Team Untamed New England At The End Of The World
For the past few years our team has talked about doing one of the most isolated, pristine and truly epic adventure races out there – the Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race. We had seen the pictures and spoke with past racers who con- firmed this is one amazing expe- rience. Unfortunately our regular teammate – John Ranson – could not make the commitment with De- nise Rispolie, James Galipeau and myself. It was November and the race was in only 3 months so we needed to contact some others we knew who might be up for the task. The first person we asked was An- drew Cameron, from Team Salo- mon-Suunto. We’d raced with him twice in the summer of 2009, both to some enjoyable overall wins, so we knew he’d be a great fit, plus a very strong athlete and navigator. Amazingly he responded he was up for the challenge and our team was set.
Next, we contacted some compa- nies who we thought might be in- terested in helping us with some of the extensive gear required. The amount of support companies we received was outstanding – compa- nies like Princeton Tec, Hilleberg the Tentmaker, Fox River Socks, Aquatabs, Icebreaker, Meal Kit Supply Canada, Smith Optics, Mountain Hardware along with our usual sponsors Running Free and Salomon, Phat Moose and Rohloff – all provided us with some essen- tial equipment needed for a suc- cessful race. We would be named after our title sponsor (and a favor- ite race of ours!) Team Untamed New England (which drew some curious questions given our home country of Canada!).
We took the 20+ hour flight out as late as possible, missing the official registration and crammed in regis- tration, grocery shopping, packing and testing for the next few days in Punta Arenas prior to race start. The international atmosphere and an exciting course preview had us restless in the nights prior to the race. The course would feature an 8K paddle across the Strait of Ma- gellan, followed by a mix of 300+K of trekking and biking across the relatively flat portions of North- ern Tierra Del Fuego. Once at the south end of the island, it featured a 100+K trek across the Darwin Cor- dillera, featuring many mountain passes and basically up-and-down (repeat 5-7 times) for the entire trek. Finally arriving near the Bea- gle Channel, we would kayak 50K across to Navarino Island where a 40K trek and similarly distanced mountain bike took us to the finish in Puerto Williams, the southern- most city on earth. Total distance was right around 600K.
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