As I mentioned last week, the Expedition Idaho adventure race got underway yesterday, with 14 teams setting out on a six-day, 500+ km race through the spectacular northern Idaho backcountry. After unveiling the course to the athletes on Saturday, the flag officially dropped on the race at 10 AM yesterday morning, and it has been non-stop racing ever since. You can read all about the pre-race preparations and the start, on the official Expedition Idaho blog.
As of this writing, the official leaderboard has been deactivated as not all of the SPOT Satellite Messengers that the teams use for tracking are working properly. However, as of last night, the top five teams were Thule, which has about an hour lead on second place Seagate at the time, followed by Team Bones in third place. Light & Motion was in fourth, with Team GearJunkie/YogaSlackers in fifth. The Yogaslackers are also racing unranked, as they have had to drop a teammate due to illness. Hopefully all SPOT devices will be reset today and the live leaderboard will return to the website to keep us informed of what is happening out on the course.
As noted in a blog update, the weather is expected to be good all week long for the race and it seems the stage is set to make this a great event. The race organizers warned the teams that there would be good old fashioned challenging navigation to go along with the trekking, paddling, and biking that they are all use to, and it seems that has been the case so far.
Be sure to follow the race live on the website and through Twitter updates. Also, checkout the Expedition Idaho YouTube channel for some great videos from the event, the the one below, as well. It seems the race is off to a great start, and the staff is doing a great job of keeping us informed about what is happening as well.