Our team, GearJunkie/YogaSlackers, crossed the finish line today. By all accounts, the Patagonian Expedition Race this year — our team’s fourth running of the event in Chile — was the longest and most difficult to date. Incredibly, the team began this race on the night of February 11; they just finished today, on February 21st.
10 days and many hundreds of kilometers later, this is how they look. I know their gaze from doing this race twice with the team. It’s a mix of relief and disbelief, exhaustion, elation, and much deer-in-headlights as the team emerges from deep, deep wilderness into the flashbulbs and champagne bottles and cheering crowds, this time in the town square of Punta Arenas, Chile.
Thanks to Chris Radcliffe for capturing the moment so well. These portraits, taken at the finish line, show the above mix of emotions and pierce into the soul of each GearJunkie and YogaSlacker here. We’ll update with final results and race details as they come. For now we know GearJunkie/YogaSlackers was one of only three teams to finish the course. They lived wild for 10 days. Now they sleep and dream.
—Editor Stephen Regenold completed the Patagonian Expedition Race in 2010 and 2011.
—See action images from the Patagonian race in our recent post “Ice Fields and Oblivion: Update from ‘Last Wild Race’. Follow the Patagonian Expedition Race here. See Chris Radcliffe’s website for a portfolio of his work.