Race Across South Africa, part ten

As the schwack around the Osseberg slipped farther into the past, our days on the Freedom Challenge route started to become more friendly ... dare I say civilized? After we exited the rough doubletrack leading away from The Ladder, our cues prompted us to "turn left ... and now you start the run into Cape Town. Most of the difficult navigation is behind you. You only have three more portages, you have a fair amount of easy riding, and you have a few glorious downhills and the first one starts now."

Even though we arrived very late for the couple at the farm house of Rouxpos — 10:20 p.m. — they still prepared a fresh pot of tea and heated up a hearty dinner for us. There was a lovingly personalized lunch for the next day — homemade fudge and fruit roll marked with the stamp of Rouxpos. And, as a special surprise, dessert was a hot waffle topped with ice cream. Liehann was especially thrilled about the waffle, and raved about it as one of the highlights to look forward to when he returns next year (which he's planning to.) The support stations are one aspect of the Freedom Challenge that make it a truly unique long-distance event. On one hand, you do travel unsupported throughout the day, and in many ways have to be even more self-reliant than the self-supported bikepacking races in North America, which take place on routes that offer a wider array of outside services. But on the other hand, it's warm and reassuring to have someone leave a light on for you to come in late from the cold, and enjoy a waffle.

I advocated for leaving Rouxpos after sunrise so we could take on the first of the final portages in daylight. It turned out to be a very easy portage, so much so that I repeatedly checked my compass and map just to ensure we were moving in the right direction. The track was sandy and rough, but it was a track, which I wasn't expecting. This day was off to a good start.

Liehann and I rolled through "Grand Canyon" and had a good laugh about it. We had ridden through a number of deep and rugged gorges across South Africa, and although none quite reach the scale of the Colorado River gorge, they were more deserving of the name "Grand." Here ... well ... between this and the lush and scenic valley called "The Hell," I was beginning to see a trend of places being drastically misnamed.

The road into Anysberg started out smooth and fast, but quickly deteriorated into a mire of rocks and sand along a narrow, overgrown doubletrack. We slowed to a 9-kilometer-per-hour pace, chundering along into a stiff headwind. After 18 kilometers of tedium, it took us a half hour to locate the correct building for the lunch stop. Liehann was frustrated and adamant about just grabbing our boxes and leaving. I talked him into staying for reheated chicken stew because I always did a lot better with a lunch stop — regardless of what I ate, the hour-long break in the middle of the day was always good for a big energy boost.

There was another 18 kilometers of chunder track after Anysberg, and Liehann's rear tire continued to deflate even after he stopped multiple times to spin sealant into the puncture and top off the air. I suggested putting more sealant into the tire; since I had two containers and Liehann had one, we had plenty to spare. For reasons I'm not quite sure about — possibly because pouring sealant through the valve stem can be problematic — he decided to open up the tire. Inside, he found an impressive number of thorns, which would have made switching to tubes difficult, as it's tricky if not impossible to find and remove all of the thorns. But when he added sealant and started pumping it back up, he couldn't get the tire bead to seal to the rim. The air pressure from the hand pump wasn't enough.

What followed was twenty minutes of Liehann being the most stressed I had seen him in the entire Freedom Challenge. There wasn't much I could do besides offer him my slightly-larger-volume hand pump, but my arms were much too weak for the amount of pressure needed. He admitted that both of his spare tubes — which were taped to the outside of his frame — had holes in them from the bushwhacks. I had two good tubes and a patch kit stowed away, but the thorn problem made their usefulness questionable. I was not nearly as stressed as Liehann because at least we weren't lost ... and as long as you're not lost, you can pretty much walk anywhere that you need to be, eventually. But he was getting angry, and pumped furiously until suddenly we both heard that joyous "pop." The tire inflated and Liehann held the wheel up in the air triumphantly. "Yes! Yes!"

From there, we finally dropped off the Anysberg road and enjoyed an afternoon of pleasant climbing. We were high on a plateau free of traffic, the air was warm and the evening light rich, and we were both relaxed enough to just ride side by side and chatter away, which we actually hadn't yet done in the seventeen days of the race thus far. We were either too focused on navigation, tired from physically taxing sections, or managing difficult terrain — we could never just ride along like two friends out for a pleasant tour. But this evening ride was well-earned, and it was gratifying to just sit back and enjoy it.

