While most of the teams are still out on the course, the winners of this year's Raid the North Extreme have been crowned, as Team WilernessTraverse.com came across the finish line early this morning, to claim the victory. Congratulations to the team, which consists of Captain Bob Miller, Jakob Van Dorp, Gordon Blythen, and Sarah Fairmaid, on the impressive win.
The rest of the podium has yet to be decided, although it does appear that Team Wild Rose has a firm grip on second place at the moment. They're on the final mountain bike stages, and will transition back on foot later in the day, as they make their way to the finish. Behind them, there seems to be a battle brewing between DART-nuun, Atmosphere MOMAR and Tecnu Extreme/StaphAseptic for third place, while the Team GearJunkie/YogaSlackers, the only other team on the full course, seem to be MIA from the leaderboard at the moment.
This year's RTNX is being run in the West Kootenay region of Canada's British Columbia. The 500+km (310 mile) race promised "real wilderness" to anyone who signed up, and it seems that most teams have gotten all of that and more. With only six teams still competing on the full course, and 15 others going unranked, it appears that the race has lived up to its billing. It also seems that the teams are having a great time and are enjoying the course, despite having poor weather conditions early in the week.
Good luck to the rest of the teams. Get home safe!