November 21 & 22, 2009. Cache Creek-Williams Lake-Cache Creek, British Columbia. The West Cost Rally Association presented Totem 2009 . Rally Master team Paul Westwick and Nicki Beverly put together a challenging route covering sections of deep-snow to bare-gravel to powder-over-ice.

Twenty one teams, five worker crews, and sweep, set out from the Bear's Claw northward to Clinton and west to Jesmond Road, under light snow, with "mild" temperatures.

A steady climb on "Jesmond" Regularity, into deeper snow with fewer tracks, led past the cut off for Big Bar Ferry, past the big guest ranches, cowboys on horseback on the road, and wound through the little cabins with only one track ahead of the first checkpoint crews. The first "stuff" caught up a crew off the edge of a corner -- airbag deployed, no injuries, game over.

Over the ridge on "Poison Lake" and only a skiff of snow on frozen ground. "T" out at pavement and head toward the Fraser canyon, narrow gorges, and hairpins. Slow through Canoe Creek village, bare gravel now, overlooking the river, more hairpins, recollections from 1971 for some, and on toward a break at the Fraser River suspension bridge just below Gang Ranch.

The break allowed time to relocate checkpoint teams (just enough) for the steep climb through hairpins, gravel turning to snowpacked, up and over the ridge, for "Canoe Creek" Regularity, to Dog Creek village, followed by an icy transit with a small cattle drive and an oncoming snowplow on narrow corners. The delay in transit caused the checkpoint shortcut to be just a bit too tight. The Rallymaster was able to set up one control for the earliest competitors along with one other crew on the "Moose Valley" Regularity. The assigned shortcut crews were forced to slot in between cars and go on to their next checkpoints after the 100 Mile House break.

As the first competitors awaited their out-time after Lac La Hache, checkpointers leap-frogged ahead for the next section of deep snow. The route was fairly smooth and wide at the start, a tight left brought deeper snow, a less traveled path, and a quick left-right over bridge that caught up traffic early, then interrupted by a slow moving snowplow/sander -- unfortunately for one of the front runners just before the checkpoint. Later teams were delayed by an "off" here. The DNF happened quickly and without warning, the following car had nowhere to go except the opposite snowbank, blocking all passage -- "two cars off at 27.8km". Several minutes passed with crews working feverishly to get at least one of the cars back onto the road so that the rally could continue. Finally, groups of 4 and 5 cars streamed past the checkpoint just beyond, but hidden from, the site at 28.19km. (CP procedure in these cases is to have one crew member record the car numbers in order as they pass, the other record the times, then match them up later). As the time came for the CP to leave, all cars were accounted for but one -- still very late. The checkpoint car stopped at an intersection to begin yet another off-route shortcut just as the missing car's lights came into view -- all now recorded. Sweep would deal with the disabled "off" and they would drive to the overnight and retire. Sweep had more work awaiting...

The course continued north and a bit east, passing road names like "Horsefly" "Spokin" and "Likely", to 15.60km (9.69mile) "Mountain House" Regularity and out to Highway 97 north of Williams Lake. The shortcuts went west, caught the highway at 150 Mile House and tried to get ahead of the rally after turning onto Soda Creek Road. The last two were able to slot in before car 6 and get ahead of the rest as they waited at the start.

"Soda Creek" Regularity was paved, covered with light snow, and the route dropped down to the Fraser River through two slippery sets of hairpins. Crossing the one-lane bridge, cars began the climb out of the canyon to West Fraser Road and the start of a big loop. CP crews began another shortcut here, reverse course, to try to get to their locations before the rally cars. One missed a corner and another stopped to help -- unfortunately reducing the number of checkpoints on the "Meldrum Creek" Regularity to two. Recovery of the crew was slow due to the long steep ascent on loose snow, and was completed just as the first cars arrived on the proper route. Another competitor was off following the last scored control. Sweep would be busy.

Back across the Fraser bridge and up through the hairpins and into Williams Lake for the dinner and overnight. Sweep was retrieving several to continue, but three competitor and one worker crew DNF -- no injuries, thankfully.

17 checkpoints (albeit one missing log, still in the woods) left a tie for first on Saturday -- with 1 point! -- Jason Webster (OR) & Bandon Harer (OR) versus Glenn Wallace (WA) & R.Dale Kraushaar (AZ), after 488.56km (303.58miles) in 10 hours.

Day Two convened southbound out of Williams Lake and on to the short "Mission" Regularity with one checkpoint. A 56km (35mile) transit led south through Lac La Hache.

"Spring Lake" Regularity brought similar terrain to the previous night's trek, with deep powder in the foothills west of Wells Gray Park. Spring Lake Ranch, Dempsey Lake, Lake of the Trees, Wilcox Lake to EOS at 25.86 km (16.07miles) with 4 checkpoints.

Canim Lake Road led the transit southwest, 25km, to 100 Mile House for gas and grub, then a short stint north on Highway 97, west on Tatton Station (Watson Lake -- not the Alcan version) for some more familiar looking territory.

"Tatton Meadow" Regularity covered Helena Lake FSR, Tatton-Snag FSR passing the north west side of Moose Valley Park, left at 1200 Rd, double-90 right onto Gustafsen-Dog Creek FSR continuing southeast to Meadow Lake. Longest timed section of the weekend, at 79.48km (49.39miles) with 4 checkpoint crews again, thanks to some leapfrogging and shortcuts.

Meadow Lake transit led west to a common point from day one. "Big Bar Lake" Regularity ran reverse of the early part of "Poison Lake", turning east on Big Bar Road, with varied terrain and snow conditions, passing the namesake lake, park, and resort, moving up to 72km/h for the most part, with brief reductions for road character (twists) and residences. 59km later, out to Highway 97 for the final transit to Cache Creek. Sunday totals were 347.31km (215.82miles) in six and a half hours. Rally totals were 835km or 519 miles.

Sunday scores saw a "zero" for the day, two teams with "one" for the day. As the missing Saturday checkpoint log arrived it was greeted by the quote: "Oh good, we have three ties to break..." With the Soda Creek scores plugged in, Webster & Harer prevailed with 2, Wallace & Kraushaar moved to second, with 3, and Jeff McMillen (WA) & Marvin Crippen's (WA) zero for the day moved them to third overall with 5. Totem 2009 scored seventeen finishers.

Complete results, photos, and stories at www.rallybc.com