Primal Quest 2008: The Crazy Mountains

Yellowstone River is running huge, with fallen trees rapidly flowing downstream, so the organizers changed the course so teams would bicycle instead of kayak down the river to the Crazy Mountains.


The Dancing Pandas arrived appx. 8pm and were in bed by 8:30pm for 4hrs of sleep before departing on the long hike through the Crazy Mountains.



After the Crazy Mountains was another bicycle section that the team rallied through and then changed into their hiking gear for the Bridger Mountain Hike. The team's feet are showing the abuse of the difficult course, but their spirits are high.

Primal Quest 2008: The Gallatin River

After hiking all night long, the Dancing Pandas arrived appx. 6am to a warm meal & then they slept from 7:30am - 9:30am before gearing up to float Duckies down the 45°F Gallatin River.


After apppx. 2 hours and 14 miles in the duckies they arrived at the next transition point where they put on even more river gear & body armor for the gnarly riverboard section.




The team did nearly the entire riverboard section before they staff closed the river due to dangerous conditions. Many teams had yet to reach the riverboard section and had to portage/drive to the next transition point. Late afternoon on Tuesday the Dancing Pandas geared up for another all night hike that will take them N toward Bozeman where they'll leave the trail and get on their mountain bikes.

Primal Quest 2008: Montana

I'm in Big Sky for Primal Quest 2008 to support the Dancing Pandas: Tim, Masha, Nick and Bill. The 500 mile race starts today, first with an ascent of Lone Peak and then a transition where the team will take gear for a 15hr hike through the night.



You can track teams and results at the official website: http://www.ecoprimalquest.com

West Coast Paragliding Championships

The West Coast Paragliding Championships took place at Woodrat Mountain in Oregon last week. Two days before the competition I had my first flight on the UP Edge, my new glider, and fell in love immediately. This wing is so awesome!

We flew 6 of 7 tasks, and had numerous tasks over 60km long. Oregon was much colder then previous years and toward the end of the competition we didn't have any clouds but the flying was still amazing: Woodrat!

This event was incredible, because in addition to flying and hanging with my friends, I won my first task & my first competiton! Congratulations to Marty DeVietti who took 2nd and Jack Brown in 3rd, and everybody else for an awesome week of competing and hanging out.

Results are at: http://flyxc.org/wcpc.html

Thanks to Eagle Paragliding & Flytec for their support!