As should have been expected, this race became a test not only for its competitors but for its followers, so internet access was slim to none during the rest of the race depending on one's position along the way.
The main reason I have come to cover this race for two years in a row now is exactly that, though--Patagonia is a place of monstrously mythical proportions, not only for its beauty but for its obscurity. The race organizers are committed to placing the journalists along even the more obscure sections of the race course, and by doing so are accomplishing their original mission--that of showing the world that Patagonia is a place that needs protecting, that it is infinitely valuable not only as a place of breathtaking beauty but as one of the last great untouched wildernesses. The Wenger Patagonia Expedition Race wouldn’t be one of the most difficult and beautiful races on the planet if the outside world were consistently available, and racers and journalists alike wouldn’t beg for their own place in it, either.
The biking section during the first day is 100km long, and much of it is spent fighting icy rain throughout the moonlit night. There is a pass through tourist-friendly Puerto Natales (which is the last stop for travelers on their way to Torres del Paine National Park) and the first team, the British Helly Hansen-Prunesco, arrives at the next checkpoint, Lago Anibal Pinto, around 1am, having increased their lead on the next team, Easy Implant of France, by almost an hour. Here they disassemble their bikes and hurriedly re-box them, next jumping onto the 60-meter rope to jumar up a sheer cliff face which they have to ascend to continue the race. Though this is but a tiny portion of the race, it demands some of the greatest attention on behalf of the racers, and many seem quite shaky in their ascending technique, inspiring more than a few heart-pounding moments for both the competitors and the onlookers. Following an incident-free ascent the racers press on into the next fifty-five kilometer trekking section, primarily composed of peat bog and dense forest, seeming more a collection of downed trees and spongy turba to battle across without any actual solid ground to be seen the majority of the time.
During this section twenty-eight year old Bruce Duncan, the youngest member of Team Helly-Hansen-Prunesco, begins to suffer hypothermia and considers pulling out of the race then and there. Point of Control Three at Rio Perales is a mere bend dug in the side of an steep logging road, and is now turned to ankle-deep muck by the passage of the four-wheel drive trucks carrying the press and organizers, who sat in anxious anticipation of the first racers arrival, delayed in great part by the non-stop driving rain and cold temperatures. Helly Hansen finally arrives at 7am, in shock at their first place position, having taken thirty hours instead of the anticipated fifteen. Having seen headlamps not far off in the dark during the last hours of their trek they were fully expecting to be beaten by at least one other team, if not more. Team Easy Implant arrived around six hours later looking extraordinarily haggard. Team captain Bruno Reyes (whose team placed first in 2008) says though he doesn’t have diarrhea as rumored, that “there is no way we can continue if conditions stay this wet and cold. We cannot go on like this.” Navigation issues seem to plague most of the racers here, with some teams even winding up on the wrong side of a wide river. Team Spirit Canada, arriving third into PC3, inadvertently wound up swimming when the river floor dropped out from beneath them while crossing. All teams are virtually crushed by the endless walking in ankle-high and deeper water for almost the entire trek, and there is now a dramatic spread of more than a day and a half between the leaders and those in last place.
There is a cutoff time at noon the following day (Day Four) for the teams to arrive at PC3. If they fail to finish the trekking and check in at that point, they are out of the race. The next great decider will be the ferry ride to the Island of Sutivan and PC4, halfway through the second biking section, stops at 7pm each night. If Helly Hansen makes the ferry and Easy Implant does not, it could make the gap between the two teams insurmountable.
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