And we thought 500 miles and 100,000 ft of elevation were enough… add a grizzly bear, an avalanche and a bit of hypothermia for good measure!

Scenario:

You are 100 miles from civilization five days into your 10-day race.  You have a heavy backpack on your back, blisters covering every square centimeter of your feet and three fine strapping teammates trekking alongside.  You take a little break to re-arrange gear and take out another ziploc bag of M&Ms, when a massive grizzly appears out of the woods 20 ft up the trail.  After a few seconds, he takes to the blocks like Linford Christie and charges straight for you on all four legs.

Do you:

A: Scream like you have never screamed before and take off in the opposite direction as fast as your blistered feet can carry  you?

B: Take the five minutes to reach for bear spray buried deep in your backpack, while your teammates fend him off long enough?

C: Take out your camera (Olympus Tough 1030) and start shooting, hoping to get a nice picture for the mantle piece and hope the flash scares him away

D:  Or stand tall while this train is coming right for you and hope he is playing ‘Chicken’?

Take a moment and picture this in your mind……

 

Well, Congratulations if you answered D, you would live to see another day.

Your options and wonderful options they are according to experts:

 

Two days ago we received this email from the Race directors:

 

“We encourage you to educate yourselves on bear safety as we’ve seen lots of bear tracks and even heard a grizzly growl on the course today.  There will be a wildlife specialist speaking at the race brief, but you should  be as bear-savvy as possible in these parts.”

 

Also in this email we were warned of the avalanche activity in the area, the 4 – 10 ft of snow on much of the course and also that due to freezing waters, we will undergo physical and mental checks after our water sections.

 

All in all, this has the making of a great relaxing holiday!