Day four of the race brought an action-packed finish- some fantastic flying and some really hard miles on foot. With another tricky forecast that predicted a lot of cloud and considerable overdevelopment later in the day the task committee decided to hitch up yet again to head to another launch up at Wales, a site we’ve used quite a few times in the Red Rocks Wide Open but never for the XRedRocks. We dropped all the athletes off just outside of town (population 338). The road to launch is 5.2 miles and about 2500′ of elevation gain but most of the athletes tried to take short cuts up through the scree with varying success. If we judge success by loss of skin on legs, the winner way Taylor Grafton.
Professional ultra runner Cal Neff in Challenge got to launch first (he almost beat me, and I was driving!) and just carried in the direction of goal in Nephi to the north along the escarpment. Not long after the rest of the field started arriving but with a fully gray sky and only little tiny bits of sun popping along course line everyone wisely took their time getting into the air. Sometime during every week of the Global Rescue XRedRocks I throw a very real warning into the morning briefing that tends to make our visiting friends from overseas a bit nervous. When on foot in this part of Utah you’ve got a pretty decent chance of coming across bears, rattlesnakes, mountain lions and other critters that could negatively impact your day if you’re not careful. But I’ve yet to warn people of badgers. But that’s exactly what Cal ran across (literally). Turn the volume up and check this out:
Finally a hole in the sky opened up and launch got a bit of sun on it and some of the bolder pilots in the group gave it a go straight away, recognizing the atmosphere was very unstable and wouldn’t require much sun for thermals to pop. Some were a little too early and bombed but as soon as a couple started climbing above launch the rest of athletes scrambled quickly to get in the air. Those who moved fast and climbed fast were treated to fast flying all the way to goal, close to 40 km. In the Adventure Division Moon Choi would have won the day if not for landing at the wrong goal (he had plenty of height to tag the correct one but made a forgivable mistake by not wanted to disturb a football game), and 7 athletes eventually made it all the way in. In Challenge 5 athletes made it in, lead by Eric Wustrow. Excellent flying skills were required to make it in tricky weather and huge congratulations are in order! All results for every day and overall can be found here.
Unfortunately for the Pros they had a harder task which first required tagging two big cylinders to the south before flying north to Mt Nebu and then goal in Nephi and shade and then rain made progress back to the north impossible. We later heard stories of 17+ mile runs both down in the valley and up in the high terrain before the task deadline at 5 pm, worthy dedication! David Harrington won the day after a fine display of great, fast tactical flying and hard bashing on the ground to stay ahead of David Chen and Jens Glatthard who incredibly were 2nd and 3rd on day 1 and 2 as well!
Here’s some pics compliments of Ben Horton. A final blog post will cover the awards evening and will be up shortly. This 5th edition of the Global Rescue XRedRocks was another amazing four days of big adventures in incredible southern Utah and we thank all of the participants, sponsors, and the generous town of Monroe for another truly amazing race.
