Badwater Forum

John,

Its all over the map. In my case my crew, except my wife :wink: paid thier own expenses to get to Las Vegas. I rented a van, my brother-in-law rented a car on his own ticket and I bought all the supplies and paid for everyones expenses before, during and after the race. After we all returned to LV everyone was on their own. I also understand that some runners will pay everything, including transportation to and from DV.

I guess in the end it is up to you.

Hope this helps,

My spouse/crewmate and I got ourselves to Death Valley and back (flying to Vegas and renting a car); when we got there our runner took care of motels, ice, gas for the crew truck, climbing permit for Mt. Whitney, and all the equipment in the truck except our personal packs. I'm sure there are other expenses I'm spacing. I bought my own desert clothes, and brought some food (snacks, shelf-stable meals so I wouldn't have to depend on the very slow restaurants, and canned coffees so I would act human).

Our runner did everything she could to set things up with the motels, calling ahead and so on, but we still had to persuade them every time that no, the person paying was really not available to come sign the credit card slips!

Yeah, we had problems with the credit card thing, especially at Furnace Creek, with some of the crew arriving before the runner/cardholder. Three months later, I found out they STILL didn't have the billing right.

My personal thought on the "who pays" question...
I think that paying the crew's lodging, food, and crew vehicle expenses (during the event) is the bare minimum. I'd be embarrassed to ask my crew to work for less. I would like to pay more of their expenses, but at some point poverty prevails. I think the most important thing, though, is to talk to your crew about expenses and make sure there's a clear understanding. There are enough other things that can complicate the emotional scene, without the "I thought YOU were paying..." thing coming into the picture.

And it's ALWAYS in the runner's best interest to keep your crew happy!

I paid everything for my crew of 6, including paying for four training weekends in Death Valley, spent preparing for the race. Paid for all trainsportation, meals, motels, tickets, for the training weekends and the race week. Fortunately, everone lived near L.A. My crew were generous enough to use their own vacation time from work, which is huge considering the race is scheduled mid week.

My beautiful Badwater medal is the most expensive piece of jewelry I own ;-) !

Re: Checking into rooms... I gave each crew a clipboard with the credit card and a signed note authorizing them to check into the rooms. We had no problems with this.

I had a great crew shift schedule that I'll share next time.

Happy trails,
NS