an unexpected way.  Finally we reached the second aid station without losing anyone else (that we know of!)

After overnighting in a hotel, we had a few minutes to watch some of the last 250-mile finishers, and they were so inspiring!  I should have thought to take some pictures but it was more fun to be in the moment.  In lieu of that, here's the finish line at a quieter time:

What an entertaining, interesting, different kind of week!  Thank you for the excellent company, Robyn!  Let's spend more time together on the trail sometime soon.

Photo credits include Robyn and John