The race route is a 400-mile circumnavigation of the Kokopelli, Paradox, and Tabeguache Trails of Western Colorado and Eastern Utah. We trace Kokopelli's through the high desert and up into the La Sal Mountains near Moab. After about 130 miles we intersect the Paradox, ride through the La Sals, descend into and across the Paradox Valley, and then climb for most of a day to top out at 10,000' on the Uncompahgre Plateau. There we intersect the Tabeguache, which we ride north, paralleling the spine of the plateau back to GJ. Total distance on trail is 340 miles, plus 20 miles of pavement to the start.

Three athletes started the race:

1. Current course record holder Gary Dye. Prior to this year, Gary was the underdog because of his lack of experience at dealing with sleep deprivation and fatigue in the late miles of an ultra. He silenced all naysayers as the sole finisher of last year's race, and came back to knock time off of his already formidable record.
2. Alaskan Pat Irwin, two-time winner of the 350-mile winter race now known as the Alaska Ultrasport (formerly Iditasport/Iditabike). Pat won those races on a single-speed Surly, and showed up to race the Grand Loop on a 29" single. Skeptics pointed out that a single-speed bike is one thing on snow, but quite another in the mountains. Pat shrugged them off with a confident, unassuming, "Yep".
3. Me. I'd come away bitter from last year's Grand Loop after breaking my frame 220 miles in, and was itching to get past that. I'd done lots of route reconnaissance in the weeks preceding this year's race, including an unsupported 19-hour time-trial on the Kokopelli, plus overnights on difficult-to-find sections of the Paradox and Tabeguache Trails. Couple that with a new 29" Willits and a bit of experience from 30+ ultra races, and I felt prepared for anything.

We made it through the technical singletrack of Mary's and Lion's loops before dark, then flipped on the headlamps for the sharp, rocky descent of Troybuilt. By the time we'd hit the abrupt hike-a-bike up to Rabbit Valley, Gary had already pushed off the front, Pat dangled somewhere in the middle, and I brought up the rear. Cresting the ridge we were met with a wall of wind. With the benefit of hindsight, it's easy to see that the race took a huge turning point there. 25+mph winds were the norm for the rest of that night, with frequent gusts over 40 bringing us to a temporary halt. The wind brought waves of dust, making it difficult to breathe and impossible to maintain a consistent speed. Slowed progress was frustrating enough, but during the gusts our only recourse was to stop and turn away from the sandblasting, protecting our eyes as much as possible. Less perceptible, but far more crucial in the long run, the wind was sucking the moisture out of us. Cottonmouthed and dust-caked we inched our way along.

When I caught Pat near the west end of Rabbit Valley, the first frustrated words out of his mouth were, "I totally underestimated this trail". I assumed he meant the technical nature of it, and assured him that we'd already completed the most difficult stretch. He and I rode much of the night together, and I'm fortunate for that. Just past MacDonald Creek my rear rack snapped, and if not for a spare strap he'd been carrying I may not have been able to continue. I removed the rack, stuffed it into my sleeping bag, and strapped the pack to my seatpost. It was less than ideal to ride with, but it beat quitting.

Prior to starting, we knew that the biggest obstacles facing us were:

1. Routefinding.
   Several stretches of trail are unmarked, unused, and in select places non-existent, requiring a bushwhack. Gary has done the entire loop at least three times, and would only offer a shrug, a smirk, and this advice, "If you get there before me, you can always wait. If you're there after me, you can always follow my tracks." Advantage: Gary.
2. Heat.
   Predictions were for daytime highs over 100. Coupled with the ridiculously low humidity found in this area, and we were dried out before we started. Pat had stepped off the plane from temperate Anchorage just hours earlier, Gary lives in the high alpine of Telluride, while I live in the semi-desert of Grand Junction, and train daily in the heat and lack-of-humidity. Advantage: Me.
3. Moisture/Water.
   The course crosses long stretches of high desert and we happen to be in the midst of a drought. Normally rideable stretches of trail have become linear sand dunes, seasonal creeks have dried up, and the year-round springs high in the La Sals and on the Uncompahgre Plateau are either dwindling or gone. Because of his experience on the route, Gary knows where the springs are and which ones to avoid. Advantage: Gary.

