Backyard Challenge XIII
race report

By Tom Urban, race director

The race started early Saturday morning, March 19, on top of Loveland Pass. With a starting elevation of 11,990 feet, it was cold, with a stiff wind blowing out of the west. The wind chill hovered in the teens.

Racers began with a short 3/4 of a mile climb, to a small summit 925 feet higher than the cars. Teams had to find the CP1 marker, located on the outside of a rock structure. There were a couple of them in the area. They then returned to the cars and CP2 to receive the verbiage for the next two CPs. Checkpoint 3 was a group of five trees in the middle of a bowl just below the Continental Divide. Nobody wore snowshoes, although some racers wished that they had after dealing with knee deep snow.

After CP3 teams had to travel back east to the top of a ridge. They then traveled south, running the ridge to CP4 where the ropes were set up. Racers had to rappel off of the ridge into thigh deep snow. After the short rappel they transferred over to a second rope to ascend back up to the ridge. There were some frozen looking racers, especially the ones that didn't have gaitors -- their shoes were packed full of snow.

After the rope section teams were given the location of CP5, which sent them running the ridge back to the cars. The teams that could still operate their fingers from the cold changed clothes and jumped on bikes for a quick descent down Loveland Pass to A-Basin and CP6. The bottom half of the pass wasn't bad, but the previous night's snowfall made the top half of the pass wet and muddy. Some people found out that they had not trained enough on bikes through the winter, especially at altitude.

The race finished at the cars where most racers jumped in and started the heaters right away.

As always, a huge thanks goes out to the volunteers, Jean and Allison.