Bearden Falls - To Skip Or Not Skip

One of the decisions teams would face during the race was whether or not to skip CP4 - Bearden Falls. After the Nimblewill Gap decent, at least one team (Kickapoo) blew past the jack-knife left turn to head up to it. At Nimblewill Church, when they realized their mistake, they opted to continue on rather than turn back. The ride/trek up to the falls takes roughly an hour there and back, and includes a steady uphill with the creek of which the falls are an upstream source. The trail makes a sharp up-turn on the hill-side to get to the base of the falls, which no doubt turned a bit muddy as teams scrambled up it. Teams that were thinking of strategically trimming their ROC Gear Stage course down a bit might have noticed that the trip to CP4 would probably take much longer than any of the Bull Mountain mountain biking section would add to the clock. On the flip side, it was an opportunity to get out of the saddle for a while in the middle of what could be a 9 hour biking leg. Additionally, it was the showcase wilderness waterfall on our course this year, as most people don't even know it exists. For teams that did make it up there, it's well worth it.