2 Rivers AR, Philaldelphia, PA, 11/15/25

As someone who suffers mightily in the heat, I'm always on the lookout for a non-summer race. When Rootstock announced a November date for their Two Rivers race, I was immediately in and Rob took no convincing to add this to our race schedule. Adding to the appeal was the Philadelphia setting of the race. I lived in Philly from 1995-2000 and was happy to make the 6-7 hour trip to explore my old stomping grounds.

November weather in Philly could be just about anything, from 35 degree rain to warm and humid. We were excited when the forecasts predicted dry conditions and comfy temps in the 40s and 50s. After withstanding the obligatory eastern corridor traffic, we arrived at our hotel Friday night around 5:00 PM, checked in, shlepped gear up to our room and then headed to race check-in at the Discovery Center in the eastern part of Philly's main green space, Fairmount Park.

The pre-race activities would begin at the unfortunate hour of 4:00 AM Saturday. so if you were looking to bank some solid sleep before the ensuing 26 hours of racing, you were out of luck. We boarded buses at 5:00 to reach the race start, which was on the Cooper River in Camden, NJ. Rob and I were expecting the buses to leave at 6:30 because we did not bother to read the update which we had received the night before indicating that it was actually 5:00. This infused a lot of chaotic hurrying to our morning. The bus dropped us off at Cooper River park and we were soon inflating our packrafts in the pre-dawn darkness to jump on the river and start the race. 

Topping off the packraft just before the race start. Photo: Nic Wynia

We kicked off our race by making an immediate mistake. All of the boats around us began paddling upriver (to an optional CP that we had decided to skip) and no one was heading downriver (our intended direction). I was pretty sure this was wrong but followed the herd upriver like a good little sheep. Although we did get that optional CP, this added a slow 1.5k to our paddle leg. We were in our single-person packrafts which were significantly slower than the majority of the other boats, which made this seeming short (8+ mi) paddle section quite a slog, especially since we were facing the incoming tidal current for almost all of it. The upside of having to work hard to maintain our 2 mph pace was that we were not at all cold.

We found a few CPs along the way, managed two easy portages and eventually reached the end of Cooper River, merging into the mighty Delaware. There was some interesting terrain to see during the paddle and the sight of Philly, across the river illuminated by the morning sun, was pretty cool.

We finally reached the end of the paddle at TA1, located on the eastern (NJ) bank of the Delaware. Here we transitioned to bike mode, but first had to complete a brief "mystery challenge".  We found out that this would be a short orienteering course on the docked Battleship New Jersey - very cool. You could not run on the boat, so this was a pleasant way to spend a half-hour after the paddle.

Photo: Nic Wynia

Then, it was back to the TA where we got to meet a sweet stray dog that Race Director Brent had found near the Cooper River (subsequently named "Cooper River" and adopted by a volunteer, from what I heard). We jumped on our bikes, rode briefly through Camden and crossed the river via the Ben Franklin bridge, to begin the urban bike leg in Center City and then South Philly. Rob led us accurately through the downtown CPs in light city traffic. I really enjoyed this section - interesting and easy riding.

After passing the Phillies and Eagles stadiums, we landed at FDR Park - a large green space at the southern edge of the city. Here, we could find up to 20 checkpoints. We set off at a jog to tackle these. We don't always jog flat ground during races, but this was easy non-technical terrain and we were feeling like we needed to play catch-up; we were probably an hour behind the teams which had had faster packrafts. We had one moderate navigation bobble but otherwise did well here, getting all but one of the CPs, I think.

Awesome shot at FDR by Nic Wynia

Traversing the urban jungle behind the FDR skate park.

Having completed this section, it was back on bikes, though the city, then on a bike path and then on singletrack, then crossing the Schuylkill River for another fun surprise orienteering section at...the Zoo!

Again on this section, there was no running and it was a fun and interesting trip all around the zoo to find 16 checkpoints. We saw hippos, giraffes, tigers and several other critters as we made relatively quick work of this compact scavenger hunt-like section.

Sweet shot by Nic of us transitioning after the zoo leg.

We grabbed some quick calories and headed back out on bikes into Fairmount Park, as Rob led us around some roads and trails in the park to find a bunch of CPs as the sun set. We realized at this point that we should probably skip some optional CPs in order to leave enough time to complete the rest of the course - there were a ton of CPs to find in the final sections of the race in Wissahickon Park north of town.

