Day 0: Rally School and Transit to Basecamp 1

An early 5 a.m. wake-up, record-speed camp breakdown, and a coffee stop later, Angela and I were rolling toward McCoy Station in Mammoth Lakes with excitement and nerves humming beneath the surface. Even as a third-time competitor, the anxiety was building—this year promised extra stages, plot twists, and more driving and navigation than ever before.

Despite the building pressure, Day 0 felt strong. My navigation was on point, our in-car communication was flawless and we kept the pace all day long. With only seven checkpoints and an on-time enduro, we moved efficiently, built up our confidence and reinforced our teamwork mindset. We went after every checkpoint and earned nearly full points across the board.

Day 1: Goldfield and the Montezuma Mountains

Day 1 reinforced our momentum. A missed turn became a moment of teamwork—Angela’s calm recovery turned stress into laughter. We moved through Goldfield under warm skies, corrected mistakes quickly, and finished early with an 89%.
That evening, the buzz at Basecamp 1 was soft. Everyone was in a good mood because the course had been fun, forgiving and our patience hadn’t been tested yet. Emily warned us all at Rally School that a false sense of confidence might build in these first few days. We enjoyed it anyway. We shared Mexican food with a few of our favorite competitor friends, wandered outside at sunset, blew bubbles into the fading light, and took Polaroids—tiny, tangible memories of those fleeting moments.

Day 2: Ophir Pass and High Elevation Nevada
Day 2 was where the rally truly revealed its teeth and Emily’s warning about not being too confident too soon really came to mind. Twenty-one checkpoints, three separate maps, constant recalculations and cold weather —the course was relentless. I’m a California girl so as soon as I am in a different state, my familiar mountain ranges and highways are replaced with new terrain and roads I’ve never traveled before. Navigation demanded full presence every minute of the day. We managed to stay ahead of closing times, but the incredible mental load never ceased. A single wide miss—over two kilometers—could have unraveled the day, but we caught it quickly and recovered. That balance between humility in error and resilient correction defines the Rebelle experience

Climbing over Ophir Pass above 11,000 feet, surrounded by golden aspens, snowy peaks, and old stone ruins, felt unreal. Choosing the harder X-route was the right call.
After an incredible day, we self-camped in the old ghost town of Belmont, with a tangible air of excitement in and outside Dirty Dick’s Saloon. We ate a few snacks the saloon staff had made for us, marveled at the old mining displays, warmed up by the fireplace before we stretched our legs outside and took pictures around town. Once the sun went down, we made our way to the boulder filled Mexican Springs Campground for a freezing marathon night under the stars. I stayed up late in my tent, plotting my checkpoints for the next day, warming my hands up inside my sleeping bag in between plots and notes. My watch said 22 degrees.

Day 3: San Antonio Mountains and Tonopah
In the Rebelle, we have a term for your breaking point, once the exhaustion and mistakes pile up by mid-competition – we call it “Day 3”. A universal term for having an awful day. Maybe some tears, maybe some fighting words, maybe a flat tire. Who knows. But when someone says they’re having their Day 3, you steer clear.
We woke to below freezing temperatures and stars still overhead. Difficulty finding the X-route we opted for, led to backtracking, stress, and self-doubt that lingered for hours. The stress inside the car was building but neither of us wanted to say it.
We drove through the San Antonio Mountains, dropping down near some dunes North of Tonopah, all with a 200k scale map that made me feel upside down and inside out. Navigation is indeed an exact science, but sometimes you can’t get the puzzle pieces to fit quite right inside your brain. The math and maps make sense, but the terrain you see with your eyes doesn’t line up. It is the most disorienting feeling. Missing some checkpoint closing times, a couple wide misses and tight timing left me feeling beat down and discouraged by the day’s end. I want so badly to do better for Angela and all our partners, but the day tends to chew you up and spit you out, despite your ambitions. We finally found our way out of the labyrinth of mountain trails, arrived back at Basecamp 1 in Blair Junction with only minutes to spare and a much lower score than the day before. This is where the rally becomes deeply personal. It strips away confidence and forces you to sit with uncertainty. The inside of my tent that night felt suffocating.

