Premier adventure racer killed by 400-pound boulder
For the past five years, the Australian had been a top contender in the grueling multiday running, biking, kayaking, hiking and mountain-climbing competitions around the world. His team was winning this week's Subaru Primal Quest race in Western Washington Tuesday when a nearly 400-pound boulder struck and killed him.
The Primal Quest, billed as the longest adventure race in the U.S. — this year, it is 400 miles — attracts extreme athletes, people who train for months to be able to push themselves to the limit for days with virtually no sleep.
Aylott's team and the second-place team were scaling down from Illabot Peak, about 40 miles north of Darrington, when one of the competitors inadvertently loosened the boulder. The rock struck Aylott in the head, killing him. He died "very quick," said Skagit County Sheriff's Office Chief Will Reichardt.
"Nigel did not see it coming," said Guy Andrews, one of Aylott's competitors.
The group used a satellite phone to contact rescue workers.
When word of Aylott's death filtered down from the nearly 6,000-foot peak, race officials halted the race at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.
But most racers were on the trail. Unaware of what had happened or that the race had been halted, many biked through the night.
After the accident, race officials spent the next several hours deciding whether to cancel the race or let it resume despite the tragedy.
The race resumed around midnight.
"That could have been one of us," said Paul Irwin. But by nightfall, the 49-year-old South Carolina resident put the death behind him and was firing up his teammates. "We came a long way. We invested a lot of money, a lot of training. This is the big dance."
Neither Alyott's team nor the second-place team, one of whose member's Achilles tendon was damaged by the boulder that killed Aylott, will continue.
The race
In only its third year, the Subaru Primal Quest is the most prestigious adventure race in North America, said Troy Farrar, president of United States Adventure Racing Association. The winning team gets $100,000, while $150,000 is distributed among the next nine finishers. This year's race was supposed to be televised on CBS in January. But now it is unclear whether that will happen.
"It's the Superbowl of adventure racing," said Farrar. "It's televised on a major network and, because of the amount of prize money, they draw the top teams in the world."
More than 256 athletes from 10 countries spent the past six months training for this year's race. Participants included triathletes and former Navy SEALs.
Although the race was expected to last 10 days, the elite athletes were expected to finish in five. Racers compete in teams of four, and each is required to have at least one female member. Team members must stay within 100 yards of each other throughout the race. The course is kept secret until the last possible moment so that racers don't have time to strategize.
The first night, teams had to find a trail through Chuckanut Mountain to get to their next destination checkpoint.
Cyril Jay-Rayon, 38, of Seattle, who was with two experienced teammates from Western Washington, could not locate the trail. As it got darker, the team decided the fastest way to proceed was to bushwhack (plow through the brush, pushing branches and bushes aside) their way through even though the bushes would rip through their spandex clothes and cut their arms and legs.
His team tried to make up for the lost time by sleeping only 30 minutes during the first 55 hours, Jay-Rayon said.
As the race progresses, hallucinations become a factor, especially near the end, when many competitors forgo sleep and scramble to the finish line, according to several veteran racers.
However, teammates said sleep deprivation did not play a role in the death of Aylott, who was alert enough to lead the pack, according to teammate Matt Dalziel.
By the third morning, during the mountain-bike stage, Aylott's three teammates started nodding off while riding and wanted to stop. But Aylott would have none of it, Dalziel said.
Finally, Aylott gave them seven minutes to lie down, then paced the whole time waiting for them to catch their second wind, they said.
Fast-growing sport
Since 1988, when the first reported adventure races began taking place in the United States, the races have grown from a secret sport popular with daredevils to one broadcast on television.
Farrar said his group sanctioned 35 adventure races in the U.S. in 2000 and promoted more than 300 last year.
"A lot of people become bored with their lives and they're looking for an escape," said Farrar, whose national organization can boast about 4,000 adventure racers. "They like the thrill of pushing themselves to a different level."
Promoters of races sanctioned by the U.S. Adventure Racing Association are required to follow strict safety standards — which force them to monitor participants, have a safety plan in case of disaster and require all racers to be proficient in the sport as well as have adequate gear with them on the course.
"Our sport is inherently dangerous," said Farrar. "But we don't want to put racers into unnecessarily dangerous situations."
Wright said the Subaru Primal Quest is one of the safest such races in the world.
"We've never had a serious injury before, and we'll shut down entire sections of the race if they're deemed to be unnecessarily dangerous," Wright said. "We have a 35-person medical team and two helicopters. Each team has a satellite phone for emergencies, and each team has a GPS (Global Positioning System) transmitting unit so we know where every single competitor is at all times."
The day after the race started, race officials discovered that checkpoints 12 through 14 on Mount Baker were in an icy, snowy area, which would likely cover crevasses and dangerous rocks. So officials told participants they didn't have to go to those checkpoints, Wright said.
A fanatic competitor
Aylott's team took second in the Subaru Primal Quest last year at Lake Tahoe, and he was determined to win this year's first prize, his teammates said.
Well-known in his home country as an ultramarathoner, Aylott competed in races that are 30 to 100 miles, sometimes with only weeks between races.
In 1998, he won the world Rogaining championship in Canada, in which teams navigated a variety of terrains to visit as many checkpoints as possible in a 24-hour period.
A fanatic adventure racer, Aylott, who was single, recently quit his senior-level job at Telstra, a telecommunications company, to devote more time to the sport.
Farrar said Aylott's death "is definitely a tragedy," but he doubts it will change the sport. There have been three adventure-racing deaths since 1988, he said.
"It may increase the safety at races, but from initial reports it sounds like nothing could have been done," Farrar said about Aylott's death. "It sounds like it is just a fluke accident."
Tan Vinh: tvinh@seattletimes.com or 206-515-5656
Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com
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