Le Parcour de Wild Race Report

Awesome. I'm both glad and yet somewhat disappointed I couldn't attend.

The hike and the trail sounds like a huge challenge!!
How many people participated in the hike?

Jay,

It started at around 12 and was down to 4 (2 teams of 2) by the event start. Dave and Kevin were the only 2 to complete the trek. The other group consisting of Sam Haroldson and Matt Lutz was forced to abandon their route for various reasons including weather and nav challenges.

Hey Chris, Are you interested in next year? I know its a year away but I am very interested in trying the coarse next October. Sounds and feels very challenging— Time will tell…Does any body know why Sam and Matt bailed out?I mean more details?

Awesome trip report, I like your writing style. I was hoping you guys would do an article or at least post a trip report. Just curious about the food how much was not enough Dave?

Jay,

As of right now, I'd definitely be up for a run at it next year but it's too far out to say 100%. Maybe Sam or Matt will come along and offer more detail on their route.

5 star EPIC!

And, I might add, a very well done report. It conveyed a very real sense of what you guys were up against and how you dealt with the challenges.

This highlighted one of the bare facts of traveling in such difficult conditions: good gear is only a prerequisite. Fitness, experience, and confidence are as important as any piece of gear.

Bingo!

Thanks for the very nice trip report.

Thanks everyone, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it with Kevin, and going over the photos/memories last week. As for the joy of the trip itself, I'm still trying to get a handle on that myself.

I'll not speak for Sam and Matt, but I will say that the route Kevin engineered paid unforeseen dividends on the first two days. The wind was cold at 1000 up at the pass when my wife dropped us off. The CDT goes up just to the left of the sign you can see in the picture of us and our packs. Between the cold, wind, snow, and especially the projected low that night, I was really happy to be heading down into protected vallys post haste.

Camp that night was tough enough. It was perfectly tolerable, even pleasing, but the cold combined with the first night shakedown made camp chores take forever. My having to use a rock to chop a hole through 2-3" of ice to get water out of the lake didn't help.

And we're already plotting for next year. It was such a cool time of year to be out there.

I am Dave's mom. Isn't he awesome? I love him.

Barbara

I think Dave is awesome and I spent a week in a tent with him–have you ever done that? Any mom signed up on the BPL forums has to pretty cool too!

Great article!

I'd love to see the gear lists Kevin and Dave used.

Here's my list which includes my stuff and my part of group gear. It's from a spreadsheet that doesn't translate to this format well:
With snowshoes skin out weight was about 19 pounds, carried weight about 15 (when carrying the snowshoes) and with food and water I probably started with 36# skin out.

You can try to link to the Google Spreadsheet:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AlTloRsx2hiWdDA0SmQ4ekNzVkYyUlEwMi1xellzYXc&hl=en

Type Model Weight (oz)
shoes or boots Salomon XT Wings 27.6
socks, 1st pair Smartwool ankle 1.8
socks, 2nd pair Smartwool ankle 1.8
snowshoes NorthernLitesrace 30
gaiters Dirty Girl 1.1
primary torso base layey Ibexultralight 5.5
trekking pants REI Thaw 7

rain jacket Patagonia Specter 6.5
shell pants GoLyte Reed 6.2
warm hat/balaclava OR beanie 2
warm gloves/mittens Lowe heavy liner 1.5

Tent Group
Sleeping bag Nunatak Custom + balaclava 26
Bivy sack BMW Nano 5
insulated jacket Patagonia Puff 11
insulated pants BMW Cocoon 6
Vapor Barrier clothing Homemade 5.5
torso pad Torso foam 2
three-quarter pad Ridgerest cutdown 6

backpack GoLite Pinnacle 27
dry bag for insulated gearPacific Designs50L 6

sighting compass Sunnuto M2 1.4
Maps Custom print and overview map 4 Group
GPS Garmin Foretrex 101 3.4
Pen/Pencil one pen 0.2
0.5mm mechanical pencil n/a
waterproof map case included with map
LED flashlight Zebra light plus camp light 4.4 with two spare batteries for zebra light

water bottle Nalgene 1L x2, additional 2L 5.5 should have had insulated covers
water treatment Klearwater 30ml 2.2 repackaged in plastic
eating utensil BMW longhandled Ti 0.4
Food Protection included in food weight

trekking pole(s) REI Kids summit 13
whistle ACR 0.2
First aid kit 3
sunglasses Oakley radar path (spare lens) 1.2
earplugs
bear spray UDAP 12

mitt shells BPL Vapor mitt 3.5
underwear Nike Pro 2.5
torso layer PatagoniaHoody R1 11.8
hat with brim Montrail baseball cap 1.5
waterproof socks REI Gore-tex 3.3

personal hygiene items All of that stuff! 3
tiny knife Ringer #2 1.7
camera Panasonic FX580 6
rope 75' 3mm cord 4.9
river shoes Homemade 1.7
Satellite Phone Iridium 9555 10

Stove Trail Designs Caldera Cone–Tri-Ti 2.5
Pot BPL 1100 ti 4
Fire Starting Kit Lots of Stuff 4
Fuel Esbit for two nights 2.5

Thanks mom! She's the one that got me started on all this stuff, I've been backpacking since age 3.

