Mark Lyons missing in Costa Rica

UPDATE: Race officials posted a Facebook announcement before 5:30 pm on November 6th, stating: Mark is alive and well! Thank God! No further details were provided.

Mountain rescue squads have been deployed to the Turrubares and Bijagual districts of the northwestern sectors of the San Jose province to look for Mark Lyons, a United States mountain bike (MTB) rider who was participating in the Ruta de Los Conquistadores, one of the most extreme cycling, endurance and exploration events in the world.

According to an urgent press release published by the organizers of La Ruta de Los Conquistadores, typically shortened to La Ruta, Mr. Lyons is from the state of Colorado and was part of a team of extreme MTB riders who entered the grueling competition as friends. The incident occurred during the initial stage of La Ruta, which started from Herradura near the Central Pacific coast of Costa Rica.

Mr. Lyons was reported missing on Thursday night. Race organizers initiated a search, which was hampered by low visibility and the rugged terrain. By first light on Friday, eleven members of a Red Cross mountain rescue unit were deployed; two of them left on horseback towards the Carara reserve. Mr. Lyons has not been sighted, and evidence that may help find him has not been collected by the rescuers, who are currently planning to bivouac since nightfall tends to come a little earlier in Costa Rica now that we are at the end of the green season.

Mr. Lyons is 53 years old and a resident of Denver. He is believed to be located somewhere between Bijagual, the Carara National Park, the Lagunas sector, and San Pedro of Turrubares. The rescuers who left on horseback from El Chiquero in Turrubares were followed by mountaineers on foot who are carrying climbing gear and will take a different trail that the horses cannot negotiate; donkeys are on standby should Mr. Lyons need to be extracted from a rugged mountain spot. Rescue units from the nearby province of Puntarenas have been placed on alert, including Jaco and Esparza. Red Cross personnel from Orotina and Puriscal are also standing by.

La Ruta de los Conquistadores is one of the many adventure races that take place in Costa Rica, a country that is famous for her challenging topography. Many segments of this race are so technical that competitors end up carrying their mountain bikes on their shoulders about half the times. As described by race officials:

La Ruta de los Conquistadores is Costa Rica’s premier mountain bike race and one of the most difficult athletic events on the planet. The world’s original multi-day fat-tire stage race, La Ruta is the “Grandfather” that created and inspired this now-worldwide genre — and still the most loved, feared, and respected.

 

Every year, hundreds of the very best mountain bikers and endurance racers from around the world come to Central America to test themselves in this unique odyssey of distance, geography, climate and culture. La Ruta, the only bike race that traverses the American land mass from coast to coast — from Pacific to Atlantic —is no easy day at the beach. Between its sea-level start and finish, the 161-mile route crosses 5 mountain ranges that force you climb a cumulative 29,000 feet! The daunting terrain is so harsh that half a millennium ago it took Spanish conquistadores led by Juan De Cavallón 20 years to cross the land of Costa Rica from the Pacific to the Caribbean Sea; today, following almost the same trails they blazed, modern-day explorers racing on mountain bikes will do it in 3 days.

 

But the legendary difficulty of La Ruta is just one reason why this adventure will take your breath away. Its setting is one of the most special places on earth. Costa Rica has been called “the most biodiverse place on the planet” by National Geographic because it packs a full 5% of the Earth’s species of birds, plants and animals onto just 0.01% of the planet’s land mass.

 

La Ruta riders get a chance to see and hear many of them as they travel through nine of the country’s twelve different microclimates. As the route snakes through tropical rain forest, 12,000 feet volcanoes, banana plantations and tiny farm towns, it alternatively drenches you in rain and freezes you in high elevation. Over every imaginable riding surface— singletrack and fireroad trails, gravel, hard-packed dirt, pavement, thigh-deep mud, sand, volcano ash, and more — the route will have you making endless granny-gear chugs, hike-a-bikes, and white-knuckle descents through and over rain forests, sweltering jungle, steaming volcanoes, breezy coastline, suspended bridges and deep river gorges.