2023 | Expedition Canada
2023 Expedition Canada – Penticton, BC
By: Megan Erspamer
Link to the full story with photos
Article by Gord Goble in Penticton Now
Live tracking: route, checkpoint times & trail mail
Pre-race
Two weeks prior to the race, one of our teammates (Jason Quinn) injured his groin – the worst type of news leading up to a big race! Even more so when it’s one of your navigators.
However, we have Chris Laughren to thank for connecting us with Ian Weir. Ian was stoked, and he was miraculously able to join us from Whitehorse with such short notice. Rock on!
This would be Ian’s first expedition length AR, my third, and I’ve lost count of how many Roy and James have done. 😉 Both Ian and I were excited to learn from the veterans.
Saturday, May 20
I picked up Roy from the Bellingham Airport, and we grabbed lunch before hitting the road to Penticton. But more importantly we were able to grab cases of Ensure PLUS for Roy. Each bottle contains 350 calories of “magic juice”.
I don’t normally like to introduce anything new before a big race or trip, so I declined. However, I was able to try a couple of extras, and daaaaang. I will definitely be adding these into the mix for future races.
James drove from Chilliwack, and we met up at The Sandman Hotel early in the evening. We had two rooms on the same reservation, but they put us on the total opposite side of the hotel. 🤦 That made gear sorting and organizing over the coming days more challenging, but that’s how it goes sometimes!
We went out for a nice dinner, and James helped me to connect my new odometer to my bike.
Sunday, May 21
After breakfast at Dennys, the day was centered around gear check, skill assessments (ropes and packraft self-rescue) and continued gear organization.
James picked Ian up from the Kelowna airport mid-afternoon, we made the rounds for Ian to complete the skill checks, too. We ordered out pizza and then headed to the Opening Ceremony, which was held on a historic vessel called the S.S. Sicamous.
It was fun to mingle on the boat and see familiar faces and meet some new (to me) racers. I just love the AR community.
But not too much mingling because we needed to gather as a team at the hotel now that we had Ian with us and prep and organize our gear! 😄 G2G bye!
After dark, we went for a short bike ride to test our lighting systems and bikes after travel. A not fun discovery: Roy had a new chain installed, but hadn’t replaced his cassette in a while. When the chain was put under load, it wasn't catching properly on the teeth of the cassette. He played around with it for a while and tried various adjustments… While it improved, he still wasn’t able to use his highest gear.
Monday, May 22
We met up again (this time as a full team, woo!) at Denny’s for breakfast. It was the restaurant attached to the hotel, so you couldn’t beat that convenience.
At 11:00am, we had the “prologue” which is a fun pre-race activity that is required to complete, but the time isn’t tracked. It was about 5k with checkpoints at various businesses in the area such as the brewery, visitor’s center, adventure course, etc. It was nice to shake out the legs before the race!
Then we took a team field trip to McDonald’s. We ordered 28 cheeseburgers for the gear bins! It was the longest I’ve ever waited for food at McDonald’s. The guy who finally brought us our order was impressed.
In the evening, there was an all-team meeting where Nathalie (Race Director) introduced the course, shared important details about the whitewater section, and answered questions.
Then it was time to get our bike boxes and gear bins weighed and loaded into the trucks! So: time for the last-minute additions/removals of the cans of Red Bull, Sprite, etc based upon weight. 😀
We ordered out pasta for delivery and ate together on the hotel beds and talked about our goals as a team. Then it was time for the final showers and hours of sleep! The buses were leaving at 3am and our 2:15 alarms were going to come fast.
The Start
We received our first set of maps before loading onto the bus. Roy and James spent the first half of the bus ride mapping, and then we all closed our eyes for a bit. The drivers made one stop part way for a bathroom break – just at a field on the side of the road. AR style? I’m sure that was quite the sight for anyone driving by, ha.
After a few hours, we arrived at Keefer Lake Lodge. It was raining, but luckily we were able to go inside to have pre-ordered coffee and breakfast burritos. The big decision to make was whether or not to bring our snowshoes on the first trek. We might not need them, but if we did… it had the potential to cost us big time. We decided to carry the extra bulk and weight rather than risk it.
Spoiler: we didn’t need them.
Leg 01: Alpine Trek/Run
CPs 1-6. You could go clockwise or counter-clockwise, and we chose clockwise.
