Fast Cars and Primal Quest - Are You Kidding Me??

This has been an exciting few days in Big Sky.

First, there was the Bullrun Rally on Sunday. This is an invitation-only road rally where the participants pay $20,000 for the "privilege" of driving their high-powered exotic cars (including 2 - not 1 but 2- $250,000 C8 Spyders) from Calgary, Alberta to Scottsdale, AZ. 100 cars left Calgary Sunday morning for the first leg - 600 miles to Big Sky. On Monday morning, they left Big Sky for Aspen, CO 780 miles to the south. They expect to be in Scottsdale by June 27. Yes, conspicuous consumption is alive and well here - even Paris Hilton turned out for this one.

Now from the ridiculous to the sublime. On Monday, Primal Quest began here. Here is a video of the race start from the base area. This adventure race is generally thought of as the Super Bowl of adventure racing - the hardest race out there. Teams of 4 have up to 10 days to run, kayak, mountain bike over 500 miles. Sleeping is not required. It's not a relay. The teams have to stay within 100 meters of each other and must have at least one female team member. The elevation change over the entire course is approximately 90,000 feet (3 times the height of Mt. Everest). Now, you tell me, who's crazy??

Appropriately enough, the teams are headed into the Crazy Mountains today. The course today called for them kayaking the Yellowstone River, but the near crest conditions on the river forced the course change to biking through Paradise Valley. I think their experience on the Gallatin River here was enough to make believers out of all of them. The water conditions here are such that I would certainly not venture into them - but, hey, compared to these guys I'm a super wimp!!

If you are familiar with Lone Peak and Liberty Bowl, you will appreciate this statistic. Word is that Team Nike made it up to the 11,166 peak from the 7,500 base area and back down Liberty Bowl to the base area in 2 hours. Good grief!!! I am in total awe of this accomplishment. To put it in perspective: when we hike Mt. LeConte up the Alum Bluff trail, we gain 2,500 feet. We were amazed when our 16-year old son reached the summit in 1 hr 50 min - and that was just one way!

The race concludes here and we look forward to seeing these warriors return. If you want to follow the race, the tracking map is available online. Also if you click on one of the YouTube videos and follow the links, you will see some amazing videos of the course and this beautiful country surrounding it.