Day 4: Papoose Flats and the Owens Valley
We left Basecamp 1 in Blair Junction and made our way back into California through the Royston Hills and a part of the White Mountains I had never visited. Papoose Flats was unlike anything I’d ever seen—misty green pine trees, gold grasslands blowing in the wind, punctuated by towering granite pinnacles. It felt like something out of the Lord of the Rings. From a scenic overlook facing Mount Whitney and towering over the Owens Valley, we were surrounded by teary eyed media crews, everyone feeling the same overwhelming gratitude for wild, beautiful places like this. No one needed to say it, but we all were thinking the same thing - how did this become my life? Angela captured a Polaroid of me with my helmet, frozen in that exact moment. I’ll never forget it. The remainder of the trail out of Papoose Flats and descending down into the Owens Valley in California again were brutal. There were several moments we got out, looked at an obstacle and chatted with other navigators to make sure we were in the right place. Surely Emily wouldn’t send us on a trail this rough… right? But she did and we were excited for the challenge.
The day continued with a challenging enduro along the Owen’s Valley aqueduct that we were only prepared for because a fellow competitor warned us not to crash into any poles, don’t fly off the cliff and hang onto your asses. She wasn’t kidding in the least. After that white knuckle experience, the tight timing that left us just short of several checkpoints was disappointing, but I was still elated from the incredible views and grateful to be back in California where I knew my way around. Still, we earned a strong score and ended the night under disco themed basecamp lights, hearts full despite the growing exhaustion.

Day 5: Spangler Hills and Rain
I didn’t know it was possible to have a second “Day 3” after we already had our Day 3. But when they warned us 2025 was going to be more extreme in every way, maybe this is what they meant. Every possible obstacle you could imagine was thrown at us all at once. Wind, rain, mud, freezing temperatures and mental overstimulation like you wouldn’t believe. Missing the very first turn of a timed enduro off the start line was our first clue that we were in for a bad day. But the rainbow that showed up right over the start line gave us a little bit of hope and inspiration.
The rain came down sideways, the wind was howling and blowing the jeep around like a sailboat. The mud was EVERYWHERE. Every single time we had to roll down the window, the rocks and gravel would scrape against the window glass adding to our heightened senses. Every time we had to get out of the car, the mud caked all over our clothes and bodies. It was so cold we delayed going to the bathroom for hours to hide from the brutal weather. The only light that could get through the windshield was the single rainbow shaped stripe from the windshield wipers. Angela screamed that the car was like a tomb at one point, and we pulled over to scrape and rinse the mud from wherever we could. We couldn’t see a thing, our brains were fried and we had done pretty bad, points-wise.
Every valley of trails looked like a pile of spaghetti noodles. The maps showed steep washes and valleys I didn’t want to enter because of flash flood risks. Every pothole was filled with dark silty water and we had to drive slow because the mud was so slick. There were 3 enduros that day and I was only aware of one of them. We timed out of returning to basecamp on top of it all.

But one blue checkpoint changed everything. Angela sent the Jeep straight up a boulder climb while I bounced helplessly beside her. At the top, we ate a snack, took a selfie, and soaked in the view. Some days are about survival, not success.

