2001 Race - May 5, 2001, Saturday
The Great Mississippi River Race for Rett Syndrome, May 2001
We are Going the Extra Mile..... The Extra 2,348 Miles to Find a Cure!
The Great Mississippi River Race for Rett Syndrome, May 2001
We are Going the Extra Mile..... The Extra 2,348 Miles to Find a Cure!
Day 1, Safety Check in: 5-7 PM
Safety Report From Jeffrey Pastir (Medical Officer) Jeff reports all team got off to a great start. He was wondering how long teams could keep up the hurried pace they started at given that they had over 2,000 miles to go :-)
END OF SAFETY REPORT Mary Potter (webmaster) writes.... To get a better "detailed" idea of the where the paddlers were, you can look at river charts of the Mississippi River in Minnesota from the MN Department of Natural Resources. The current chart that best shows the area the paddlers are travelling in is "Map 1, Mississippi State River Trail Lake Itasca to Cass Lake . These maps show great detail of the Mississippi river, including the river mile numbers and the lakes. Note that river miles start around 1341.6 on this chart and count down as you head towards New Orleans/Mile Marker 0. We used a slightly different chart during the 2001 event that was dated 1990. River miles and corresponding charts change over time, as does the river.
I don't have detailed updates on all the teams, but I will update with information I do have.... my best guess for positions at the end of this day (midnight) is Team Kruger is first, Team Double Helix second, Rebels third, and Amazons and Alaska in 4th and 5th.... but it's just the first day and the teams are still fairly close to each other in terms of a lengthy river marathon. From reading the logs and looking at the timing of the calls, it's clear that team Kruger took the lead right after the start and has maintained that position completely. From the Race Logs Mary Potter (webmaster) has: Team Amazons, May 5, 2001, Day 1 - What a day! We slept in (leave it to me! [Cynthia]) and made a mad dash to the start with time to spare. We waited for Team Alaska to start, and we started in last place. It was slow going for us today since we had to go without a rudder because of the conditions the first day. The rapids were a terrifying experience in our fragile boat. We had to get out on a number of occasions for the sake of the boat. We knew if we damaged the boat on the first day we would be done for. It was very unnerving. It was a cloudy rainy day. I was happy to learn that the cold Saskatchewan winters did some good -- I was quite comfortable and didn't have to change clothes. The "California Kid" (Megan) suffered some chills throughout the day. Eric found us at about 2 in the afternoon at Coffee Pot Landing where we were able to get our rudder on and replenish our liquids after our first 16 miles. We had some navigation troubles and found that we were lost for about 45 minutes in the bogs. Since the river was so flooded we ended up on Rice Lake. Later that day we got lost again. We were fooled by looking for 'big water' and ended up on Bootleg Lake. We learned that we shouldn't fight the bogs by putting our paddles and boat through mud and weeds to get to 'big water.' After a 10-minute wrestle with the bogs I got out of the boat to swim in the mud, water and weeds to get us out of this mess. It wasn't pretty. Megan said she felt like a princess sitting in the boat as I mucked around neck deep in mud and water. I knew there would times ahead where she would make me feel the same way. Thank goodness I had my chance. We made it to a point 5 miles from Bemidji (by road). We decided to call it a day at Iron Bridge Landing, 10 hours and 37 miles after starting. At this point the river leaves the section designated "Wild" by the Mississippi Headwaters Board and enters the "Scenic". We stayed the night in a campground in Bemidji, 15 river miles downstream. END of Team Amazon Log, May 5, 2001, Day 1 Team Kruger Log
By Bob Bradford, Enhanced by Stan Hanson, May 5, 2001 Our plan to break away seemed to work very well. We got to the culvert, which was only ten minutes downstream, and went through the tube. We had practiced this move several times prior and found it very fast. As we would approach the tube, I would sit on the floor, then grab the tube as we got there. I would then stop our movement long enough for Verlen to slide off his seat onto the floor. As it turned out, when I grabbed the culvert, it stopped us so suddenly that Verlen slid off the seat automatically. After reviewing the race videos, we saw that all of the other teams had to portage around the culvert. During the first hour, we broke through three small beaver dams. The river also did several switchbacks through the cattails. More than once I would look over my shoulder to check for other teams. We would never see any for the first week. After going under the Road 200 bridge, the river does not switchback as much. There was a dead tree ahead with a bald eagle sitting in it. I took the time to snap a picture. It would be the first of many eagles we would see in Minnesota. We passed a guy in a white solo canoe at about mile marker 1330. It was a Kruger Sea Wind solo canoe. The guy had picked it up from Verlen a day earlier. He wished us luck and took our picture. Our next obstacle was a tree down across the river. We had practiced this on a prior reconnaissance. I jumped out and pulled the canoe over the log, then got back in. This was faster than a portage around. Soon we came to the old wooden dam. It's at river mile 1339. The portage is on the left side and it's very rocky and rough. The dam was too dangerous to shoot through. It had some large rocks in the center, so we took the portages, but couldn't use the Heavy Duty Paddle Boy. The Heavy Duty Paddle Boy is a set of wheels that attach to the canoe that was furnished to us by the Paddle Boy company. Thank you Zoe!!!! We had to dodge a lot of rocks in the next stretch. Some we couldn't and just hit. We arrived at County Road 2, river mile 1336 in a time faster than our scouting time three days earlier. We had to make sure we were not paddling too hard. About 15 minutes past Road 2, we came to a split in the river. I asked Verlen if we should go right or left. He said he didn't remember this. It had only been 17 years prior to his when Verlen had paddled this section. It appeared that the left fork had more flow, so we picked it. After three bends, the river forked again. We took another left, then it forked again. Now there was room for concern. The river was only four feet wide and the brush was very thick. So thick that I had to get out and pull Verlen through. Now we were in big trouble. At the start of the race, we had broken one of our two headlights off the bow. I had broken the mount at the culvert, and it was hanging by its wires. Now I broke the other one on the brush, and it, too, was hanging from its wires. We would need duct tape at the next feed stop.
