The plan was to meet at the sports basement in SF next to Chrissy Field at or about 6:00 PM.  The “we” of the group of misfits consisted of John Turner, Hani Juha and your humble author…KR.We left a vehicle in the Sports basement parking lot and then proceeded to drive to our starting location, which was the Pantoll walk-in campground on Mount Tamalpais.  John promised us an 18 hour session. 

The course was revealed with a sea to summit and a summit to bay type path with lots of meandering inbetween.  The first leg was a downhill trek.  The dipsea trail was the main route of choice for the drop to the ocean.  We did a small amount of bushwhacking and game trail traveling in order to cross between the trail and highway 1.  A short saddle with steep drop offs on either side was the highlight for me on this leg.  Upon reaching the beach we did two night rappels of a length of approximately 100 feet.  The ocean surf was pounding in the back ground, with virtually no moon light, giving the exercise a dark shadows’ feel. 

We continued the trek climbing back to our TA (Pantoll campground).  The transition was a bit slow, because we needed to unlock our bikes, switch out gear, ride about a mile prior to realizing I left my keys (would need them to drive the vehicle left at the sports basement back) and then returning back to the campground prior to starting the bike leg again.  The bike leg took us on a bunch of illegal single track on Tam prior to going up and over the summit (stopped to take in the dawn) and riding into Ross.  The drop to Ross was about 2000 feet on fire roads that had several fun rock gardens.  We stopped in Ross for coffee and bagels prior to continuing on the short ride to Sea Trek for the beginning of the kayak session.

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 Mount_Tam_Sunrise[1].jpg

We kayaked on the bay, around both Angel and Alcatraz islands, dodging ferries and other obstacles, prior to fighting a strong ebb tide back into Sausalito and the Sea Trek harbor.  The bay was calm and uneventful, outside of some worthy chop on the Alcatraz side of Angel Island.   We did a quick transition upon exiting the water and completed the event with a short ride over the gate prior to finishing at the Sports basement parking lot.  The course took us 17 hours and 50 minutes to complete, a very well laid out course, The details in short are as follows (and approximate): 13 miles of trekking, 35 on mountain bike and 12 on the kayak, with about 6500 feet of elevation.

A great way to start off the weekend!