We exited trails and entered back on roads as we worked northward. We were a little navigationally stymied at times here, trying to find a bike path that was marked on the trail. After poking around at length in the Bala Cynwyd neighborhood, we eventually found a very inconspicuous sign indicating the bike path. We left the road at the sign to find the path, only to discover that we were about 40 feet above it, but with no evident access. While wondering what the purpose of that sign was, we bike-whacked down very steep brushy terrain to reach the path.

From here, it was mainly roads, through cute Saturday evening Manayunk and then up into the hills of NW Philly. Our next target was a 24-hour McDonalds, which had been thoughtfully indicated on our race maps. Our nutrition and hydration had been adequate so far but seemingly always borderline low. We really could use a major calorie input and this was definitely the spot. An employee nicely allowed us to park our bikes inside the restaurant. We used our time time here to plan our attack of the Wissahickon section for which we had just received the maps, so it was not a big waste of time. Afterward, we both marvelled at the fact that we were hungry again in like 2 hours after each eating a big McD's meal.

Mid-race McDonalds scene

Shortly, we were back on bikes and entering the Wissahickon trail system. During this section, we would bike on the trails, then visit an adjacent TA to do a foot section, then resume the trail riding before heading back to town for the finish. We did okay on the initial bike, the navigation was a little tricky in here at night and with fatigue setting in. I had heard about mountain biking in Wissahickon before from several people and I was expecting to find some good MTB trails in here but, apart from one trail, it really wasn't good. The majority of the trails consisted of heavily washed-out rocky courses that would only be suitable for hiking (I say this as a person with plenty of experience riding technical east coast trails). Between slow travel and multiple nav delays, we were falling off the pace needed in order to finish the race on time and there was still a substantial mandatory trekking leg to complete before we could head toward the finish line. So, we had to truncate our attack plan here and head quickly to the TA in order to get started on the trekking. I was thinking that we should only do the mandatory CPs on the foot leg in order to make sure we had ample time at the end, however, when we looked at the instructions, we were reminded that there were 17 mandatory CPs. Therefore, we really needed to nail this section to stay on time.

We began by not nailing this section. I was confused by multiple intersecting convoluted trails and led us a bit astray before getting to area of the 2nd CP. When we got there, we had some trouble finding it. Because of the urban nature of the race and risk of people tampering with the CP markers, they were not standard orienteering flags but something much less conspicuous, which led to a few delays at certain CPs. 

We eventually found it and after this, things got moderately better but not always smooth. I was becoming quite worried because we still had to complete a potentially tricky section in which we had to hike in a rocky stream to find 8 unmapped CPs in sequence (one of Brent's specialties). Fortunately, this was not as lengthy or technical as I feared. We made good time up the creek, found all the CPs, and soon exited out onto roads, not far from the final TA.

This was a quick TA back to bikes as we were feeling very anxious about our remaining time, and also hoped we might have a chance to grab one or 2 more easier CPs as we left the park. We selected a fast road route that would seemingly drop us right into the heart of lower Wissahickon. As we neared our destination, however, we discovered that this road was a bridge over the Wissahickon valley, not a road into it.  So, us and a few other teams made an improvised route from the end of the bridge down into the valley, with no one being very sure as to which trail we were actually on. We rode generally south in order to reach the park exit. We eventually figured out where we probably were, whiffed on CP CC despite being in the right place, but managed to get CP EE before we left Wiss behind.

Here, we basically just needed to find the Schuylkill bike path on the eastern bank of the river and ride easy back to town - we seemingly had plenty of clock left to finish on time. We scooted south on the path, chatting with Strong Machine before biking away from them, down the path, not paying much attention to the map because we were obviously home free at this point. Riding south, we started to approach downtown, we kept biking, and biking, and biking. Then we reached the Phila Art Museum. Hmm. My rudimentary memory of Philly geography was telling me that there was no part of Fairmount Park (the finish line location) south of the Art Museum. I check my watch - we had ten minutes left at this point and we were off of our current map. Shit!

We began panic-riding back north. I guessed on a turn off of the bike path and we continued north, recognizing nothing and seeing no helpful signs. 4 minutes left. I'm mentally dealing with the realization that we will not make it. We stop a passerby. Miraculously she knows exact directions to where we need to go and we race off on our all-out northward push. With 2 minutes left we spot the Discovery Center parking lot and we rush there, finishing just under the wire. 

Photo: Nic Wynia

After the emotional roller coaster, we heaved a sigh of relief (pardon the cliches) and happily enjoyed some Athletic Brewing libations and tasty egg sandwiches.