From Rabbit Valley to Westwater we had eerie views of a forest fire that lit up the sky to the north. Pedaling parallel to it for hours, I was able to learn much about the behavior of wildfires and the techniques used to combat them, courtesy of Pat and his years of work on Forest Service fire crews. Within the borders of the fire there were a few spots much, much brighter than others, which Pat guessed to be homes. It didn't take much to figure that the winds we were fighting were going to spread the fire rapidly before crews could get near it at daybreak.

It was a bit of a reality check.

In the dark just before dawn we experienced the coolest temperatures of the race-83 degrees. I'd hoped to get up into the mountains before the heat of the day, and based on previous years' times had anticipated crossing the Colorado River at Dewey Bridge (the start of the climbing) around sunrise. The harsh headwind made short work of that plan--as light came into the sky we were still 20 miles shy of Dewey. The day heated up quickly.

Pat's no stranger to ultra racing, and knows his body well enough to recognize trouble. Near Cisco he opted to stop for, "A little while, or however long it takes me to catch up on water consumption." He'd been drinking consistently all night, but the dust, wind, and heat had taken a toll, and he wanted to minimize the damage from dehydration. I stopped briefly with him, but was anxious to get up into the mountains. I pedaled away certain that Pat would catch me later on, somewhere high in the La Sals.

Near McGraw Bottom I stopped to filter some water from the Colorado, squeezing two full bottles from the river before my filter began to clog with silt. I continued up onto a ridge known locally as Yellowjacket, notorious even in moist years for its abundance of unrideable beach sand. I guessed that Gary had been through here as much as two hours earlier, based on the degree to which his tracks had already been erased by the wind. As much as I wanted to catch him, I knew that the only strategy at this point was to go easy and wait for the relative coolness of nightfall. I kept plodding along.

As I descended through red sandstone slabs to Dewey Bridge, I knew that I didn't have enough water to make it to the next spring, 30 miles into the La Sals. There's sometimes a creek running about halfway up, but three weeks previous it had been but a trickle, and with no rain since I didn't want to take any chances. I was able to top off my bottles and bladder courtesy of some car-campers who had been carting "A few emergency gallons" around for a week without touching them.

Even though the dust and wind had put the screws to us for the past 15 hours, leaving Dewey I felt optimistic: I had 180oz of water and I hadn't begun to feel fatigued. I was supremely confident that I could make it to the next spring, and hoped to get to the Bedrock Store (the only resupply on the entire race route) before they closed at 7pm.

The trail climbs immediately away from Dewey. Though the surface is level enough, the loose gravel and steepness make it difficult to stay on the bike. Each time I dismounted I'd look down and see Gary's footprints next to his tire tracks, and felt a little better knowing that he was walking too. I felt bad for Pat--with a single-speed he'd have no choice but to walk this stretch.

5 miles of steep climbing later the trail cuts through a few sandstone shelves and winds it's way down into Cottonwood Canyon. As I crossed the wash I almost ran over Gary, lying in the sand with his legs and bike sticking out into the trail. He had a bandana over his head to keep the flies off. Before I could speak he blurted out, "Ohhh maannnnn, I dunno if I'm gonna puke or shit my pants, but I hope it happens soon". He went on to explain, in a scratchy whisper of a voice, that he'd run out of water near Cisco, and had gone over to the river-runners' put-in, "To do some dumpster diving". He'd been able to find some water in discarded bottles there, and now surmised that some of it might have been bad. A few miles later his back began to cramp and his stomach shut down on him. Unable to take in any food or water, he'd ground to a halt.

Anytime I see someone on the side of the trail my instinctive response is to encourage them to get up and get back at it. Given the circumstances, just by looking at Gary I knew that he was better off where he was, at least until his cramping back relaxed. I talked to him a bit more to make sure that he was still coherent, offered him antacid, electrolyte, and Naproxen, then when I was sure there was nothing more I could do I started hoofing it up the other side of the canyon.

For the next ten miles I alternated between grinding in the granny gear, pushing the bike up the steepest pitches, and taking brief, one-minute breaks in the shade of trailside junipers. The wind had not yet abated, and the hotter it got the more thankful I was for that--it helped to cool me down. The coolness felt good but in the end it wasn't-the wind continued relentlessly sucking moisture out of me. Miles went by slowly, and I began to blow through precious water at an alarming pace. I was still feeling pretty good, maybe even a bit cocky that I'd dodged the bullets that had struck Gary and Pat. I should have known better.