Day 6: Superior Valley to Needles
Finally leaving freezing, muddy Ridgecrest was a major relief for everyone. Basecamp had turned into a muddy bog. All our tents had flipped over and nearly blown away during the day on the course. Our sleeping bags were wet, our duffel bags dumped out, even inside the basecamp tent with 200+ people, we could see our breaths and I was so glad I brought my snow jacket. We all huddled around the fire outside and tried to dry our wet shoes out. We all spent a terribly cold night inside our tents and couldn’t wait to get out of there in the morning.
I pride myself in having a solid sense of direction, and even when I’m not exactly sure where we are at the moment, I am able to dial things in and keep an eye on the course for the day without too much effort. But today was the first time I can ever recall feeling truly lost. We made our way through superior valley, across a lake bed, through some old mining ruins and further South and inland, to our next basecamp in Needles. After a fast-paced morning of checkpoint hunting, I made a major navigation error while trying to find a shortcut.
After about 30 minutes of trying to rectify what I saw on the map vs what was in front of us, I realized, we’re lost. Actually lost this time. I asked Angela to hold my clipboard as I climbed out of the Jeep so I could take a heading and replot where I thought we were. My hands were shaking and my heart was racing despite having fuel, water, provisions and each other. The panic set in, and my brain started to shut down. I’ll never forget how small I felt in that moment, climbing to the top of a hill, only to realize we were in a maze of winding back country roads, with no end in sight. Even when I decided to click the tracker for our coordinates (a 10-point penalty), I plotted our location on the map and saw that we were 13 kilometers away from where we needed to be, in a black hole of hills, with no direct or visible route out.
Our only option was to take a heading as the crow flies to our desired location, and drive very slowly, making our best guess for the trail that might keep us headed in that direction. It cost us so much time, and we were late to our next green checkpoint, which remarkably, had no flag. We stumbled upon it, completely by accident. You couldn’t see it until you were already on top of it. After that, we made our way to an approved fueling station and I nearly cried in the car as Angela went inside to grab us some snacks. We laughed afterward at our own stupidity, joking we had made it out without dying. You know, the kind of nervous laugh after you’ve done something incredibly stupid and dangerous.
That evening, once we made it to our last basecamp, the sun set and painted the mountain range across the river pink. We sat with our friends at the riverbank, with our feet in the water and laughed about everything and nothing. The rally gives, even on its hardest days.

Days 7–8: Glamis to the Finish
We headed out in the morning for Glamis, such a welcomed relief from the mud and treacherous rocks of the days prior. I spent more time training in Glamis this year than I had in previous competition years and I was so glad to be familiar with the wash roads, the sand highway, Gecko Road and some of the major points of interest. Finally, a place I wouldn’t feel so lost. After a half day of checkpoint hunting in the dunes after we completed our 3.5 hour on-route enduro, we ended the day self-camped beneath helicopter-filled skies, knowing the finish line was close. The weather was immaculate. Mild temperatures and no wind. Such a blessing after the relentless weather we had just endured.

The next morning brought the plot twist we’d been warned about. Our maps and CP guides were confiscated overnight and replaced with a map no one had a ruler for. We had to improvise our own. At our first checkpoint, Osborne Lookout, we finally received the CP guides—each one just a distance and heading from the last. No coordinates. No accurate rulers. And the clock was already working against us. I plotted as best I could inside the Jeep and we set off.
A few checkpoints in, things weren’t lining up. Distances from the road didn’t match reality. After driving in circles and nearly getting stuck, we realized the road on the map had been moved. It wasn’t Geck Road like we thought, but the canal road farther down the hill. Our checkpoints were on the opposite side, much farther away. A hard reminder of Emily’s lesson: maps lie—distance and heading don’t.
Frustrated and racing the clock, we pushed on, knowing checkpoints were timing out. Eventually we accepted we couldn’t make them all and decided to head back to basecamp, still over 30 km west of the highway. The Jeep bucked violently on the trails, snapping a strap on our gear bag and forcing us to stop and improvise a fix. For the first time in three years, I wanted to go home. I was mentally and emotionally done.

But near the end, we found three unexpected checkpoints. We stopped under a railroad bridge as a train thundered overhead, then raced it with our hands out the window, dust flying and the sun setting. Making it through in one piece, still friends, with stories to last a lifetime—that’s something I’ll always hold close.
The Rebelle Rally is not about perfection. It’s about persistence. Trusting your decisions, your teammate, and yourself when everything feels uncertain.
This year’s rally challenged me deeply, humbled me completely, and reminded me why I keep coming back. Because somewhere between the maps, the misses, the mountains, and the Polaroids, you find something rare: clarity.