We enjoyed this race. It was a great course that hit so many different neighborhoods and highlights and really showcased Philly with a great variety of terrain and disciplines. You can always count on Rootstock for a quality event and we look forward to many more. A big thanks to Brent and Abby and all of the Rootstock crew, volunteers and sponsors!

GMARA Bitter Pill, East Burke VT, 7/25/2025

 Vermont is a great state for adventure racing - green forested hills and scenic historic and agricultural landscapes abound. GMARA has been organizing races here for over 20 years and their flagship summer race is the 12-hour Bitter Pill. NH Trail Vets cut our teeth doing GMARA races starting back in 2010. This would be my 15th GMARA race, not including their awesome Nationals in 2023.

This year the race was based out of the MTB mecca of East Burke, the preferred bike playground of Nick, who had plenty of local knowledge. Nick would be racing with Rob and I was racing with Reed under the team name Holland Asses. We would be funnily going head-to-head with NH Trail Vets (Nick and Rob) in the 2-male division. Also in the division were our friends, first time adventure racers and locals Tim and Ben (Snow Patrol).

After nice dinner together, we went our separate ways for a very early bedtime. We needed to be at the race HQ at 4:15 AM to board buses to the start of the race. We were told virtually nothing - maps and race info would be dispersed at the end of the bus ride to ????

The next morning, we plowed down some pre-race calories and coffee.  Nick's wife Alison kindly delivered some fresh-cooked pre-dawn egg sandwiches to us before we boarded the buses. The bus ride was concerningly lengthy - taking us well away from race HQ (location of the finish line) including many speedy highway miles, as the sun gradually brightened the landscape outside the bus windows. When we finally arrived at our mystery destination, we were in New Hampshire, on the southern shore of the Moore Reservoir - a dammed section of the Connecticut River.

Here we were finally told about the format of the race and, in old-school GMARA fashion, given the maps as the clock started. You could take as long as you wanted poring over the maps but that left you less time to reach the finish before the 12 hour time limit elapsed.

Bitter Pill planning session 2025

Flashback to the 2012 Bitter Pill planning session

Reed and I elected to draw up a quick approach to the first leg and then head out. The first leg consisted of a smallish orienteering section and moderate-sized paddle with a few strategic decisions to be made to optimize efficiency. We were out of the gates a few minutes before the Trail Vets but they soon closed the gap. The first 2 CPs did not go very well, especially CP3 - in an old cellar hole. Some of the woods here were very dense and brushy. You could be standing 20 feet from the flag and not see it, in many cases. This resulted in a bit of an easter egg hunt scenario at several CPs in this leg - and added an element of luck. We eventually found these but things were running pretty slow to start the race. We found 2 more CPs on this leg without problem and contemplated attacking CP1 from land (you could also paddle to it) before discovering that the forest was all shitty post-logging regrowth in this area - full of raspberries and other slow, dense flora. Paddle was the call.

We hustled back downhill to the start area, grabbing a CP using what is a mandatory thing for an adventure race in New England - a beaver themed CP clue, in this case a beaver pond. There would be a beaver dam CP as well, later in the race.

We were a near the rear of the race when we finally landed back at the start area to start the paddle. We chowed pizza, tanked up on water and headed out onto the reservoir on our tubby tandem kayak.

Pizza paddle

 We first paddled to CP1, a 20-minute round trip, before attacking the rest of the paddle CPs in counter-clockwise fashion. There was still a bit of fog on the water (and wildfire smoke haze) and temps were still mercifully cool. This was a nice comfortable stage.

At one point, we had the opportunity to split up and both get CPs. Reed came up with the idea of dropping me off on the shore to grab 2 CPs on a lakeside trail while he grabbed a paddle point solo in the kayak. We then paddled into the TA, on the Vermont shore of the reservoir to begin the big bike section. We got all the CPs on this section and had had a few nav delays, so we were one of the last teams off of the water. We knew that we would have to keep an eye on the clock and maps to stay on track for the finish cutoff time of 6:10PM.

We transitioned quickly and devised a quick bike route on the maps that would direct us eventually to a few CPs along rural VT roads on our way back toward Burke. But the first job was to grab a number of CPs in the area via several roads/trails.  These ranged from asphalt to cleared logging paths now knee-high in weeds. One upside of being near the back of the race was that these knee-high weedy roads had already been transformed into beaten-down singletrack by the teams ahead of us, which sped things up a bit. We got all of the local mountain bike CPs without much trouble but we were still pretty far back, having spent time finding every CP so far.

