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Mississippi River Ultra Marathons for Rett Syndrome (2001) and Rett Syndrome & Leukodystrophy (2003)
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  • Beyond the Finish
    • Rett Syndrome
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 2001 Race - May 7, 2001, Monday
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!
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Date: May 7, 2001, Monday, Day 3 Safety Check in 5 to 7 AM
Team Name Time Called River Mile Nearest City/State Estimated Position
Alaska MSC Between 5-7 AM Left East shore of Lake Cass, MN 5th
Amazons Between 5-7 AM 1247 Preparing to cross Lake Winnibigoshish 3rd or 4th
Double Helix Between 5-7 AM 1233 Leaving Lake Winnibigoshish, MN 2nd
Kruger Between 5-7 AM 1212 1st
Rebels Between 5-7 AM Preparing to cross Lake Winnibigoshish 3rd or 4th
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.  These maps show great detail of the Mississippi river, including the river mile numbers and the lakes.  ​The current charts that best show the area the paddlers are travelling in is "Map 1,  Mississippi State River Trail Lake Itasca to Cass Lake  and Cass Lake to Vermillion River.   
 From Safety Officer Elizabeth Tynan:
Between 5 and 7 a.m. (Mississippi River time) on May 7th, the teams made the following reports:

Team Alaska: This morning, they left from the east shore of Cass Lake. 

Amazons: Tony (team captain) reported that Megan and Cynthia were just preparing to cross Lake Winnibigoshish. Yesterday, he said they paddled across Lake Cass in "howling winds," but were in "great spirits" and "going strong." As we talked he saw a beaver. 

Double Helix: After paddling all the way across Lake Winnibigoshish yesterday, Clark and Kurt camped at the Lake's dam near the end and departed from there this morning, at river mile #1233.  (Webmaster note:   Double Helix left Winnibigoshish dam this morning at 6:30 AM.  Winds were strong later that day and they were caught in a thunderstorm on Blackwater lake) 

Team Kruger: Verlen and Bob finally stopped last night to sleep, Stan reported, then left again early this morning from river mile #1212. 

The Rebels: Eric said their team was just preparing to cross Lake Winnibigoshish, at river mile #1247, this morning. They saw Team Alaska at Wolf Lake around noon yesterday. 

Everyone is in good spirits and doing well.
​
END OF SAFETY REPORT
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Date: May 7, 2001, Monday, Day 3 Safety Check in 5-7 PM
Team Name Time Called River Mile Nearest City/State Estimated Position
Alaska MSC 6:24 PM Mile 1221 at Hwy 2 Past Lake Winni at Hwy 2 crossing 5th
Amazons 7:20 PM 1200 Schoolcraft State Park, MN 3rd or 4th
Double Helix 6:22 PM 1184 Blandon Dam, Grand Rapids, MN 2nd
Kruger Between 5 and 7 PM 1141 Jacobson Landing, MN 1st
Rebels 6:50 PM 1201 Schoolcraft State Park, MN 3rd or 4th
The current charts that best show the area the paddlers are travelling in is "Map 1,  Mississippi State River Trail Lake Itasca to Cass Lake  and Cass Lake to Vermillion River.   
\Updates/Comments Received for May 7, 2001, Monday PM:

Team Amazons:
Good day 2 1/2 hours to cross Winnibigoshish earlier today.    GPS dead at 3 from low batteries.  One cell phone hit the water permanently.   Now tired and cold. Stopping for the night at Schoolcraft State Park, MN.

Team Rebels:
Headwinds ! Hot and cold all day. Weather unsettled right now.   Stayed at Schoolcraft State Park for the night.

​END OF SAFETY REPORT

Webmaster notes Team info from Logs:
​
Team Double Helix -  In the evening paddlers arrived in  Grand Rapids, where they portaged and stopped for dinner with several families with Rett syndrome daughters and the road crew.   Clark went under the dome to sleep after dinner with ice his arms while Kurt took the first night shift. 

