MOAB, Utah — For almost 12 hours, about 70 runners and volunteers found themselves stuck in the wilderness when flooding from severe storms surrounded their path in the Moab 240 race.
Now, a day later, they've come home.
Two hundred and 40 miles in the Utah desert, with nothing except what's on their back.
"This is the first time I’ve done the Moab 240-mile endurance ultra marathon,” said Troy Eid, who lives in Morrison, Colorado.
“Started six times, finished four times,” said Brian Hamilton, who lives in Portland, Oregon.
Brian Hamilton was hoping to finish a fifth time, then remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel decided to join.
“I’ve never been hit in the head so hard by rain before. I had a very high-end rain jacket on with my hat on, put the hood and it was hurting me,” said Hamilton.
Both Hamilton and Eid had traveled roughly 100 miles from Moab when they were told to get to the Bridger Jack aid station due to severe weather.
Rain was sheeting down, the wind was blowing very, very fiercely,” said Eid. “We were on top of the ridge and not in a protected area. We were in a marginally forested area, but it was mostly open and it was high, so it was cold. We were being buffeted by the rain."
It was cold, wet and there weren't a lot of ways for the 70 people at the aid station to stay warm.
"Put on all my layers that I had with me, a puffy down jacket, a merino sweater, then I got into an emergency Bivy bag because I knew there'd be no answers quickly,” said Hamilton.
But in the morning, people were told the San Juan Sheriff's Department was going to give them a ride to some school buses which could take them home.
There was just a bit of a hike first.
"We walked four, five miles down where the sheriff was and then I got in an ATV. There were 11 of us crowded in one of the small four-by-fours, or the side-by-sides they call them,” said Hamilton.
Once they got a ride, they were able to come back home, a day and a half after they'd first set out for the race.
While it didn't end how they expected, neither Hamilton nor Eid had regrets.
“It was so exciting. It's something that can really hurt you if you don’t deal with it properly, but it’s also very, very beautiful and it was tremendously just peaceful in its own natural way,” said Eid.
“It was just another adventure for me. Didn’t turn the way I expected it, but that’s part of the adventure. It’s like going into the unknown and finding out what the world’s going to throw at you,” Hamilton said.