Riding under power lines in the warm sun to begin the second leg

Although we wanted to keep up our speed, the full heat of the day was now upon us as we cruised north up long hills and (briefly) down them. We were plowing through our water supplies and trying to find any shade under the noon sun in order to stay somewhat cool. This long road section was navigationally straightforward, mainly just slogging north for 21 miles, generally uphill. We took a couple quick breaks to fill water or eat along the way.

At the end of the bike was TA2 - the location of the big trek, in Victory, Vermont. For us, this would actually be quite a small trek because we had used a lot of clock finding all the CPs so far. Now it was time to strategically drop some things. It was 2:30 and the race instructions suggested that you wouldn't want to leave this trek much after 3:00 - sooooo, not much time to trek. After checking into the TA and receiving a freeze-pop each (heaven!) from the merciful folks at GMARA, we were off for a very abbreviated trek.

I hatched a plan to grab 4 CPs in a short circuit near the TA. We accomplished this without any significant delays, nabbing 4 CPs (including the beaver dam one) in about an hour - nice. We knew that the race clock was dwindling and kept the gas on for this trek.  Soon enough, we were back on bike for the final leg - the bike to the finish. 

We headed out on wooded trails before winding up back on pavement after a few miles. I was having trouble following us on the map through this section, so I just kept us headed in the approximate right direction. This worked out fairly well but we did overshoot a turn significantly and had a few moments of hesitation as we switched from one trail to another, finding a few CPs along we way. We raced with our friends Strong Machine for a while before they outpaced us on the climbs to the finish. 

Like I said, for a lot of this section I didn't have a great idea exactly where we were or what lay between us and the finish line.  The strategy was basically full gas to the finish at this point. 

The final CP was just a bit off the trail with the clue "roof of cliff band". I directed us to the location of the CP and then we began searching the tops of all the local cliff formations (there were a lot), several of which had convincing roof-like stuff atop them. We wasted a good 20-25 minutes here looking at all kinds of "roofs" on cliffs. We found no flag and ran out of time and headed back to the bikes, which were parked adjacent to a ground-level rock cave. This, we incredulously noticed, contained the CP flag. 

From here, it was really full gas to the finish. I didn't have a good idea what was ahead but we now needed to get through all of it in about 25 minutes. We were glad to find out that much of this was downhill. We rode this with gradually building panic until we arrived on the hotel grounds with just enough time left. We hit the finish line with 4 minutes of clock time left - whew!

Although "only" 12 hours long, this race was quite a butt-kicker, between the hills, heat and harried sprint to the finish. We traded some stories with friends at the finish line and rehydrated on some Shrubbly sodas that really hit the spot. At the post race dinner, we found out that Nick and Rob edged us by 13 minutes for the final podium spot in the 2M division - good for 8th overall, and we squeaked in at 11th overall out of 45 teams, covering about 48 miles and climbing 5200 feet.

We'd like to give a big thanks to team GMARA and first time RD, Taylor, and especially all the volunteers and sponsors as well. We'll be looking forward to our next trip to VT!

Maine Summer AR, Bethel, ME 7/12/2025

 Another summer...another MSAR. Reed and I did our first one in 2016, an 8-hour affair which was then 13-year old Reed's first. Now, we were about to start his 6th 24-hour race. This year the race was based out of Bethel. We drove the 2.5 hrs up and checked into our hotel and scoped out the quaint downtown with it's historic New England charm.

After a decent night of sleep, we loaded up on an obscene amount of Dunkin calories and headed to race check-in at Gould Academy's Pine Hill MTB and XC trails. We waited in line for maps and actually had plenty of time to map/plan our tentative race approach and complete any final readying.

At 10:00 we were off, along with 45-50 other teams. The finish line was back here in 24 hours: 10:00 AM Sunday. The first leg was a fairly short orienteering leg on the trails around us. There was no one way to attack these, which helped to split everyone up. I had a few navigation stumbles in the first 30 minutes. For some reason, this happens to me at the start of most ARs, before I hit my stride navigationally. In this case this only cost us 15 minutes or so. We trotted and hiked around the trails for ~75 minutes in order to pick up the 10 checkpoints (CPs) here.