Gear list, with commentary but without most weights, is here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AlIr1xdmBbFedHhLQlZlV25DQVdYVEQ5WDgtLTRqcGc&hl=en

Thanks for posting up the gear lists…..interesting for sure to see those after reading the article.

awesome write-up, thanks guys!!

Should it be Parkour? Why put a French name on an American race? Yuk…

Of course it's a nice write-up…

Matt and I shot some video while we were out there. I'll edit that together and share it with everyone.

Brief: He and I had picked a route that was to mimic the Continental Divide Trail. As the race grew closer the snow began to fall and I began to have my doubts about our ability to travel and navigate a high-divide route through lots of snow.

My concerns were realized almost immediately when we arrived at our trailhead to find we needed to put snowshoes on immediately. We got about a 1/2 mile off course on both the first and second day and realized going 100+ miles was not going to be safe so opted to turn it into a three day snowshoeing trip instead.

Nice work fellas–all around.

Curiously-

Why October?
Who gets invited to the "underground" race?
Is the Le Parcour Race planning to change venues every few years like the AMWC?

Thanks-

John said: "Should it be Parkour? Why put a French name on an American race? "

Ryan picked the name. It does have a certain sophistiqués appel though doesn't it? :)

In response to Lucas: "Why October?
Who gets invited to the "underground" race?
Is the Le Parcour Race planning to change venues every few years like the AMWC?"

Those are questions only Ryan can answer fully. I know he invited anyone who had completed his wilderness trekking III courses in 2007/2008 but I think he posted it somewhere on the BPL website. I don't know what Ryan's plans are for "Le Parcour" in the future. I hope it becomes a regular fall feature.

In regard to "Why October" I think it was chosen as a time when the big rivers could potentially be run by packraft and when the uncertainties of weather added to the challenge. October hit it big on the bad weather this year but the freeze would have prevented packrafting altogether.

I'd be very interested in knowing what types of food you guys carried, calorie content, and weight. I'm sure a lot of thought went into that and the knowledge would be invaluable to many of us.

Tom

The answer to the food question depends on trip length, conditions and intensity. In this trip the long days, cold weather but relatively short duration had me bring about 2.5# of food per day (including packaging). I probably could have gotten by with less but I hate to run short.

I always try to get 100-150grams of protein daily this takes up about 1/2 pound of weight. I mix the rest between fat and carbohydrate the proportion depending on trip length and intensity of travel. The longer or colder the trip the more fat is needed, the more intense (fast) the travel the more carbohydrate. Proportion can range from 40% carb to 80%. It should be a mix of simple and complex carbohydrate.

Number of calories is calculated roughly by 150 calories per mile (unless your load is heavy), 500 extra for every 1000' of gain, 10% extra for cold conditions.

A 30 mile day with 4000' would have me burn around 7000' calories per day in cold conditions. To replace this fully would take about 3# of food with 60% from carbohydrate. Certainly you can short this significantly for 2-3 weeks if you have enough body fat (I have about 10# of body fat and can get by losing 1/2-1# daily for about a week before my performance suffers). If I targeted 4000 calories per day in these conditions I would lose 2/3 of a pound daily.

On this trip I didn't want to lose much weight as I'm in the middle of training to pace a 3:00 marathon (and need to be able to run one ~2:50 pace to reliably pace at 3:00). When I lose too much weight–especially if I don't get enough protein–recovery and training suffers. I only lost about 2# on this trip.

Another comment on diet is that VARIETY is needed. I've been on several trips with people who simplified their diet to only 2 or 3 items only to find that they couldn't stand them by the end of the trip. I take a variety of bars, candybars, nuts, raisins, mango, tortillas, jerky, during the day and I have a variety of made at home "boil in a bag" type dinners I use. On this trip they were my "cold tested" foods that I know i can eat if frozen.

Perhaps I should write an article on nutrition and the way I make up my meals someday.