Here we are heading up towards CP6, just ahead of Team East Wind from Japan and behind 400team Givaudan from France (except we didn’t know who it was at the time). We were keeping a strong uphill pace, but they were hauling ass. And that’s the last time we saw them on the course!
This photo was taken at a tricky decision point. We decided to cut left up the steep bank out of the creek, and Japan continued down the creek.
We learned a few things as a team during this leg, such as the importance of pace counting and how it always seems like we’ve traveled further than we have when heading off-trail. But the learning did cost us time!
After about 6 hours, we made it back to the start/TA1 and transitioned to biking. It was raining most of the race so far, but we had a brief moment of sun! I was a little too optimistic in my clothing choices that the sun would stick… but it didn’t. 😛
Roy, James and Ian transitioned wicked fast and helped me build my bike, then we were out! We were told that four teams were ahead of us.
Leg 02: Long MTB
👉 Actual: 177 km/110 miles with bonus ~1,000m gain
This was our most challenging leg as a team.
It started easy and largely downhill, and it was great to just cruise and cover ground. We rode through the small town of Lumby and passed Team More Mayo (though we had no idea who they were at the time) who stopped at the Circle K to get coffee. 👋
Eventually the flat and downhill roads came to an end, and we had our first major climb with only more climbing to come after. Ian had a hard time as he hadn’t done any bike training for many months prior to the race. (Remember, he joined our team just two weeks prior!) The fact that he was able to jump in under those circumstances and do as well as he did during the race speaks to his general badass-ness.
James took most of the weight from Ian’s pack and that made a huge difference.
There are two sections of leg 02 that are most memorable!
First big mistake
You can see our actual track above in the blurple color, and the intended route in red.
What happened? Well, it was dark, and we missed the trail. James discovered a different (though we didn’t know it at the time) trail just down the road, and we took it.
Eventually the “trail” petered out and ended. Crap.
Knowing what we know now, the best decision would have been to return to the forest service road and locate the correct trail. However, we decided to bushwhack with our bikes downhill until we connected with the trail below. How bad could it be?
Well, bad. 😅 I wish one of us had been wearing a GoPro through this section! The terrain was steep and full of slippery wood and downed trees that we were lifting our bikes up and over and then crawling over/under/between ourselves. It was frustratingly S-L-O-W.
But we were well past the point of return, and this was our reality. I thought of Marcus Aurelius:
“Everything that happens is either endurable or not. If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining. If it’s unendurable… then stop complaining. Your destruction will mean its end as well. Just remember: you can endure anything your mind can make endurable, by treating it as in your interest to do so. In your interest, or in your nature.”
I think this is one of the most important lessons in adventure racing. Once we fully accept and focus on enduring whatever is happening, it changes everything.
We were getting close to the elevation where we should be running into the trail, but we hadn’t seen it yet. Ian turned to me and said “So, what happens if we don’t run into the trail?”
I replied, “I can’t consider that possibility right now. We must find the trail.” 😂
And eventually, we did! We weren’t exactly sure at what point we intersected the trail, so we headed right first to confirm that it started to turn into uphill switchbacks. And now we knew where we were on the map, woo! We turned around and continued, now back on track.
Second big mistake
Hours later, after lots of hike-a-bike and other fun shenanigans, we started to make our most costly mistake of the race.
From the green circle (CP24 for a future trek) on the map above, you can see the intended route in red that traverses down to the red circle (CP16). We were unable to locate that trail and instead took a switchbacking road downhill. Eventually, we realized where we were and what it meant:
Our only option was to continue all the way down to the lake, and then climb back up to CP16.
More than the distance, the added elevation gain was killer. Leg 02 already had 3,600m of gain by design, and we added another 1,000m – inclusive of continuing uphill from CP16 to be one of two teams that took a much longer and more challenging route to arrive at TA2/3. 😂
At CP16, we were surprised to run into More Mayo again! They also had an interesting night on the bike, and it was fun to briefly commiserate. We continued uphill from there, and they were confused by our direction, instead choosing to head downhill. No surprise, they made it to TA2/3 about 1 hour ahead of us. :lolsob:
Snapped rear brake lever
OH I ALMOST FORGOT. On the singletrack during the middle of the night, Roy clipped his handlebar on a tree and fell over, landing on rock that snapped his rear brake lever!!! Roy survived many ass-over face plants throughout this singletrack section. I witnessed a couple from just behind 😱, and I honestly can’t believe that none resulted in serious injury. It was impressive!
