2016 ITERA, PART FOUR
5:30 a.m. the next morning, we woke up and got ready to head back onto the road. The going was still not very fast, but it wasn’t as difficult as before, and we made it down to the ferry, about 60 kilometers, by 11 a.m.
The ferry was a fun break from biking, and it turned out, the end of our biking. We were told by race HQ to find another team, the Lakes Crusaders, in the town of Tarbert, where the ferry landed, and to wait for a pick-up there. Found them in a cute B&B, bought some bread and cheese at a nearby market and watched some Olympics until our ride came. Loaded our bikes up and got a 30-minute ride during which we all promptly fell asleep.
We expected to wake up in Killarney, but instead when the van stopped, we found ourselves at the next TA. Unexpectedly, we would be allowed to do the last hiking stage, a 44-kilometer trek up and over the highest mountain in Ireland, Carantoohil, but only if we left the TA by 7 p.m., giving us about 1.5 hours to break down our bikes and dress for a long night in the mountains. We managed that nicely, plus a blog post:
making our way down the irish coast the hard way...with a 50-60 mile headwind blocking our route. Had a great night of camping on the lake corrib, then a very few difficult hours in the morning struggling to move forward before realizing we were cooked and turning torwards shore. got a ride to kinvarra, quick ta turnaround, and a fun short bike to the cave for some bike spelunking. then more biking, but the weather continued to worsen until we thought it could get no worse. claire called the rain in our eyes rain splinters. we were in our granny gears going downhill! pedaled thru the night and arrived, broken, in Lahinge, where we begged a hotel for mercy and they gave us a room. starker of course found the hot tub and we ate some breakfast and then slept and ate for 24 hours. thinking we were out of the race, we biked 50k down to the ferry in the morning, waited around on the other end with the Lakes Crusaders from Uk, watched an hour of olympics, then our ride arrived. loaded up, refueled on cheese and bread, and then arrived at the ta to find we are back on for the hike! cant wait to go thrash our bodies into the shape they should be in at the end of a 5 day adventure race. thanks to all for the messages of support - they are bringing us energy and tears of thankfulness for the wonderful friends and family we have.
We left the TA with the two ladies from the Lakes Crusaders (their teammates were injured and didn’t do the trek). We made it over one pass in drenching rain, passing by the now-ubiquitous sheep and neon green grass, but once again missing out on what probably were spectacular views due to clouds. Heading downhill, we eventually ended up on a trail that, with all the rain, had turned into a knee-deep river - it was comical in a dark humor sort of way.
About 20K into the trek, we came across a pub along the route, and just for the heck of it, we decided to check it out. As Starker opened the door, he bumped into a woman who apologized in a familiar American accent - Abby from Roostock! We had a warm reunion before Rootstock had to hit the road to maintain their eighth-place ranking amongst full-course teams. We headed out behind them. Claire, who by this time had established a reputation for pulling out just the right snack at just the right moment, revealed a tuna pouch and we feasted as we moved through a beautiful wooded area, then through some bogs and finally to the base of the big climb up the Carantoohil range.
We began climbing just as it was getting dark, and Kate navved us perfectly up at least 700 meters of elevation gain to the ridgeline. Then she had a minor crisis of confidence. With the wind still howling and the rain unceasing, Cliff whipped out the bothy bag and we all huddled together in the surprisingly warm comfy feeling Goretex shelter. We snacked and calmly talked through our plan. Stay on the ridge, trust our compass bearing, be careful with our footing but keep moving, keep eating and drinking. Stay together. Most importantly, to crib from The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, don’t panic.
The route continued upwards from the place we stopped, north along a ridge that got increasingly steep on one side. The wind was so loud we had to scream to be heard above it, yet somehow there was still pea soup levels of fog on the ridge. Strangely, once in a while we would encounter a beaming set of glowing eyes through the mist and it took a lot of effort not to get freaked out. But they all belonged to sheep who were more or less ambivalent to us, though we could not understand why they would want to be up on the ridge in the midst of such a crazy storm.
Progress on the ridge was steady, though rarely flat and often rocky. For some of it, there was a path, though it would disappear at times. At one point, we managed to turn ourselves completely 180 degrees around, but noticing the wind was blowing at us from a different angle, we checked our bearing and got back on track. Sometime around midnight, we reached the top of Carantoohil, at around 1,085 meters, the highest point in Ireland. We shouted for joy (a video of this moment is posted on Facebook), dibbed (or is it dipped?) at the CP, and moved on, down several hundred meters to a saddle. We struggled for a moment there, feeling around for the correct ridgeline, but Kate found it eventually and we continued on, up again to another mountain peak, which we reached at around 2 a.m. We almost made a fatal mistake and went down the northerly side of the mountain, which would have put us way off course, but Kate caught it and we hiked back up, then south and down a sloping descent through soft grass and the occasional rock pile. Semi-exhausted, we found a flat piece of ground and crawled into the bivvy again to take a break and revel in our survival.