I descended into another canyon, delicately picking my way down through broken slabs of red and white sandstone. I sucked the last of the water from my pack, then started in on the three bottles on the bike. Things went immediately south; the water in the bottles was so hot it turned my stomach. I had 60oz of water, but I might as well have been out. As I portaged my bike out the other side of the canyon it was all I could do to hold that water down, and out of the question to eat anything. In every way I felt myself slowing down.

I knew that I was less than 2 miles from Fisher Valley, and that once there I could always descend off-course to Onion Creek for real shade and cool water. I continued walking the steep climb, focused on clear, cool water to keep me moving. The high temperature, wind-driven dust, and ash in the air combined to form a heavy haze that obscured even the head of the valley. Exceptional views can normally be had of Polar Mesa, North Beaver Mesa, and Fisher Mesa, but today I was only able to make out a hazy silhouette of the first, and nothing beyond it. I suspected that I might have started to hallucinate because I'd never seen it so hazy. I dribbled a bit of water into my eyes, wiped them clean with my shirt, then refocused. No different.

I'd bonked so severely that it was difficult to walk up the hill. I'd pick out a visual marker a short distance ahead, then focus on it 'til I got there. Then I'd pick out another, and another, and by that method was able to maintain minimal forward progress. At some point I'd stopped sweating--a very bad sign. Then a funny thing happened. I said to myself out loud, "When I get to that next Gatorade bottle, I'll take a break long enough to slug it all down." That perked my spirits up plenty until I arrived at the "bottle" to find it was a sunbleached piece of juniper. For the next mile I knew, consciously and subconsciously, that there were no bottles of anything out there, but I continued to see Gatorade under every juniper.

Cresting the climb I expected a high-speed descent out into Fisher Valley, but was humbled and frustrated even further when the burning wind forced me to pedal downhill in my granny gear. I craved cool water like never before, even as I sprouted goosebumps and started to shiver. MUST… GET… SHADE… WATER. Ten minutes of grinding and weaving downhill brought me to Onion Creek Rd; from there I descended steeply to the first creek crossing. I dropped the bike in the sand, grabbed my filter and stumbled down to salvation. Despite the stifling heat, I broke into shivers the instant my feet touched the cool water. I scooped some over my head to help cool my skin, then sat in the shade on the bank and drank bottle after bottle. Certain that Pat and Gary were closing the gap behind me, and knowing that they'd need water as badly as I did, I sat facing the way that I'd come. For the next hour-and-a-half I ate, drank, and awaited their arrival. I mixed a weak electrolyte solution into every other bottle to help replenish my obviously depleted body. All told, in 90 minutes I drank almost two gallons. Even more incredible: I had no urge to pee.

As a fraction of lucidity returned I took stock of the situation. I'd already used up all of my electrolyte, and with about 70 miles of trail (most of it climbing) before the Bedrock Store, I knew that it would be the next morning at the earliest before I could resupply and begin to replenish all that I'd lost. I didn't think I could make it 70 miles. I'd dug a deep hole, and I knew that climbing out of it while racing across the desert was almost certainly out of the question--the only way to rehydrate and replenish was to stop. With 270 miles left to go, the likelihood of finishing was nil.

Mindful of all that, I still couldn't let it go. My ego kept chiming in, like the winged devil on my shoulder, that I couldn't quit now. As I repacked the bike my ego kept reminding me of how it felt to pull out of the race last year, and then it would needle me about how I'd feel if I quit the race and Gary and Pat finished. I went back and forth, knowing the only prudent decision was to pull out, but unwilling to make that call. I sat back down in the sand to think things over. Before I came to any decision I was wracked by violent shivers, despite the scorching heat, and knew then and there that there was no decision to be made. I got on the bike and pointed it toward a paved road, hoping to hitch a ride home.

...

I would later learn that after an extended break at Cisco, Pat decided to pull the plug. In his words, "I've been dehydrated like this before, and I know that it takes a full day to get back on top of it. In those circumstances, with the race really just starting, I knew that I was too far behind to continue safely, and I needed to take care of myself."

Gary met with a more dramatic result. A short distance past where I saw him he began to vomit. He later recounted, "My stomach felt funny but I wasn't expecting to puke. When it happened I just knew I was done." He turned around and headed for civilization, vomiting through the night. At times he could only move 20 feet between episodes. Gary hitched a ride home the next morning, and spent the bulk of the next 6 days horizontal, replenishing his depleted body.

...

Information on the trails used for this race can be found at:
http://www.copmoba.com