This was the first of many bike legs in the race, and Roy only had a front brake. Uh-oh. More on that later!
Leg 03: Canyoning
I think all of us were looking forward to getting into the cold water in Mill Creek Canyon as a reset and refresh after 24+ hours of racing.
Roy had a shorty, and I thought for sure he was going to freeze. (It turned out okay. :)) In comparison, I was wearing a primarily 5mm suit with a hood and gloves!
It wasn't the most fun to put a wetsuit over a sweaty and dirty body but eventually (we weren’t moving super quick) we managed to get geared up for the canyon and headed in.
The high water levels required several changes to this section of the course for safety reasons.
Ultimately, everything was set up for us with several assisted rappels, but it was cool to move through this incredibly beautiful river canyon. My favorite part was a zipline into a massive pile of foam – Ian is about to do this in the photo above!
We saw team East Wind at TA3, and they weren’t too far behind us.
Leg 04: MTB
This was a very quick and short bike from TA3 to TA4. Enjoyable, type 1 fun. 😄
Leg 05: Canoe
Time to rest the legs!!! We paddled across Wood Lake and then Kalamalka Lake, collecting 3 CPs along the way (19-21).
Thanks to the photographer who captured these gems before we left. 😆
(They missed getting one of Roy! So I included the classic for good measure.)
We had a fairly strong headwind on most of the paddle with the exception of a good ~hour in the middle where we suddenly had the most beautiful and calm weather!
My favorite part about this section was paddling side by side towards the end and having a heart-to-heart conversation about our race thus far and what we’ve learned. We still had a lot of race ahead of us, and we discussed what to focus on for the remainder of the race: having fun, moving closer together as one unit, and communication– especially leading into transitions.
Finally, we had sight on the beach where we would find TA5. 🙌 We were excited to see Team More Mayo there, too!
Leg 06: Long Trek
We started out on the trek just a few minutes after Team More Mayo.
It was early in the evening, and hot and muggy outside! We had a long climb with the sun beating down on us and very little breeze. You know what this means, right? Yes, the mosquitos were out, too! (But were nothing in comparison to what we’d experience later in the race.)
We got CP 22 and yo-yoed with Team More Mayo several times in this section. That was fun – definitely one of my favorite parts of AR!! We somehow passed them, then they passed us when we stopped at toilets for a bathroom break, then we merged on the trail up. We chatted for a while in a line of 8 before they decided to take a turn on the right. We said goodbye, but then we ultimately decided to take that trail, too. 🤣 200ft up, there was Team More Mayo because the trail ended. We turned around and went back to the main road.
First sleep
We continued up and up to CP23 which was at a beautiful lookout over the valley below. It was around 8-9pm at this point, and we decided to keep an eye out for a place to sleep soon. We found a nice flat forest bed just off the road that had a pond nearby – James and Roy took bottles to go get water so we could hydrate real food while we slept. The pond, however, was a fetid pool of green.
We laid down four in a row over a ground tarp, and James set an alarm for 2 hours later. Just as we were settling in, Team More Mayo passed by, haha. 👋 I don’t think I slept at all. For whatever reason, I wasn’t feeling particularly sleepy at that time! I listened to the varying rhythms of deep and ever-changing breathing patterns happening on both sides of me, and I just focused on closing my eyes and resting my mind. FWIW, Roy was the quietest sleeper out of the three ha.
The alarm went off, and we got up and continued onward. My favorite part of the evening trek was a CP next to a pond. I followed the sound of the bullfrogs and ran straight into the CP! The acoustics were incredible, and I could have posted up there all-night listening.
HRT
So, this is where my mind goes when I think back to this leg: HRT, HRT, HRT.
We were on the HRT (High Rim Trail) for forever and ever and ever during this leg. 😝 We would travel on singletrack for a while then hit a forest service road and need to locate where the trail picked up again – which was actually tricky in a few spots at night. Repeat.
The scenery didn’t change at all for hours and hours, and it felt like continuous deja vu.