After Ouberg Pass, there was supposedly 25 kilometers of descending, but I refused to believe it. A 25-kilometer downhill? There is no such thing in the Freedom Challenge. But then we launched into a free-wheeling plunge that was nothing short of amazing. Rolling along a river, it was just gradual enough to keep the downhill trend going to entire way. Montagu was the largest town we had seen since Pietermaritzburg, and we arrived at the Montagu Country Hotel at the civilized hour of 7 p.m. This hotel was one of my favorite stops on the tour — sitting in a fancy dining hall in our dirty bike clothes, we enjoyed a gourmet dinner that, while portions were more on the "normal" side, included lots of fresh vegetables. We chatted with people who knew nothing about the bike race and likely didn't care, which I admit was refreshing after spending so many days in an artificial bubble where everything was all about the race, all of the time. I had a delicious chocolate pie for dessert, and had my own quiet room where I could rinse and spread out my clothes, and just lay in bed and read a magazine like a civilized person. Liehann admitted that Montagu was one of his least favorite stops — for many of the same reasons that it was my favorite. I agreed that after a day of hard pedaling through remote country, it can be difficult to flip back to civilization mode.

The following morning, we rode 51 kilometers into McGregor that were just wonderful. Cold, misty air. Quiet roads. Lush valleys surrounded by craggy mountains.

Liehann was feeling rough on this morning, so we kept the pace fairly mellow.

I thought I was having a great morning, so I took my second and final selfie of the tour. Selfies are an interesting way to document long trips like this, and I wish I had taken more. Because although in my mind I was strong and healthy, this photo shows the swollen face, drooping eyelids, and chapped lips that betray the reality of my physical state.

The scenery was starting to look more like the region surrounding Cape Town that we'd left behind weeks earlier. This is one of my favorite aspects of bicycle touring — watching the landscape change over time. Even though you're propelling yourself under your own power, and sometimes moving quite slowly, you can still cover meaningful amounts of distance. It had been a seeming lifetime, and at the same time quite sudden — and now we were nearing "home," the Western Cape.

On our original race plan that we were already one day behind, Liehann had us covering the stretch from Montagu to the final support station in Trouthaven in one day. It was nearly 160 kilometers with two portages and lots of potentially tricky terrain in between, which would almost certainly take sixteen hours or more to traverse. It would then be followed by the final stage, the Stettynskloof, a name I couldn't bring myself to say out loud, like Voldemort. Back in Cambria, I asked Di if Stettynskloof was worse than the Osseberg or the Vuvu Valley, or if it was more like Lehana's Pass or The Ladder. She said, "It's so much worse, it's like everything wrapped into one. We won't talk about it just yet."

There may have been a few weak moments when I advocated just skipping the Valley-That-Must-Not-Be-Named altogether. Liehann could go on, but I would just ride right up until the final support station, and then ride on roads back to Somerset West if needed. It's true, I wouldn't have finished the Race Across South Africa, wouldn't have received the finisher's blanket ... but I wondered if this final portage might just be my complete undoing. "It would be like telling someone like me that everyone had to bench press 150 pounds to finish their race. Many could do it, but me? Well, thanks, it's been fun, but ..."

These were weak moments, and I was mostly joking. I did want to finish the Freedom Challenge. But I was nervous. Extremely nervous. I advocated for breaking this grueling penultimate day into two days, to shore up needed strength for the Stettynskloof, and also to enjoy the last remnants of civilized living.

We arrived at the Good Hope farm in the early afternoon. While Liehann took a nap, I worked on a system to more effectively carry my bike on my back. I didn't necessarily want to take it apart, like they do in during the Grand Canyon crossing of the Arizona Trail Race, because I knew there would be thick bushwhacking that would require more maneuvering than a static position on a backpack would allow. But I wanted to keep my weak little arms free when possible, so I worked up a strap system to hook the frame around the shoulder straps of my backpack. That way, the backpack would support the weight of the bike on my back, but it could also just dangle from the frame when I needed to nudge the bike through thick vegetation. For the better part of an hour I practiced with my system, walking around the yard with the bike hanging off my backpack, attempting to step up onto higher ledges with only the strength in my legs, jumping up and down to test my balance and stability. It seemed like a good system, and I was feeling more optimistic at the end of the day.

The long break also gave me time to perform some much-needed surgeries on my fingers. A number of thorns and other debris had become lodged in my skin and then ignored, and some of my fingers had become badly infected. I had to dig through the red and swollen skin and mostly just extracted puss, but at least they were finally properly disinfected and bandaged. My fingers were in bad shape, and I also had a single — but painful — saddle sore that I was treating. Still, those were my only physical maladies at the time, so I had little to complain about.

