THE ATACAMA CROSSING
'Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop.'
Lewis Carrol,
from Alice in Wonderland
The 2008 Atacama Crossing is a 6 day, 250km (150 mile) footrace across the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, the driest environment on Earth. Like so many deserts the weather is one of extremes, with daytime temperatures reaching well over 38 degress celcius (100 farenheit) and regularly plummeting below freezing at night. High altitude also adds to the challenge, with the entire course run at least one mile (and very often higher) above sea level.
To make things even more difficult, competitors are required to be self-sufficient and need to carry all the gear, food and clothing they will need for the entire week - the only assistance provided is water, tents and medical aid.
The exact course will remain a secret until the day before the event but will be made up of 6 stages of varying length which are arranged to cover some of the most spectacular and challenging scenery the desert has to offer.
In the Atacama this includes miles of sand and endless salt flats, where previous competitors have likened each exhausting step to sinking 6 inches into thick and clinging mud. And of course, no ultra marathon would be complete without the dreaded 'long day'. In the Atacama this will be Stage 5, which is approximately 80km (50 miles) long and is known as the 'Marcha de la Muerta', or 'March of Death'.
The race attracts people from across the globe but remains a fairly intimate event . With entries limited to around 100 competitors each year, the organisers definately subscribe to the idea that a little solitude is good for the soul. And as with so many of these events it seems that us Brits can't get enough of the suffering - the UK is the best represented nation amongst all the competitors so something about mad dogs and Englishmen springs to mind....
SAND AND SWEAT 2008 - CRAIG'S ATACAMA CROSSING
