My own two cents about Badwater for what it’s worth... If you hadnt heard, last year the new Superintendant of Death Valley National Park put a moratorium on permits for sporting events in the park while a safety review was completed. Badwater 135 continued this year, but on an alternate course that didnt enter the park. The middle of last month the park published the findings of their safety review with new guidelines for permits. The document they published is 70+ pages and Im still skimming through it. From what Ive looked at, it appears they will allow Badwater to continue on the traditional course through the park with several caveats that the Race director will have to work through. In an unlikely worse case it may be possible that the application of all the new guidelines could regulate the event to death (seems unlikely), and it is still possible that the Superintendant could just decide that the event doesnt fit with the mission of the Park (also seems unlikely now). But at a glance it looks like Badwater can get a permit to run on the traditional course through the park, but the race won’t be in July; probably will be either June (1st) or Sept 28th. It will still be plenty hot (100+ degrees). The park is *not* going to allow sporting events during dates with average daily temperatures above 110 degrees, which they are defining as June 14 to September 9; has to be during a full moon cycle (for events spanning nighttime hours); and cant be during high use days as defined by the parks findings. 4x crew member 2x BW finisher. nps.gov/deva/parkmgmt/upload/DEVA-Sporting-Event-Safety-Assessment-Final-8_20_14-1.pdf
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 18:08:43 +0000