We rode 76 kilometers into Trouthaven. There was one steep hike-a-bike first thing in the morning, but the rest of the ride was just fun and relaxing, with the exception of five kilometers on a busy paved road that seemed frenetic and out-of-place on this route. It was a reminder of just how little time we'd spent on pavement in the past three weeks.

Trouthaven was another early afternoon stop. Although our times into both Good Hope and Trouthaven indicated it would have taken us upwards of 18 hours to ride the distance in one day, doing these segments in two felt almost like cheating. These afternoons were far too relaxing, sitting with my feet up next to a fire and reading fishing magazines. I was still extremely stressed out, and nothing Liehann said made me feel better. Later in the evening, Coen and Con arrived at Trouthaven — the men had surged ahead of Steve, Di, and Richard, and would now take on the Stettynskloof on the same day as us. Coen had ridden the route twice before, and did not sugarcoat his previous experiences at all. He talked about taking the "tiger line" out of the valley, with his legs about to buckle underneath him, but it was too steep to slow down.

"No tiger line," I said to Liehann. "I'm not strong enough for the tiger line." Our cues described a route that was farther up the valley, and longer, but less steep.

I didn't really think I was strong enough for any of it, but I'd never forgive myself if I didn't try. 

Race Across South Africa, part nine

Beat warned me that my Freedom Challenge report is delving too far into the negative aspects of my experience. I didn't mean for it to come across that way — to sound as though I spent the entire trip stressed and frightened. There were many relaxing and enjoyable moments that tend to fade in the wash of memory, while the sharp edges of the more intense experiences stick out. Those sharp edges are why I pursue endurance racing. I seek to not only learn more about what lies beneath my perception of the world and myself, but also to gain more control over these perceptions. I'm a fearful person. Maybe more so than others, and maybe not, but fear has always lurked around the edges of joy. I'm not brave, and I'm not strong ... but I'd like to be. So what do I do about it? I face my fears. I push my limits. This process is always hard and sometimes painful, and many, many mistakes are made ... but ultimately, I emerge with a richer perception of the world, which is useful in smothering fear.

 I knew, going into the Freedom Challenge, that I had a deep fear of being lost. I came here to face that fear. I did what I thought would help me in preparation — reading orienteering books, studying the race maps, practicing with trail maps at home. But in practice, facing this fear was much harder than I expected it to be. I was in a foreign, unfamiliar land. Trails weren't laid out in familiar ways; roads were devoid of signs. The phantom night would haunt me. Panics would seep through my determination, shutting out rational thought. This internal difficulty is what I am trying to convey in these writings. Conveying the emotion of an experience is different than conveying its objective reality. In reality, Liehann and I were having a nearly flawless race. Yes, there were some mechanicals, some minor injuries, a wrong turn here and there. But the weather was almost perfect — except for a few days of harsh wind — and we made good time on the move. We worked well as a team. Although luck played a part, there were no major navigational mistakes. Most of our gear was working well for us. There was no rational reason for me to be so upset; when I was, it was because of fear.

Now I'm going to post about three days when I succeeded in banishing my fear, at least most of the time. These were "easy nav" days, it's true. They were also long, physically demanding, occasionally tedious, energy draining days — all things that are much easier for me than facing fear. In many ways, they were the most relaxing days of the journey. They were also some of the most beautiful. I took a lot of photos that were — as photos often are — incredibly disappointing. They didn't begin to convey the stunning colors, the sweeping expanses, the sweet air and strange sounds of the landscape.

We left Cambria at 5 a.m., and I was buzzing with excitement. Some of that energy sparked from relief that we'd survived the Osseberg, and some was anticipation for the day we had planned — 106 miles with 13,000 feet of climbing across the Baviaanskloof Nature Reserve.

I've never been to a place quite like the Baviaanskloof. The closest parallel I can think of is Zion National Park in Utah. There were intriguing new geologic phenomenons around every turn, kudu wading through the streams across the road, baboons peering out from the bushes, a warm breeze (that developed into a more fierce wind later in the day) and climb after wonderfully long climb. My energy felt almost boundless, and riding my bicycle was a gift. "Every day is a gift," I reminded myself. This was becoming my personal mantra for the Freedom Challenge — "Every day is a gift." After 81 kilometers, we stopped for lunch in Damsedrif — and I couldn't wait to get back out there.