Roy’s left knee injury
At one point, we crossed a creek via a very wet and slippery log. The log was flat and then inclined towards the end. Roy went first and chose to stand up and walk across. However, it got more sketchy at the incline and in lowering down to change his tactic – he fell directly onto a stick into his knee/quad. He didn’t have a huge reaction, though, so I figured it wasn’t too bad. But more on that later!
Wet and unhappy feet
There was lots of water covering the trails and so our feet were soaked. Ian ended up with some pretty bad foot issues. We took a couple of foot care stops, and Ian was incredibly happy to hear that James had an extra pair of socks he could wear 😂, complete with Skin Doctor and plastic bags. My feet weren’t in great shape either, but it was more so my left achilles tendon that was angry. (It was a mistake for me to wear my Dynafit Ultra 100s during this section because I hadn’t tested them on super long days yet. Lesson learned!)
No CPs to occupy the mind.
There weren’t ANY CPs during this looooong trekking section, which made it feel even longer. We played several rounds of 20 questions. “Butt plug” was a memorable round thanks to Ian. One of our questions in trying to solve was “Do you own this?” Haha, apparently he doesn’t.
Eventually, we were nearing the end of our time on the HRT and had a very steep descent down to the highway. The course from here changed just before the race because water levels were too high for a planned creek crossing. Instead, we needed to travel alongside the highway for a couple of miles.
We attempted a jog, but Roy’s knee wasn’t in good shape… There was a lot of swelling at this point. 😬 We settled into a fast-walking pace, and I took my shoes off to allow my feet to breathe.
Pick up sticks
The next section is best described by the game of pick-up sticks, thanks to (I think) Team More Mayo for that most accurate description!!! We had a long section of uphill bushwhacking through a ninja warrior-like course of wet, slippery logs in every which possible direction.
I kept thinking that there must be a better way to the top than the way we were going. What if we went more left or more right or…anything else has to be better. 😂 This was a moment in the race that I wanted to change my circumstance. But then after a while, I let go of that desire and focused on moving as fast as I could through this terrain. So much better!
Eventually we made it to the top and found the road we were looking for. Now we had a long slog ahead of us in the sun to the next CP. The sleep monsters hit hard on this section, and none of us were feeling our best. Mine and Ian’s feet were hurting, Roy’s knee was getting progressively worse, and James didn’t have any injuries but felt tired; he really led the charge up through the bushwhack for us.
TA6
Arriving at TA6 was a highlight of the race for many reasons:
● The volunteers were so kind and helpful, and they made us BURGERS! Fresh-off-the-grill burgers. Delivered to us at our bike boxes. We were STOKED.
● The nordic ski hut was available for us to use, inclusive of a wood stove and hot tea and coffee. It was SO COZY inside. We were the only team at the TA, and it was an easy decision to have our second sleep here.
● James went to work on trying to fix Roy’s rear brake lever before dark. And HE DID IT. So impressive. Check this out:
Roy had his knee checked out by the medic, and we built our bikes so they would be ready to jump on after sleeping. The medic thought it was possible that Roy tore a ligament, and that was scary news to hear. It was not looking good, and we had a conversation about whether it was smart and worth it for him to continue.
He wanted to sleep first and see how it felt when he woke up. After the sleep, Roy was set on continuing and would see how it felt on the bike!
It was also at TA6 that we received our next set of maps for the race. Roy and James went to work inside the hut. I tried to help by keeping them hydrated and copying the information over to the second set afterwards.
We all got between 2-3 hours of sleep here. Just before the alarm went off, both Team More Mayo and Team East Wind had arrived at the TA. We chatted with them for a bit and then headed out! ✌️🚵
Leg 07: MTB
We started this leg in the middle of the night, and it was cold. I think most of us stopped to put on just about every layer we had available, ha! The good news: Roy’s knee was feeling okay on the bike.
I don’t have too much memory of these first few hours – just that we were traveling down a trail for a long time in a pace line and dodging puddles.
I had such a hard time staying awake as it started to get light out. Roy called this time period at dawn as the “witching hour” and now I wholeheartedly agree.
We had entered day 3 of racing.
After several hours on a mostly flat trail, we reached a long and steep climb up to Taurus Lake. We stopped to ditch layers and settle into the granny gear pace.
