August 13: Sick racer evacuated; remaining teams tackle 'The Slime'
By Dan Morrison

Terry Schneider descending to the Herbert River

And now the first competitor in the 1997 Eco-Challenge to be evacuated by helicopter.

At 6:20 p.m. local time on Wednesday, Team R.O.A.M. broke the seal on their radio to call for medical assistance for team member Pat Cszmazia. According to the emergency call, the 27-year-old Cszmazia was vomiting and very ill. He was seriously dehydrated, they thought, or perhaps he had been bitten by a poisonous spider.

A helicopter was immediately dispatched, and Team R.O.A.M. was officially out of the race.

Which leaves 45 teams still in the race, teams that began arriving at CP-9 at 8:46 a.m. today.

The checkpoint was the terminus of a 40-kilometer canoe leg on a river filled with freshwater crocodiles.

"We saw several crocodiles last night," said Terry Schneider of Team SCAR, once safely on land. "Cute little red eyes swimming around. We did most of the canoeing in the dark, and they were out there all night."

After portaging their inflatable boats for 2.5 kilometers, the teams rigged up for a 50-meter rappel into the Herbert River.

Not everybody bothered to paddle the entire 40-kilometers, however. Some teams, like Team SCAR, spotted one of Mark Burnett's favorite little tricks.

Teams with enough navigation skills realized by carefully scrutinizing their maps that Burnett has planned a river course with a wide oxbow in it. By portaging across the oxbow it was possible to cut 10 kilometers off the river distance, thereby saving a couple hours.

By way of this maneuver, Team SCAR managed to leap ahead from fifth place to first by the time they reached the checkpoint at Herbert River Falls.

David Kelly (l) and Terry Schneider of Team SCAR

Rappelling down the cliff on four parallel ropes, the competitors then ascended ropes to a finger of rock jutting out into the river. From there they dove into the swirling current of a choppy pocket of agitated water caught between the upper falls and the lower falls, and swam some 100 meters to fixed ropes back up the cliff.

Clipping onto the ropes with ascending devices, the competitors began the excruciating ordeal of pulling themselves up a slippery rock wall.

Once safely atop the south rim of the Herbert River canyon, the members of Team SCAR shucked their PFDs, backpacks, climbing harnesses, and helmets, and spread their gear out. As Jason Middleton went off to fill water bottles at the river's edge, David Kelly, who is also the team navigator, checked the map for the best route out of the canyon.

"The swim itself wasn't all that difficult," Kelly said, reflecting on the river crossing, "although it was a little disconcerting when you looked up and saw a cliff coming at you." And swimming to the base of a cliff with fixed ropes to begin an ascent was a novelty. "Every time the Eco-Challenge does something with ropes, it seems they feel the need to outdo themselves once again."

The 50-meter wall Team SCAR had just ascended had been dubbed "The Slime" by the crew of climbers and riggers who had been up it while setting the course.

"You just couldn't get any purchase," Terry Schneider complained, "I kept sliding all over the place. It was not very pleasant."

Bloody knuckles and banged knees would become a common complaint among many of the teams at the end of this section. Schneider had, at least, enjoyed the swim. "I kind of needed a little bath," she said with a laugh. "And it was fun."

Team SCAR's Greg Thomas

"Beyond the obligatory pain, we're doing okay. We had a little rest last night, and it just did wonders for us."

Do they feel confident they can hold onto the lead long enough to win this race?

"Well," Kelly mused, "we feel confident we're going to finish this thing, and we feel confident that we've got a good team. And we feel confident that there's lots of hungry people behind us. Lots of hungry people, people who believe they deserve to be further up than they are."

At the time Kelly made that statement, he had no way of knowing that Team Red Hot, led by 26-year-old Australian Tim Smallwood, would pass Team SCAR in the next 7 kilometers and check into PC-10 four minutes in the lead.

But as Terry Schneider noted when told they were in the lead, "The race is still so early, and there is still so far to go."

Dan Morrison covered the Marathon des Sables for Outside Online.