The riding was still difficult, and this day extended well into the hours after dark. We climbed another game fence and rolled along tall brush with all manner of unseen animals rustling branches. I was nervous about buffalo. Rabbits darted across the road, and then I saw a small cat with dark, pointy ears. We weren't all that close to town yet. "Is that a regular cat, or a wild cat?" I asked Liehann. He guessed it was an African Wildcat.

We spent the night in Willowmore at a historic hotel. Thirty minutes after we arrived, it started to rain — our timing was impeccable.  We enjoyed a gourmet dinner of lamb curry in an ornate dining room. It was a far, far cry from the Osseberg. Marnitz was sleeping there still, and the race leader, Graham Bird, had arrived as well. Graham was going through the following day's maps, of which there were a lot. It was another 162 kilometers to Prince Albert. I couldn't wait.

This day would take us back into the high desert of the Karoo, wide-open spaces of rolling terrain that look flat on maps and from afar, but on the ground are anything but.

This day, we would greet our old friend, the West Wind. It rushed across the open expanses without mercy, pummeling us in the face with cold air and abrasive sand. By afternoon the wind was easily blowing a steady 25 mph with gusts to 35 mph, and we were lucky if we could hold an 5 mph pace against it. The problem wasn't just the wind, but the road surfaces — swept with soft sand, we'd swerve and stall as we churned forward. Liehann asked if I wanted him to pull, but I was having a difficult time holding my line as it was. "It's not the wind as much as the sand," I said. "I don't think pacing will help much."

The constant roar of the wind started to get to me. I put in my earphones and listened to my favorite mix from the Iditarod, which seemed fitting and made me happy. Liehann would ask if I was okay. "This isn't that bad," I said. "This is just tedious. I'm good at tedious." We churned and churned. The wind sapped the energy right out of our legs. Swerving in the sand threw me off my pedals more than once, and my shins were bleeding. Once I nearly pitched over the handlebars at five kilometers per hour.

Night fell. For the first time in the entire Freedom Challenge, I welcomed it, because I believed darkness had the power to quiet the West Wind. Rolling in a sea of blackness, we caught a glimpse of an island of lights. Prince Albert was still 25 kilometers away, and only about 200 meters lower than our current elevation. Liehann didn't think we could possibly see town from that far away, but I didn't think it could be anything else. We rode toward those lights for what seemed like hours; visually, it looked like a descent, but we always had to pedal. As long as we were riding we never stopped pedaling, all day. We reached the fancy hotel in Price Albert at nearly the exact same time we'd reached Willowmore — 9:15 p.m.

Marnitz was there, sitting on a couch and drinking red wine. His hair was substantially shorter than it had been last we saw him — a little girl at a farm house offered to cut it. He asked how long it took us to ride into town. Liehann thought about it — not counting the lunch stop, 14 hours. "How long did it take you and Graham?

"Fourteen hours."

Later, Di would tell us that Graham said that day across the wind-blasted Karoo was one of his hardest on a bike. Whether or not he actually said this, I'm not sure. I didn't think it was too hard. Just tedious. I'm good at tedious.

Prince Albert was another nice stop, and our reward the next day was another long climb to Swartberg Pass.

The road was narrow, muddy, and empty. If this place were located in California, it would be a National Park as crowded as Yosemite. But instead it's here — isolated, quiet in the winter, sublime.

You're probably detecting a pattern here. I did love the dirt road touring, especially when it was both scenic and physically demanding. 

Here, again, is where I have more pictures than story.

We turned off Swartberg Pass onto the road into Gamkaskloof. Gamkaskloof is a deep, isolated valley protected by cliffs and an impassable gorge. The only way in is a rugged, 37-kilometer dirt road that residents petitioned for in 1962, and that led to the depopulation of the valley. This road is the only way out as well. Well, technically, there is one more way out.

This was a fun ride. Lots of steep rollers lined by these imposing mountains. The weather looked threatening, but we only got a few short rain showers.

Legend has it that Gamkaskloof was discovered when farmers lost their cattle and followed their tracks into the valley. There was no easy way to get their cattle out, so they decided to settle there.

Today Gamkaskloof is a nature preserve and still occupied by a lucky few. Sure, they have a long way to drive to the grocery store — but what a location.

