Himalayan Selection Camp Day 9

Day 9: 10 May, by Daniel & Robs

For those of you who arent aware what the raid is, it is an extreme version of a treasure hunt minus the treasures.. 🙂

After hearing about it for ages, the day of the legendary raid finally arrived! After being divided into two groups of 8, we were given our equipment and a few wise words from Martin and Mike. Unfortunently one special member, Ashwini, had to leave us to go home for a college interview.

The two groups, the Tigers and The Gees Yaks, consisted of

The Tigers: Daniel, Francois, Lauren, Robs, Basil, Iga, Tizi and Shruti.

The Gees Yaks: Hugo, Leon, Erica, Alex, Jye, Kai and Elisa.

We (Daniel and Robs) were in the same group, the legendary Tigers:) After guzzling down a carbo-loaded lunch, we were all getting extremely excited and eager to get going.

After meeting in the dining room just after 1pm, we were all packed with our matching black backpacks. The tigers were slightly taken aback when the Gees Yaks walked into the room with an awesome display of tribal face paint. Feeling slightly disadvataged in the spirit department, Basil decided it would be a good idea to bring along his whistle..from that moment on Basil would not be seen without it:) 

3-2-1 and the raid started. Each team got their maps and a compass and began looking for the points that needed to be followed in order to complete the course.

Finding our points first, the Tigers set off first on our bikes towards our meeting spot where we met Claude-Alain, our amazing guide. The Gees Yaks were guided by Martin and his muscles.

Our first stage was a bike ride from Hotel de Ville up onto a steep mountain trail. After putting up an awesome fight and giving her absolute best, Shruti from The Tigers, decided to have a break and travel with Mike and the rest of the Team in the car. It was awesome to have a team mate encouraging us on our way! 🙂

Everyone gave their best and despite being completely exhausted, many managed to smile in their spot interviews with Mike along the way.

After finishing the bicycle trail we started on our hike. After hiking for over three hours, through sun, rain and snow, we finally reached the summit. The next obstacle was to via ferrata, travelling across a rock face attached to your team and cables. It was incredible. Team work was essential here and everyone did a great job. The views were unbelievable!

On the descent, Basil unfortunently twisted his ankle but continued on like a real trouper ! Both teams did incredible teamwork and kept eachother motivated thoughout the course.

After the descend the teams were instructed to carry their bikes up a steep mountain path. This was very hard but the reward was awesome- an amazing downhill bike ride. We continued running on adrenelin and after completing a very fun team work exercise, and an amazing flight on ‘the flying fox’, we continued cycling late into the night.

After being on the go for 12 hours, with only a 5 minute stop for food and a smile from Caroline, we finially reached our camping destination for the night. After pitching our tents in groups of three, we got our food and started setting up the tents of the next team who arrived a while later. After getting into our cozy sleeping bags we fell asleep very quickly and 4 hours later were woken up by Mike Horn shaking our tents calling “This is not a sleeping raid !“

A very sleepy and excited group of 14 Young Explorers jumped out their tents and got ready for the day ahead.