Team Kruger -  By 10:30 AM  they were at Blandon Dam, Grand Rapids, MN.    They made Jacobsen, MN by 6 PM and stopped as the temperature was dropping and a storm was moving in. 
Mary Potter, webmaster, reports... I'll share what I do have:

Team Kruger - Bob Bradford Daily Log, Enhanced by Stan Hanson, Monday, May 7, 2001
May 7th at 4:00 AM,  it had stopped raining and the moon was very bright. We pushed off for day three of the race. Verlen and I had paddled this tricky stretch the week before. This made us eager to paddle it before sunrise. At this time, we did not know if we were still in the lead or not. All of the teams had to call in to headquarters between 5:00 and 7:00 a.m. and again in the afternoon. When the teams called in, they had to give their river mile. We would all be eager to hear where the competition was. As it turned out, we were still in the lead.
 
We passed White Oak Lake without a hitch. Finding the route through Black Water Lake was a little more difficult though. We had gone through Cohassit a week before in the car. Jon Young had helped me put a reading in my GPS (global positioning system), but I must have done something wrong. My GPS kept directing me through the power plant, instead of just below it. Verlen's map reading did well, though, and we hit the right channel. Dan Cruser, a canoe racer, had warned me about this area. He wanted to make sure we didn't end up in Pokegama Lake, which is a dead end.
 
We arrived at the first dam and completed the short portage on river left. At the put-in, the water was very fast, and by 10:30 a.m., we reached the dam at the paper mill in Grand Rapids. This portage was a little more difficult because the take-out had a steep bank of about five feet.
 
We put in below and on river right. After a block or so, we saw Big Al Rudquist in a parking lot. He is one of the best canoe racers in Minnesota and probably in the top ten of North America. He told me he would paddle with us down to Jacobson. He was waiting for another friend of mine, Fred Rayman, a racer from Ely, Minnesota. Al had told me that with the high water, he could save us about a half-hour in the 40-mile stretch to Jacobson. There would be a lot of shortcuts we could paddle through which were legal. Al had said that he and Fred would join us later down the river when Fred arrived. Within the next half-hour, we saw Al and Fred paddling up-river to meet us.
 
We made Jacobson by 6:00 p.m. thanks to our guides! We decided to eat in the  trailer. The temperature was dropping and a bad storm was moving in. After eating, we decided to sleep. Verlen had stomach cramps, and the weather was bad anyway. Stan drove Al and Fred back to their cars, and we slept.
END of Log for Team Kruger - Bob Bradford Daily Log, Enhanced by Stan Hanson, Monday, May 7, 2001

Team Amazons, By Cynthia Belbin, May 7, 2001, Monday
After our experience with Cass Lake we were very nervous with what Lake Winnibigoshish had to offer. Lake Winnibigoshish is three times the size of Cass Lake and the Canoeing and Boating Guide says "Caution: Do not paddle across Lake Winnibigoshish." We got on the water as early as we could because we knew we would have the best chances to make it across the earlier we were on the water. Fortunately we found it to be fairly calm and we flew across it in two and a half hours. Just as we were finishing our trek across this massive lake we noticed that the wind was starting to pick up. It was such a relief. We would have been hurting if we had experienced the same conditions as Cass Lake. I was pretty tired for the rest of the day after that effort.

We learned something each day. Today the batteries in the GPS went dead about 3 PM. We made a wrong turn and got lost again, this time it was White Oak Lake. This was our low point. As Megan said "I'm going to a bad place" we both started crying. We had Eric within radio distance but no clear path or direction in site. We wished we had a compass and flares in our boat. We even reached a point where we asked Eric to send off some flares - negative on that. The cell phone also found a shallow grave in the Mighty Mississippi. All in all not a great afternoon for us. Eric talked us through and we were saved, again. We put the kayak on the car and drove to the RV. We had showers, ate and slept. We stopped at Schoolcraft Park for the night. We got a little lecture from our support crew. "You guys don't look so good" were the exact words. We were very concerned about finishing and getting our daily average up. We wanted to push on. 
End of Team Amazons Log, By Cynthia Belbin, May 7, 2001, Monday  
May 6, 2001 Sun
May 8, 2001 Tue
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