Good Livin’…
The Good: Our team managed to come together quickly. The first hour or so sucked – which is unavoidable… the duration may change, but the suck will be the suck… But communication and teamwork were established pretty quickly, which helped significantly throughout the night; a lot of the self inflicted pain that could have been didn’t materialize.
We didn’t really have anyone dragging the team down on much of anything – obviously there was some variation, and at times, a few folks needed a boost in one area or another, but there wasn’t a huge disparity.
Weather also held out – it was about 70 deg and cloudy but clear with good illum – I was glad to have the headlamp, but only really used it for about 5 minutes. Really could not have asked for better weather for this.
The Bad: One water crossing. The crossing was planned… the fact that it was filled with some kind of godawful sludge was not. I seriously wonder if I have now swam in human waste… I threw out the clothes I was wearing, and am still trying to get the smell out of the shoes, insoles, and ruck.
Comments on the GR1: Definitely solidly built, and carried the load well. I packed mine three-across, two high, and that worked pretty well for the weight distribution. The only thing that I would change is adding a waist belt – by about 1/3 to ½ way through, my traps had completely handed the job of supporting my shoulders off to my back, and both were killing me. It wasn’t a show-stopper, but the ability to transfer some of the weight directly to the waist would definitely have helped.
The pack also worked well for organization – the ability to open flat made everything accessible, and even though part of the concept was minimalist pocket design, there was enough there to pack in rapidly accessible items.
Recommendations:
- Bring a good set of gloves. My palms were torn the fuck open through a decent set of mechanics gloves.
- Waterproof the shit out of everything. I saw water on the Buffalo event page, and bagged anything other than bricks that went into my pack. I was very glad I decided to do so. If it’s electronic, double bag. I don’t know if there’s 100% chance of water at all events… we got wet several times.
- If your schedule allows, go on a Friday – I’m very glad I had both weekend days to recover.
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