Final Pre-race Report directly from Team Shasta

Scott called this a.m. to report that Team Shasta/Core Concepts is all set to begin the race. After all the mandatory pre-race meetings, teams spent the rest of the evening familiarizing themselves as much as possible with the course maps they received.

He said that this course is going to have them trekking the majority of the time - here's the overall breakdown: 198 miles on foot, 205 miles of mountain biking, 10 miles of orienteering, 65 miles of paddling on the Yellowstone River, 9 miles of riverboarding and 15 miles rafting in 2-person inflatable "Duckies" for a grand total of 515 miles of expedition adventure racing fun!

Right out of the gate, they will head up to the summit of Lone Peak (which Scott equated to climbing from the Palmer chair lift at Timberline Ski Resort to the top of Mt. Hood - he & I did that in May!). Then the teams will have a 30-mile trek down the river, where they will first raft in the Duckies and then riverboard the infamous House Rock Class IV rapids. Following the water section, they will be trekking again. Scott doesn't expect them to be doing any biking until Day 3 since the first mountain bike leg isn't until Checkpoint (CP) 12.

Scott said he hoped they would be in the Duckies tomorrow morning, and he mentioned that the race directors are enforcing strict dark zones on every water section (or "leg") for safety. That means if the teams don't reach the water by a certain cut-off time each night, then those teams will be forced to overnight on shore and wait for daylight to begin that river leg.