After punching CP29, it was a really fun ride to TA7! I think all of us were having a hoot on this section and enjoying blasting downhill.
Leg 08: Packraft
Getting to the river
Ah, the packraft section. 🙃 Leg 08 should have been titled Trek & Packraft – as we had to trek with all of our boating gear for a few miles (including a bushwhack) in order to reach the river. That would have been fine had we known ahead of time and could have prepared, but it wasn’t communicated in the pre-race emails or briefings.
So: I had my Crocs to wear on this section and needed to clip a bunch of stuff to the outside of my pack, and then we football carried a few things, too.
As we got closer to the river, the mosquitos were baaaaaad. 😝 We had to punch CP30 up at a waterfall, and then reverse back to find a place to launch onto the river. The initial thought was that we could follow the side creek down until it reached the Kettle River, but it was very steep and loose, side-hilling. The Crocs weren’t helping either.
We climbed back out and continued back down the road to find an easier entrance. After more bushwhacking, we reached a good launch site.
Passport snafu (my fault)
It was thought that we didn’t have any CPs to punch while on the river, and so I kept the passport with my race pack inside the boat, and we inflated it. Then looking more closely at the map before launching, we realized that we did have a CP to collect. James wasn’t happy about this news as he had suggested prior that I keep the passport in our Pack-A-Pump. I didn’t love this location, but I still should have kept it outside the boat and accessible.
James deflated our boat to get it out while Roy and I made a plan for how to identify the location for CP31 and the takeout.
Kettle River paddle
The water was moving fast at the start! There was basically one named rapid that was coming up immediately around the corner. Once we navigated around that – it was a cruisy paddle. THE HARD PART WAS STAYING AWAKE: sunny afternoon, day 3, and the river was no longer providing any adrenaline… just the occasional wood and/or shallow areas to avoid.
James was great about asking questions and trying to make conversation with me. I don’t think my answers to anything made sense, and I’m pretty sure I stopped mid-sentence multiple times and fell asleep. We were all having a really hard time staying awake.
This was the first time of the race that I experienced hallucinations. The burnt trees turned into various block letters, and words were appearing all over the hillsides. And all sorts of animals, eyes, and figurines were appearing out of the sticks and grass. It was quite fun and was the most helpful thing to keeping my eyes open.
We were looking for a CP under a bridge. We passed under a pedestrian bridge first, but the one we wanted should be a road. We stopped briefly just in case, but then quickly continued on. It was a long haul before we saw the next bridge, and we had a low-level worry that somehow we missed it. It was a relief to punch that one!
Finally, TA8! There were lots of supportive volunteers at this one AND OMG SO MANY MOSQUITOS. They were out in FULL FORCE and BITING. I was slowly dying while trying to assemble my bike, but I think they ultimately helped me transition quickly; it was the first and only time that I was faster than the guys.
Leg 09: MTB
Leg 09 was a long and steady climb up to the Baldy Mountain Ski Resort with our snowshoes.
We were maybe five minutes from the TA when Ian suddenly exclaimed “Guys, MY ASS IS ON FIRE. We need to do something about this now.”
We stopped and started to problem solve on how to pad and change the shape of his saddle. James wrapped a couple pieces of clothing around it, and we used my Buff to hold it together- it then needed to be waterproofed, which was accomplished with a spare baggie. Result below!
Ian said this felt 100x better, Woo!
The mosquitos from the TA stayed with me for the first couple of hours, and I wish I could properly convey how bad they were… but I was happy as a clam anyway because James helped me to attach my pack to sit on my handlebars for the long climb. It was the best gift ever for me to have the weight off my back!!!
We settled into the climb, and once it cooled down a bit – I actually enjoyed it. It was a beautiful evening, and I exclaimed this to Ian.
Then within 30 minutes, dark clouds moved quickly over the mountain, and it started to absolutely downpour on us. Hard, steady, relentless rain.
We stopped to put on all of our rain gear. Roy went slightly into the woods to find some shelter in the trees, and I could have sworn that he was standing next to a building and under a roof. I couldn’t believe our luck… only to get closer and have the entire structure disappear before my eyes. 😂 (James saw it, too!) I ended up putting on just about every piece of clothing I had.