Gamkaskloof is also referred to as "Die Hel" — "The Hell." No one really knows why, although legend has it that an animal inspector went into the valley in the 1940s, before the road was built, using a route known as "Die Leer" — "The Ladder." He described the experience as "Hell." This would be our way out.

Really, what I have here again is more pictures than story.

There are only so many ways you can say "this section was beautiful and fun."

But I couldn't easily pick which photos to cull.

Liehann looking into "The Hell." Yeah, I know. Quite hellish.

We had a quick lunch in the tiny village and set out to find The Ladder. A steep climb brought us to the corner of this isolated valley. In front of us was a wall, and it looked insurmountable. I mean, it really did look like a cliff. "That looks super technical," I said nervously. "I don't know about this." Fear started to creep back in. Liehann assured me all would be fine. We picked out the poplar trees listed in our cues. "As you go behind the trees you will experience a moment of magic. In the metre-wide gap between the poplar trees and the face of the mountain there is a a foot path. You are now on The Ladder."

And indeed, behind the poplar trees, we caught our first glimpse of the zig-zagging path up the face of the cliff. It wasn't quite a moment of magic — but it was reassuring. The Ladder is in fact a well-built trail, although very steep, with stair-like boulders lined by thick brush. My arms still weren't well-recovered, and my muscles balked at even meager efforts. I tried to hoist the bike on my back, but I couldn't quite position it correctly. My method of walking with the saddle hooked over my shoulder didn't work on a trail this steep. I resorted to lifting the bike up and placing it down on a ledge, crawling up myself, repeat. It was extremely slow. My arm muscles started to fail again. I dropped the bike once, and teetered enough to feel unnerved. I made more efforts to hoist the bike on my back. "It really shouldn't be that hard," I thought to myself. "What's the deal?" 

I looked up to see Liehann far ahead. Eventually he came back down to help me. "I'm sorry I'm so slow," I apologized. "I really don't know what's wrong with me." I thanked him repeatedly as he carried my anchor part way up the mountain after hauling his own.

"It's for my benefit as well," Liehann said. 

I agreed. "Yeah, it would probably take me all night to scale this wall alone. And you'd have to wait for me." 

As it was, the sun was setting by the time both bikes reached the top. We still had ten more kilometers on a faint track overgrown with tall brush — and just steep and rocky enough that we could only intermittently ride. At the end of that track, there were still 40 more kilometers of often steep, rolling roads into our destination, for another 130-kilometer day that included this two-hour hike.

Long days. And I admit I was feeling deflated by my inability to conquer The Ladder on my own. Still, the beauty of this place eclipsed the hard efforts, making every hour worth it. 

Race Across South Africa, part eight

I was tired of being frightened of things that didn't exist, of things that hadn't even happened. My fear of being lost in the dark was not based in reality, and I knew that. "What's the worst that will really happen?" I reminded myself. As Liehann snoozed in Hadley, I studied the map by headlamp beneath my covers, tracing the dotted line as it contoured down a ridge, crossed the wide blue shading of a river, sliced across a spur, and then continued down the valley. The dotted line hugged the river around Osseberg mountain, which was lower than points on the ridge up canyon — possibly not visible from certain vantage points? I tried to imagine what this landscape would look like — the tight contour lines of cliffs, the steep side canyons ... should I count them? Could I count them? What looked like a trail on the map would look like nothing at all from the ground. I knew if I carried my bike, the odometer would be useless in tracking distance. I was tired of being frightened, so I just put the map away. 

We set out in the morning to cut through a wall of mountains we spent the previous day approaching, the Bavianskloof. It was incredible bike touring terrain — 400 meter drop followed by an "equally ridiculous" 400 meter ascent along the rippled sedimentary layers of redrock cliffs. The previous day, Anine showed me a tourism map that revealed a route to Cambria going the long way around on this scenic and fun road, but of course that is not the Freedom Challenge Way. I told Liehann I was getting to a point where I was questioning my life choices regarding doing things I really did not want to do because I'm in a race. Of course I do it because of the enduring rewards of overcoming my fears and weaknesses — but the fears and weaknesses of the Freedom Challenge were not relinquishing their grip, and I was becoming tired. 

 The long closed and technically prohibited Osseberg jeep track was about forty percent into the process of being entirely reclaimed by nature. Short sections were rideable, but much of it was not — at least not without taking a serious beating from high brush, thorns, deep erosion ruts, and hidden rocks. Liehann and I were always in agreement about playing it safe and hiked, hiked, hiked. The day began to heat up. I inadvertently chose a terrible bush to squat behind and ended up with seemingly hundreds of damn near microscopic (and yet oh so prickly) thorns inside my tights.