The ferry was a fun break from biking, and it turned out, the end of our biking. We were told by race HQ to find another team, the Lakes Crusaders, in the town of Tarbert, where the ferry landed, and to wait for a pick-up there. Found them in a cute B&B, bought some bread and cheese at a nearby market and watched some Olympics until our ride came. Loaded our bikes up and got a 30-minute ride during which we all promptly fell asleep.
We expected to wake up in Killarney, but instead when the van stopped, we found ourselves at the next TA. Unexpectedly, we would be allowed to do the last hiking stage, a 44-kilometer trek up and over the highest mountain in Ireland, Carantoohil, but only if we left the TA by 7 p.m., giving us about 1.5 hours to break down our bikes and dress for a long night in the mountains. We managed that nicely, plus a blog post:
making our way down the irish coast the hard way...with a 50-60 mile headwind blocking our route. Had a great night of camping on the lake corrib, then a very few difficult hours in the morning struggling to move forward before realizing we were cooked and turning torwards shore. got a ride to kinvarra, quick ta turnaround, and a fun short bike to the cave for some bike spelunking. then more biking, but the weather continued to worsen until we thought it could get no worse. claire called the rain in our eyes rain splinters. we were in our granny gears going downhill! pedaled thru the night and arrived, broken, in Lahinge, where we begged a hotel for mercy and they gave us a room. starker of course found the hot tub and we ate some breakfast and then slept and ate for 24 hours. thinking we were out of the race, we biked 50k down to the ferry in the morning, waited around on the other end with the Lakes Crusaders from Uk, watched an hour of olympics, then our ride arrived. loaded up, refueled on cheese and bread, and then arrived at the ta to find we are back on for the hike! cant wait to go thrash our bodies into the shape they should be in at the end of a 5 day adventure race. thanks to all for the messages of support - they are bringing us energy and tears of thankfulness for the wonderful friends and family we have.
We left the TA with the two ladies from the Lakes Crusaders (their teammates were injured and didn’t do the trek). We made it over one pass in drenching rain, passing by the now-ubiquitous sheep and neon green grass, but once again missing out on what probably were spectacular views due to clouds. Heading downhill, we eventually ended up on a trail that, with all the rain, had turned into a knee-deep river - it was comical in a dark humor sort of way.
About 20K into the trek, we came across a pub along the route, and just for the heck of it, we decided to check it out. As Starker opened the door, he bumped into a woman who apologized in a familiar American accent - Abby from Roostock! We had a warm reunion before Rootstock had to hit the road to maintain their eighth-place ranking amongst full-course teams. We headed out behind them. Claire, who by this time had established a reputation for pulling out just the right snack at just the right moment, revealed a tuna pouch and we feasted as we moved through a beautiful wooded area, then through some bogs and finally to the base of the big climb up the Carantoohil range.
We began climbing just as it was getting dark, and Kate navved us perfectly up at least 700 meters of elevation gain to the ridgeline. Then she had a minor crisis of confidence. With the wind still howling and the rain unceasing, Cliff whipped out the bothy bag and we all huddled together in the surprisingly warm comfy feeling Goretex shelter. We snacked and calmly talked through our plan. Stay on the ridge, trust our compass bearing, be careful with our footing but keep moving, keep eating and drinking. Stay together. Most importantly, to crib from The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, don’t panic.
The route continued upwards from the place we stopped, north along a ridge that got increasingly steep on one side. The wind was so loud we had to scream to be heard above it, yet somehow there was still pea soup levels of fog on the ridge. Strangely, once in a while we would encounter a beaming set of glowing eyes through the mist and it took a lot of effort not to get freaked out. But they all belonged to sheep who were more or less ambivalent to us, though we could not understand why they would want to be up on the ridge in the midst of such a crazy storm.
Progress on the ridge was steady, though rarely flat and often rocky. For some of it, there was a path, though it would disappear at times. At one point, we managed to turn ourselves completely 180 degrees around, but noticing the wind was blowing at us from a different angle, we checked our bearing and got back on track. Sometime around midnight, we reached the top of Carantoohil, at around 1,085 meters, the highest point in Ireland. We shouted for joy (a video of this moment is posted on Facebook), dibbed (or is it dipped?) at the CP, and moved on, down several hundred meters to a saddle. We struggled for a moment there, feeling around for the correct ridgeline, but Kate found it eventually and we continued on, up again to another mountain peak, which we reached at around 2 a.m. We almost made a fatal mistake and went down the northerly side of the mountain, which would have put us way off course, but Kate caught it and we hiked back up, then south and down a sloping descent through soft grass and the occasional rock pile. Semi-exhausted, we found a flat piece of ground and crawled into the bivvy again to take a break and revel in our survival.
CONTINUED...
OR GO BACK...