Although the race weather was not scorching hot, it pretty warm and very humid. We were already sweating a lot and dipping significantly into our water stores in order to stay hydrated. * Here is the part in my race report where I again point out that there are 9 lovely months in New England in which the woods are not full of heat, humidity and insects. These are all great months for adventure racing. *

Next we hopped on our bikes to begin the first bike leg. This would take us all the way from Pine Hill past Sunday River, over 33 miles and almost 6 hours.  After a little hilly road riding, we tucked into some ATV/snowmobile type trails. These were not made for bikes but were pretty easy to ride and the navigation was straightforward from the maps we'd received. The teams were still pretty clustered at this point but we managed to scoot ahead a bit and bust back out to road. We took a southern loop on road to get one more CP before heading back through Bethel and up to the Bethel Community MTB trails. These were very nice bike trails - many machine-built and bermed out. There were long sections of swooping turns interrupted up uphill slogs in the heat. We managed to collect all the CPs here without delay but only with a bit of luck. It was pretty much impossible to closely navigate on the small trail map while safely zooming along the singletrack. A few of the CP flags were right on the trail but several times, I was lucky to glance in the right direction at the right time to spy a flag deeper in the woods or under a bridge. So I learned to take my time on the trails and keep my head swiveling about when I felt we were getting close.

After climbing quite a bit on the bike trails we had to head north on the muddy, slow Community Access Trail for several miles, picking up 2 more CPs.  After all the hot humid climbing in the park, we were very metabolically depleted and had little love for this frustrating stretch of trail. I'm sure it's a lovely community asset in the winter and during droughts.

Then we popped out onto pavement near Sunday River ski area, riding pleasant flat roads parallel to the scenic Sunday River, stopping for CPs at a cute covered bridge and a waterfall. Following this, we climbed for a while on dirt road toward the trek. Along the way we couldn't resist a quick dip in the adjacent Bull Branch to rinse off the sweat, omnipresent bugs and cool off a bit. Randy Ericksen caught sight of us and snapped a few pics. 

We were soon back on the bikes feeling genuinely refreshed - definitely worth the little bit of lost time.  We climbed a bit more to reach TA1 in the Mahoosuc State Forest to begin the big trek of the race around 5:00 PM.

Here we had access to our gear bin containing food and other refueling supplies. The absolute highlight was an Italian wrap we bought at Hannaford on the way up, topped with some incredibly satisfying garlic pesto aioli out of a plastic squirt pouch. 

We set out on the trek with conservative goals. We wanted to be out of there around sunset (8:30 ish) to allow plenty of time to tackle the subsequent bike leg which sounded quite intense. First we grabbed the 2 easiest CPs, adjacent to the central logging road/trail. We didn't do this super-efficiently but well enough. The lowlight was me falling down during a stony river crossing and finding out later that I had lost our only compass with adjustable declination. So we had to use the backup compass for the rest of the race, and there was a LOT of remaining compass work on this leg and the next.

We confirmed that the woods here were like a lot of the woods in Maine and Canada - in regrowth from fairly recent logging. This results in a dense brushy growth of various shrubby things, raspberries and saplings. On an orienteering map this would all be light and dark green.

Next we headed up a fairly steep reentrant for a lengthy attack on CP 31. We opted to curtail this slow, brushy leg and just go after 2 more CPs before heading back. The next target was CP 32. We found this without any problem other than withstanding the super slow dense bushwhacking. From here, we decided to hit CP 33 and then head back into the TA. CP33 was at the east end of a prominent ridge and my plan was to head south, perpendicular to the ridge and then eastward, along the ridge to the CP.  Unfortunately now it was getting dark, further limiting visibility in the dense brush. When we started to definitely descend while heading south, I assumed we had hit the ridge and began to head along the soft ridge we had found. In reality we were nowhere close to far enough south and we wasted a fair amount of time exploring this area. The problem was that the visibility was so limited, you could never get a sense of the surrounding topography beyond 30 feet or so - a constant state of uncertainty.

Soon enough it was clear that we had no way to determine where exactly we were and needed to move on - we bushwhacked scratchily due east back to the main road and then south back to TA1.

It was now about 9:00 and full dark. We ate some welcome "real" food provided by the organizers - a little mac and cheese and chicken and contemplated our next move. The trek was sucky and slow - a bad way to spend race time, so we weren't heading out for any more CPs on foot. We would leave on bike, but we still had 12+ hours of race time left. We knew the last 2 stages (paddle and trek) would take about 3.5 hours total, which left a good 8 hours of time for the upcoming bike. According to the race instructions we had 2 options at this point

1) Attack the notorious bikewhack we had been told/warned about. We knew this would probably be like the abrasive rugged trek we just did...except with a bike...uphill...for several km. We had very little enthusiasm for this option at this time. This would give us a shot at finding at least a half-dozen hard-won CPs.