 Grumpy, I was. We arrived at an abandoned camp site and I sat down to eat a sandwich that Anine had packed for me — salami and cheese, and it was amazing. "I miss Hadley," I thought. "I should go live there." The track disappeared and the route across the river was far from obvious. The map directed us to "continue on to easier river crossing." The campsite sat about fifteen meters above the river on a vertical bluff. I wasn't sure exactly where we were on the map, but I thought we needed to continue up river before finding a lower crossing and looping back around. Liehann argued that the crossing must be somewhere below the campsite. I insisted we needed to go up river. Liehann conceded this time, even though he was certain of his assessment — and also right.

We hacked through thorns along a faint animal track. Tiny prickly pear-like cactus lodged in my shoes and lower leg. I scanned the other side of the river for the supposed old wagon trail that was supposed to climb over the spur, but saw nothing. Features that I thought would seem obvious from the map were anything but on the ground. Every peak looked like the one we needed to go around, every side canyon like the possible main river valley. It wasn't just that I lacked adequate orientation skills — although, alas, this was partially to blame. I did have a map and compass and the rational capability to use deduction to assess my position. But my creeping fear created an irrational but debilitating disorientation. The canyon might as well have started spinning.

I continued dragging Liehann through the brush. The sandy river bluff only became steeper, the main river channel wider. We started arguing. "Fine, we'll go back to the campsite," I huffed. We picked our way back until we saw a steep gully beneath the trees. "That's possibly a way down." It involved lowering our bikes off a six-foot dropoff and picking our way down smaller boulders, but we did at least arrive at river level. Would there be any track to pick up on the other side? How would we find it? If not, could we hack our way down this valley? Just schwacking through no more than 300 meters of brush had taken a half hour and left us thorn-pricked and exhausted. There was no way that 15 kilometers of this was possible, let alone plausible. And even if it was, how would we keep track of the exact location where we needed to leave the river and hack our way toward civilization? Liehann remained optimistic, but I could only see the world spinning.

"I'm thinking about just going back to Hadley," I announced to Liehann. He thought I was joking. I was not.

It was there, standing bewildered on a gravel bed in the middle of the Groot Rivier, that we heard a loud, "Oi!"

We turned around to see a solo cyclist with a bike on his back. We hadn't seen another rider in the Freedom Challenge since we left Richard in Elandsberg five days earlier, and suddenly, here one was, at the exact moment I was feeling most bewildered and lost. A knight in dirty bicycle kit — Marnitz Nienaber.

Marnitz is a hardened Freedom Challenge veteran, having completed the route across South Africa five times before this year. He started the race on June 15 — five days after us. He looked surprisingly fresh, although his legs were painted with fresh blood — hinting that he probably rode most the way down the Osseberg track through the punishing brush.

"We wondered when you'd catch us," Liehann called to him, referring to the fast guys who were racing this course for time, not just a finisher's blanket.

"Do you know where the track goes, from here?" I called out a little more timidly. I was surely happy to see Marnitz, but at the same time, strangely embarrassed.

"I will show you," Marnitz called back. "Wait there."

 Marnitz hoisted his bike and crossed the first channel, then took the lead through thick reeds at the edge of the river, arriving precisely at the head of a faint double track. I thought that would be the extent of Marnitz's guidance, and now he would race on ahead. But it was a major help. At least we found the track, for now.

"Follow me, I will show you where to go," he said. We mounted our bikes and raced after him up the steep track, with no more regard for the thorn bushes or cactus spikes. If I got an unsealable puncture I was just going to ride the flat. I did not want to lose Marnitz.

At the crest of the climb we looked down the river valley. "That is where you need to go, around there," Marnitz said, pointing at a peak that I presumed was the Osseberg.

I thought that was it, but we still raced after him down to the river bank, where he ducked through the branches of a fallen tree and stopped at a wall of reeds. I could just barely see over the river, but there was nothing there — just more walls of reeds, and more toppled trees. "Look for the breaks in the reeds? See them? It is here," Martinez said.

"No," I thought. I didn't see anything remotely resembling a break in the thick vegetation that stretched about two feet over my head. But I hoisted my bicycle and thrashed through the green confusion, waded across the knee-deep water that was so murky it was difficult discern which way it was flowing, and bashed through more reeds to the other side — where we arrived at a faint jeep track.