After a lot of mud and brush, we broke back into what seemed to be the main part of the river. So much for keeping our feet dry and the inside of the canoe clean! We arrived at County Road 40, and I remember seeing a Minnesota Canoe Club member standing on the bridge. Because of the tangle that we had just paddled through, I asked him if any of the other teams were ahead of us. He said, "No." Then I told him that we weren't sure if we had gone through the right way. He looked at his watch and said, "You must have done something right!" The next difficult area was Rice Lake at river mile 1307. The Canoe Club, according to Clark, had put some markers up to guide the racers through Rice Lake. The river opened up and cattails were everywhere. You couldn't just follow the tree line. Several times I stood up in the bow in order to check our course. I'm sure that the kayakers didn't have this luxury. A couple times, we had to back out of a dead end. More than once we had to stop the canoe and check the river bottom to see which direction the weeds were bending in what current there was. As you leave the Rice Lake area, it is very tricky. We were watching the tree line and missed the outlet on the right. Once in the river channel again, we saw a lot of flooding conditions and the wind picked up. When we arrived at Lake Irving, river mile marker 1286, we were getting a side wind. This made the crossing of Lake Irving difficult. I also got a little mixed up on the location of the passage to Lake Bemidji, but Verlen knew. He had been monitoring his map and compass and really knows how to use them. When we arrived at the north side of Lake Irving, we met our support team. Our team captain was Stan Hanson, and he had some bad news. The support boat, required for Lake Bemidji, would not run.
The good news was that they had permission for us to go alone if we followed the right shore around. We were running ahead of schedule. The portage at the dam went well. The next spot of concern was at the north end of Wolf Lake. The lake is full of cattails and several openings that dead end. As we exited Wolf Lake, we saw a powerboat coming our way. It was Captain Stan, and he had the boat running. They had to have the engine tuned up in the last town. We went along with Stan to the bridge on County Road 8. Stan picked up Jon Young for the trip across Cass Lake. Chuck Hasenkamp was pulling the trailer to the dam. Mick Wood had canceled a trip to Ely to help a couple more days pulling the boat trailer. As we started to cross Cass Lake, it began to rain. The temperature began to drop, the wind came up, and the sun went down. Water temperature was 45 degrees! Our support boat was off to the right about 30 yards. They had been closer, but kept getting tangled in weeds. At 11 PM we were about 2-1/2 miles from Knutsun Dam, when our 16' powerboat came along side. Stan said they had been taking on water from the high waves and the bilge pump couldn't keep up. They had to go to the closest shore, which was on our left. This was no time to take chances, so we headed for the north shore. Stan picked out a house that had lights on. When we got to the shore, Verlen and J also started having trouble. The waves were cresting even higher in the shallow water. When I got out, I got soaked, too. The support boat almost sank. The people from the house ran out on the dock to see what was going on. It was Wes Kinneberg, J.D. Gard, David Warner, and David Belino. They thought we were nuts, and in so many "colorful" words told us so. We couldn't totally disagree. When they found out about the race, they helped us out. They had been in the garage celebrating a birthday. We went in the garage taking our dry bags with us. Once in the garage, I discovered it was not heated. We were all wet and Jon was shivering badly. He was suffering from hypothermia as were we all. I gave him my dry jacket from the dry bag. After that, I realized that I had begun to shake also. I stripped my wet clothes off and when I did so, someone ran over with a blanket. Verlen just sat in the corner, half asleep with a grin on his face. He was loving every bit of this! They fed us some Sloppy Joes, birthday cake, and hot coffee. They also drove Captain Stan to the dam so he could get Chuck and Mick and our trailer. Once they got back, we jumped into the trailer and slept 'til dawn. End of Team Kruger Log - By Bob Bradford, Enhanced by Stan Hanson, May 5, 2001 ---------------------------------------------------------------- From Dianne, Danita Baker's mom (Danita has twin girls with Rett syndrome) Dianne reports very chilly weather this morning at 6:00AM as she and several local families and the Planning Committee member were standing by top see the teams off! ---------------------------------------------------------------- From Tammy Hanson (mom to Rachael Hanson, who has Rett syndrome, Tammy and other Rett families in MN sponsored the dinner the night before the race for about 80 folks from local families and all race and team personnel): The Great Mississippi River Race for Rett Syndrome officially started today! We were there with our daughter Rachel, 7 and 5 other Rett families from Minnesota including a set of twins. Last night we met with the 5 groups of race teams and had a spaghetti dinner. It was a real moving experience to be there with so many people knowing we were there for Rett Syndrome. There were about 80 of us there! The racers took off at 6:00 am this morning, and it was 37 degrees out, but we had a huge crowd to cheer as they took off down the river! We made a huge banner to have at the headwaters that said good luck to the racers and crews. All of us that were there have signed the banner and they took it with them in hopes to have other people they meet along the way sign it as well. It will be a great keepsake when it is done! Bob, Tammy, Rachel and Andrea Hanson Aitkin, MN |