Team Wolcott

Here's a brief recap of today's action, based on what I could tell from the tracker site and a few text messages from the crew:

During the wee hours on Thursday-Friday, Keith reached time station #11 (Kayenta, AZ), checking in at 0:58 RAAM time (just before midnight, Illinois time.) He rode through Monument Valley (maybe saw some of that spectacular scenery by moonlight) and made a planned rest stop after crossing the Arizona-Utah border, where the support crew and he caught a few winks at a hotel.

Above - Monument Man: Keith rides through Monument Valley (RAAM photo)

Cameron and Eric, with the EC Ryder RV, parked in the shade, waiting for Keith to arrive.

The "overnight" spot for Keith and crew on the banks of the San Juan River at Mexican Hat, UT

I'm not sure exactly when they stopped, but I'm guessing that it was sometime between 3:30 and 4:00 am Illinois time since I woke for a few minutes around then, checked the Tractalis app on my iPad and saw that #509 wasn't moving. When I got up around 6:00 am, I kept checking it, and -- funny thing! -- around 7:30 am, while I was getting dressed to go to work, I noticed that the tracker moved one-tenth of a mile. I imagined Keith stumbling toward his bike in a hotel parking lot, and lo and behold, two minutes later when Tractalis refreshed the data, #509 was moving at 11 mph. A few minutes later, Keith made an official check-in at the Mexican Hat, UT time station (#12 - checkin at 8:34 RAAM time.)

He checked in at time station #13 (Montezuma Creek, UT -11:18 RAAM check-in time) and was crossed the border into Colorado around noon Illinois time (13:00 RAAM time.) Shortly after that, the icon for tracker #509 disappeared from the map, and there was no more data for about two hours. But I and others noticed that the trackers for other racers were also disappearing at about the same location, and I received a text message from Lisa saying that they were having real difficulty getting a cell phone signal. I checked the map, and it appeared that Keith was moving through a canyon just west of Cortez, CO (McElmo Canyon.)

Pretty soon, his tracker number reappeared near Cortez and he checked in at time station #14 there at 14:44 RAAM time. The tracker stayed near Cortez for a while, so I'm guessing that was a planned rest since his check-in at time station #14 in Durango, CO, showed that his average speed had dropped to 9.71 mph.

In Durango, some members of the off-duty crew and the errand car took the opportunity to do some laundry, where they encountered support crew for RAAM racer Tim Richardson at the laundrymat.

After his check-in at Durango at 19:17 RAAM time, Keith began the climb toward Pagosa Springs, CO, and will probably reach the timestation there before midnight.* He'll start Saturday morning with 23 miles of climbing from Pagosa Springs to the Great Divide.** Then it's all downhill from there.

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* [actual check-in at Pagosa Springs was 0:34 RT.]
** [Keith actually crested Wolf Creek Pass early Sat. around 4:00 a.m. RT and then took a four-hour break before making the descent.]

The profile of the entire RAAM route from Oceanside to Annapolis - the blue arrow indicates the Great Divide, just east of Time station #16 at Pagosa Springs, CO