Car-free Ski to Sea || by Laural Ringler ||
Our team, Ralf’s Bavarian Bakery Car-Free, was inspired by the Hub’s car-free team last year [2009]. Turns out others were similarly inspired and there will be four car-free teams this year.* Maybe a whole division someday!
My husband, Tom Caldwell, will XC ski, with Sarah Rowan downhill skiing and Jennie Pittis running. The three of them will bike from Bellingham to Silver Fir Campground on Saturday, Tom pulling our bike trailer with camping stuff plus the two pair of skis. They’ll get up early Sunday, leave the camping gear, and bike up the mountain to their race starts. Tom has an adaptation to our trailer that will allow the fork of a bike to attach to it. He’ll then put the front wheel in the trailer and tow Jennie’s bike to the run finish. The three of them will then pack up the camping stuff and head for Bellingham.
Sarah’s husband, Alan Arnett, will do the road bike leg by getting up early and riding 50 miles to the start, doing his leg of the race, then towing the canoe trailer (with the 2 canoeists’ bikes and their camping gear on it) to the canoe take-out. The canoe team, Eric Paige and Matt Treat, will also bike to their start. They’ll take turns towing the canoe to Everson, camp out, and then be race ready on Sunday.
I’m mountain biking, so merely need to ride to Ferndale on Sunday, do the race, and bike into Fairhaven from the handoff to the kayaker. My college pal Megan Kelly is coming up from Seattle to kayak. We’re letting her drive to Bellingham with her boat, but no more. Either she and I will, on Saturday, walk the kayak from my house to the Fairhaven boat launch, where she’ll kayak to the start and I’ll meet her with one of our tandems to get back to our house, or she’ll kayak over the morning of the race. We’ll decide based on the weather.
Those are the plans right now anyway! It will be entertaining to see who can make it back for the finish of the race. May just be me, but hopefully the mountain folks as well, with the other three a little later.
*Car-Free in Ski to Sea 2010:
- Ralf’s Bavarian Bakery Car-Free (team members named above)
- Auto Asphyxiation (Samuel Clay, Tyree Johnson, Jacob Stewart, Jason Byal, Max Morange, Melanie Swanson, Hunter Vern, Seth June)
- Revenge of the Star-Speckled Banana Slugs (Dominic Battistella, Eli Chase, Nicole Bruno, Jennifer Hoover, Eve Kerber, Sarah Kerber, Kyle Morris, Amanda Warren)
- Kulshan Car Killaz (Patty McDermott, Colin Priebe, Jeremy Caplan, Danny Huth, Andrew Pratt, Liz Dombrowski, Leesa Duncan, Gavin Phill)
Laural Ringler climbs Washington peaks every summer, with Glacier Peak and Mt. Olympus still on her list. A regular contributor to Adventures NW, she has published over sixty articles in magazines such as the Chuckanut Reader and Entertainment News NW, has an essay this summer in Adventure Cyclist, and blogs on family adventuring at lauralringler.com. (2010)
