Team Santa Fe Adventure Racing

Team Santa Fe at the Races

AR World Championships
Aug 30-Sept 4
Zurich, Switzerland

Team Zimmer Orthopedics a.k.a. Team Santa Fe is happy to be back in the United States with Todd Kurth, Jan and Kim Bear arriving on Monday night into Albuquerque. We are very thankful to be safe and back into our homes. We have heard form Lauri Medina and Jurgen Durrschmidt who had planned on staying on in Switzerland, and they are both fine.

The trip began with a flight to Zurich, which was eventful as usual! Kim and Jan Bear, and Todd Kurth arrived at 5:30 am to the Albuquerque Airport to check in for a 6:50 am flight. Everyone gets irritable as we roll in with bike boxes, action packers (huge Rubbermaid boxes) and duffle bags. Being there early did make it smoother, but not less expensive. Jurgen Durrschmidt and Lauri Median left from Denver; we would meet Lauri in Atlanta. From there we all flew 10 hours to Zurich. Jurgen helped us with renting our van; even though someone spoke English, the Swiss were more comfortable with German. From there we headed out to St. Moritz taking in the views of the Alps, waterfalls, and lakes. It was spectacular. We got our first financial shock stopping for lunch at McDonalds and finding Big Macs costing around $7.

Celerina was our next stop, which is 5 minutes from St. Moritz. We stayed in a huge dormitory room with bunk beds. It was like being at camp. The manager was very accommodating. Another team staying at Celerina was Nokia from Finland, who would end up winning the World Championships.

After our check in, we went to explore the mountains around St. Moritz and actually stumbled upon our first checkpoint. We had gone to ride the gondola to Corvatsch; it was covered in a white out, so we ended up heading downward toward the valley. That afternoon we found out that the race would begin here. The race director gave us cut off times and directions for the entire course. We went back to plot the maps and strategize with Jurgen.

The race began at 9am on September 2, 2001. We were among the elite in the field and were happy to be part of the event. The day was sunny and at the start we took off running down the mountain. The next 24 hours were filled with trekking approximately 56 kilometers up and over four mountains passes.

The weather turned from sunny to rainy and never cleared. We would make it to the start of the abseil well before the cut off time. When we arrived, the decision was being made about closing the venue. There had been an accident which we would not fully appreciate how serious until further on in the race. We felt lucky not to be exposed to the dangerous canyoneering. It was decided that the section would be closed and we trekked on to our first transition area. It was located at the top of hill with a gorgeous view of the green mountains and hillsides of this area of Switzerland. From there we headed out for another 57 kilometers on mountain bikes. The rain never stopped. We had looked forward to the single track and were disappointed to find slick mud and grass for much of the ride. We fought hypothermia from the constant wet. Lauri and Todd were so cold by late afternoon that we made a pit stop into a local restaurant and were rewarded with hot tea and a furnace to dry our clothes. The people were so friendly allowing us to change clothes, dry our wet equipment on their furnace and get nourished. We ended up leaving the warmth and music of the restaurant and heading out their back yard into the pitch black and a snowstorm. We ended up at the CP in the middle of the night with the Russian team. We had to wake up our CP person. After a quick descent down into a village, we spent an hour in a restaurant with the organizer of adventure races in Africa. He had us signing up for his next race by the time we took off. We had one hour on the bike to Illanz and Jurgen. We arrived to a campground, tents and warm food. After a couple hours of sleep we were off to river raft, 18 kilometer down the Rhein. Todd was our river raft guide and gave us a great trip. We had one exciting moment as a cameraman jumped in with us to experience the "black hole" and then jumped back into the river back to his crew.

We transitioned to a 39 kilometer mountain bike ride. The ride was uneventful and beautiful. We rode through little villages and bike trails. From there, we rode into our transition and found it bustling with activity and teams. It was here that we found out that we would have to carry all of our mandatory equipment including tent, sleeping bags, crampons, and ice axe. We had a mandatory equipment check. We left weighted down and heading up into the mountains. We would trek all night into a snowstorm and many canyons which we experienced personally trying to find the right river to lead us the right direction. We found a hut and stopped for 30 minutes to power nap and off we were. As we started up to Etzli Hut, the sun came out and immediately we went from 3 - 4 layers of clothing to one layer. Our energy was beginning to come back. At the hut we were told there would not be the cut offs for time. We figured that the weather had changed the race management rules. We felt good and continued down the other side of the valley. The sun was melting the snow and making a slick ice floor that we slipped down. There were two places on the trail where chain had been embedded to help slip down icy sections. We stopped at deserted village and slept for 20 minutes on picnic tables. We finished the rest of the trail, which ran along a beautiful river down to our transition.

We again slept for an hour and continued back on our mountain bikes to climb Sustenpass. This would be 44 kilometers. The weather was rainy and we pushed our bikes for a large part of the climb, using the time to eat and try to stay awake. At the top of the pass, we changed and put on a dry layer then our wet clothes, followed by a garbage bag. We started our 12-kilometer ride down into sleet, rain, and wind. We were uncomfortable, but found Jurgen quicker than we anticipated and again got warm food and sleep. At dawn we headed out on the via ferrata section which had been closed the whole race because of snow and bad weather. The climb was beautiful and we ended up overlooking the transition area. Following a trail through a waterfall, we ended up around 1 pm at the TA. It was here that we were informed that we needed to bike to the next TA by 4pm. (It was taking other teams 6 hours.) At the previous TA we had been told the glacier section had been removed and there would be 2 mountain bike sections left. We had no idea that we were not going to make a cut off and would have planned our sleep differently with the information. We had always planned on finishing and were surprised with receiving this new information. We received a protest form, which we never filed, but were disappointed. We packed up our equipment and went into town for a real "SWISS" meal and to stay in a hotel. Later on we would find out that we were ranked 16th at the transition. Adventure racing is an emerging sport and we are glad to be part of it. We felt like the scrubs that wouldn’t quit, until they made us!

We learned a lot from this race, including handling cold and wet. Read more about this race at arworldchampionship.com.

San Luis Obispo Lighthouse Century
Sept. 29, 2001
San Luis Obispo, CA

Eileen Pickett completed this event with her friend Bill on a tandem; they said the weather was great as was the food at the rest stops.

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