02/24-25/01
Our first real adventure race. Instead of breaking ourselves in gently with a 1-day summer race or something we (Team Terrapin-John Peggy and I) went balls out for a 2-day race in the dead of winter, in snow up past our asses, and with back country skiing, that combined we had about 8 days of experience.  Upon arriving in Steamboat we headed to the  gear check-in.....and tapped the first (of three) kegs!!! After checking all our stuff in, and several more beers (Thanks Bristol Brewery!!) we went back to the condo with the other Colorado Frog Teams. After some great pasta, stories, and plenty more beer we watched it snow, and snow, and snow some more.

The next morning it was still snowing and we got to the start line with barely enough time to get everything together before we were off for the woods. Some teams erupted right from the start and we proceeded to start the fight with our newly rented skies. It wasn't long before we were heading down a steep hill with teams fallen on either side looking like a bowling alley. It was close to impossible to get up cause every time you would try to plant your poles they would sink farther then you could reach. There was white-out conditions most of the day and we got way off track with about 5 other teams. Eventually our team and  another team found where we thought we were and headed for pavement to follow to CP2. It was longer than we thought and we missed the Check Point by a couple hours. Time to wait for the sag-wagon, but good news..."We're heading back to a condo with tons of food, 3 kegs, and a hot tub!" So we ate, and dragged a keg to the hot tub and waited for the other teams to come in. That night we had the sponsored race feast and raffles. Luckily we picked up another team snowshoes that had fallen out of their pack during the first leg of the race. The earned us some good karma and we won the top prize!!!!, a Salomon plastic boot/snowshoe package, plus other cool swag. Super-phat! It was a good night, all 4 teams from the Colorado Frogs won cool stuff.
The second day went much smoother with a run, snowshoe, run, then ski-orienteering. This day was much nicer to us, except John's mondo blisters, and the part where we had to back country ski again. After the day it was straight for the hot tubs, beer, and specially prepared elk tenderloin (excellent Amy!)