TA9
By the time we made it to TA9, everything was absolutely soaked. Come to find out later that we were the only team to get caught in the rain. Team Bones Canada (ahead of us) had already left the mountain and Team East Wind was still on the paddle.
The volunteers here were incredibly kind and let us inside to dry off. We were able to borrow a hairdryer to dry off needed layers for the alpine trek, and this hot air was also amazing for warming up my spirit. 😀 By now it was around midnight or so and still raining.
Originally, we were planning to skip sleep on this night, do the alpine trek and head to the finish.
But it just didn’t make sense given the weather and darkness. There were a few air mattresses, pillows and blankets for the volunteers that they kindly offered for us to use, and we took them up on this! We decided on 90 mins of sleep, and then we would eat something and head out into the snow.
THIS WAS MY BEST SLEEP EVER. I was so cozy and comfortable, and I completely zonked out; I felt like I could have stayed there forever. Motivating myself to go out in the dark and cold night after this was challenging, and it didn’t help that we didn’t have a team to chase or a team too close behind us. I think this was a low point of the race for me mentally…
Leg 10: Alpine Trek
Eventually we made it out – just before 3am or so.
We had almost reached the first CP when we realized that we had forgotten to write CP clues on the map. 🤦 We decided it wasn’t worth it to go back, and that we could do without.
The navigation for almost every CP (33-37) on the alpine trek felt tricky. Starting the second-from-last leg feels like we’re almost done, but this leg was not a gimme! We carried our snowshoes just in case, but we didn’t end up using them. Snowshoes ended up being training weights for three legs of this race! Ohhhh well. Better safe than sorry in this case.
Kudos to James for leading us with confidence on the navigation, especially CP36.
My favorite moments were listening to the bullfrogs again in the dark and taking a brief moment as a team to take in the beautiful sunrise colors.
CP37 was next to a cool little ski cabin, and then we headed back down towards the TA. We met a local who had been tracking us online and chatted with him for a bit, then it started to rain again just a few minutes from the TA.
We were well into day 4 of racing now!
Leg 11:
The final leg!!! We were expecting a fun and long descent off the mountain, but that wasn’t exactly the case… 😂 The scale of the map didn’t show that there were actually a few punchy climbs mixed in there. (Rough after stuffing my face with food before leaving the TA.)
We were excited for some singletrack to get CP38… but it turned out to be muddy mush doubletrack. Oh well.
It was miserably hot descending into the town of Oliver, and James mentioned that Oliver is Canada’s only “arid” desert environment.
We formed a pace line until the finish. We were riding on the side of a busy highway without much shoulder, so it felt sketchy. The Bones Canada team came out to cheer for us several times along this section, and that really brought a lot of cheer.
THE FINISH. 103 hours, 28 minutes – earning us 4th place.
The race organizers made us incredible panini sandwiches, and Ian and I sat with Team More Mayo and finally heard what happened to them! (One of their teammates got injured during the long trek, and they decided not to continue.) It was fun to swap stories from the race and just hang out. I think Roy and James were catching up with the Bones Canada crew. :)
Post-race
Huge thanks to Russ from Team More Mayo who bought us all ice cream afterwards!!
We showered and then went out for Mexican food. We attempted to reflect on the race together, but I’m pretty sure I was falling asleep every few mins.
That night I slept a hard 11-12 hours. I just absolutely passed out within seconds of hitting the pillow.
My brain felt better the next day, but I still felt drunk in terms of processing speed. I drove us to a huge breakfast (at a place called Terry’s Comfort Food with Attitude) and back in the morning, and decided that I shouldn’t be driving quite yet.
We organized and cleaned gear by the finish line for a few hours, and then Ian needed to fly back to Whitehorse! Roy and James took my car to drop him off.
We went out for a nice dinner with the entire Bones squad that night (Bones USA and Canada). Team Bones Canada placed third behind 400 Givaudan (first) and Bend Racing (second). 🤘🎊
What’s next?
For me, it was back to Portland for a gear swap before flying to Norway. The all-too-familiar hallway packing outside of our storage unit, ha.
Both Roy and James are racing Endless Mountains AR at the end of June!
And Ian and his wife are having a baby this summer! It sounds like he also has a couple more running/biking races on his calendar. 🙂
The memories and lessons learned during this race will stick with us forever. So much life happens in such a short amount of time…