I was beside myself. How did he find that? What did he see? "Do you even need a map anymore?" Liehann asked him.

"Not so much," Marnitz replied.

 I kept waiting for Marnitz to ditch us, but he would wait at crossings, and hiked behind us up the steep brushy slopes where the abandoned track cut across river bends. He would pick what to me appeared to be a random spot to cross the river, bulldoze through the reeds, and still find the exact spot where the track met the other side. The barely-there track was surrounded by thick thorn bushes and tangles of fallen trees, revealing what would be a painful, if not impossible, bushwhack, for anyone who couldn't locate the track. "Thank you for helping us," I said several times. "Really, thank you."

Later, I learned that last year, Marnitz encountered another group in the Osseberg, including a woman named Avril. He thought Avril was traveling with the two guys, but actually she was alone — she had ridden alone for most of the race. Marnitz went on ahead, and the guys also made their way forward without Avril. She found her way to the sixth river crossing, and then sent a text message to the race office that they didn't receive until the following day: “Now I’m scared. Alone in Baviaans valley and don’t know which way to go, please can you help..?”

Avril ended up spending the night near that crossing. She built a fire and waited patiently. Later the following day, she heard the sound of voices — and tearfully met up with a group of riders who started several days after she did. Despite their fast pace, she resolved to stay with them through the remainder of the race, and finished with her group of "rescuers." Avril is no doubt a tenacious woman, but I got the sense that Marnitz felt a little bad about leaving her behind in 2013. Her ordeal became our good fortune. Liehann believes that we would have eventually found the way on our own, but I'm not so optimistic. We're both grateful for Marnitz's help on that day.

Though catered to us, the pace was fierce. We didn't eat, we ran out of water, hours went by ... it didn't matter. As we worked our way down the valley, the track became progressively worse, until it was almost entirely overgrown everywhere, and we had to find our way around enormous tree tangles brought down by floods. Give this valley few more years of growth and flooding, and it's hard to imagine how this route would even be passable by seasoned veterans, let alone clueless rookies. Marnitz seems to share this belief. He snapped a photo of one of the downed trees.

"I want to show David his highway to Hell," Marnitz said. He put his camera away and turned to me. "What do you think of the Osseberg?"

"Well," I stammered, looking up at the sculpted cliffs. "It is a beautiful canyon."

"There is nothing beautiful about this place," Marnitz said.

Picking our way out of the canyon, we learned how strong solo racers like Marnitz climb game fences — he hooked his bike on the bar across the top, climbed over, straddled the bar, swung his whole bike around, and dropped it on the other side. I tried to imagine what it must feel like to be that confident and strong. We arrived at Cambria before dark, but only just — 54 kilometers in ten and a half hours. Although we had seen him on the road just a mile back, Marnitz did not arrive until a half hour later. His rear derailleur was busted, and the chain broke. He went to a farmer to ask for makeshift parts he could use to fix the damage. "If he doesn't have it, then it was not to be," Marnitz said.

I felt a sinking guilt — that perhaps the extra effort and bashing to help Liehann and me might just cost Marnitz his race. Although his plan had been to shower and go, Marnitz stayed to fix his bike and had dinner with us. He told us about his sleeping system — in order to make the race more challenging this year, Marnitz was spending most every night sleeping outside. I told him about my experiences in the Iditarod.

"That sounds like a real adventure race," Marnitz said, which I admit sparked a bit of pride. I respected the hell out of this guy.

Marnitz was able to fix his broken bike and was off in the night, like a phantom. Liehann went to bed, and about a half hour later, the peloton arrived — Steve, Di, Richard, and two others named Con and Coen. The were all buzzing from their successful portage through the Groot Rivier gorge after starting in Bucklands early that morning.

I joined in the joyful recounting of the day, but I admit that anger lurked in there as well. We had been incredibly lucky with Marnitz's timing and willingness to help, but what if we hadn't? You wouldn't have to venture very far off the track to not hear others go by; no one else goes down there anymore; they might never find our bodies. This was, again, echoes of that irrational fear calling out from the confines of grateful retrospect. But after two weeks of Freedom Challenge I was beginning to wonder what I had *really* gotten myself into. That valley was ridiculous, it really was. Which I guess is the point — to learn the way, to graciously embrace the help of others, to accept that maybe you couldn't have done this on your own the first time around, but now you're older and wiser.

But still ... what had I gotten myself into?