2) Ride around the bikewhack by backtracking on the roads we used to get here (TA1) - easy road riding but no CPs gained. This was a comfortable and attractive option but it felt kind of wimpy. Also, we'd arrive at the paddle too early to even start it (5:00 was the earliest we could get on the water).

There was also a hybrid option that most teams ended up choosing (get a few of the CPs near the start of the bikewhack and then ride around on road), but this didn't seem great to us at the time.

After much vacillating, we accepted that the honorable thing to do was to do the bikewhack. We decided to go straight through to the bikewhack route and not attempt any of the CPs prior to it, because they looked to be on crappy steep trails and we didn't want to underbudget the time required for the 'whack in case navigation got weird - a very real possibility.

So, we sped off down the dirt road toward the 'whack. After a small amount of generally uphill roads and minimal nav uncertainty, we turned onto ATV/SnoMo type trails of progressively lower quality, picking up a CP along the way every 30-60 minutes. We were walking the bikes at this point - there was never rideable trail that lasted more than 50 ft. After another hour of this, it was time to leave the trail and continue onward through the rocky, brushy forest, with our bikes, strongly uphill for several km. This was exactly as bad as we expected. It was really humid and this bikewhack required near-constant shoving, maneuvering and disentangling your bike, uphill.  Our slow-moving bodies and headlamps also provided easy targets for all of the local insects, several of which we inhaled.

Climbing up a vertical riverbank after first hoisting up the bike

To stay on track, we had to follow a small winding rocky creek, switching to the left or right bank depending on what looked the most navigable. Sometimes we used the creek bed itself. I kept an eye on the compass, making sure we were staying on track, This was interrupted with lots of water breaks since we were constantly sweating. We kept refilling water bottles in the handy creek. We don't treat/filter remote mountain stream water, so that sped things up.

Looking back at our GPS track, this 1.4 mile bikewhack took us about 3.5 hours, including a 15 minute backtrack on foot to find CP47. Time went by pretty quickly, being constantly focused on finding the best way to move forward for the next 10-15 feet and cursing the race designer. We climbed about 800 feet in elevation to reach to highest elevation and location of CP47. We could tell by the absence of tracks around the CPs that we were the first ones over the pass.

Once we were over the top of the saddle, things cleared up a bit, bush-wise. I directed us west for a bit through some marshy level ground and then on a direct SW bearing toward where the map suggested we would likely find some kind of road. This all went very smoothly and soon enough we had found the road - a fairly overgrown doubletrack affair. We followed this, and its continuations, in a generally south direction for a long time - dipping for a while over the border into New Hampshire, as dawn gradually broke. Then it was east on flattish pavement for several miles to reach TA2 - the start of the paddle - around 5:45.

We shared a sixer of mini-donettes and suited up for the paddle. We were assigned a tubby tandem kayak, which we loaded up and headed down the nicely flowing MSAR fave Androscoggin River.  This leg was pretty pleasant overall. We had 5 CPs to find along the way, primarily located on river islands.  When we got to the first one, there were lots of teams milling around talking about their troubles finding the CPs. After a quick look, I just decided to bail - it sounded hard and seemingly required a decent bushwhack. After the excoriating trek and bikewhack, I just didn't care to dig out this flag, so we left and headed downriver. In retrospect, this wasn't a bad decision - plenty of teams searched for a while and never found it. 

The next 4 CPs were much more straightforward and we coasted into the final TA, having seen 10+ miles of the Andro in a bit under 3 hours. There was a bald eagle sighting, the only significant wildlife we spotted during this race.

We transitioned quickly and completed the next section - a couple miles on foot through Bethel, recording a few Q&A CPs on the way back to the start/finish line, including an inspired sprint across the finish line!  There were delicious breakfast burritos here. I had consumed about 500 calories total in the last 6 hours, so this was fantastic. SoMe brewing also supplied some AM libations - ahhhh.

All told, we logged about 72 miles and 7k feet of gain. Our slow and steady approach was good enough for 9th place overall and 3rd among the all-male teams. We were very happy with this outcome.

We'd like to give huge thanks to the whole of the Strong Machine crew and all the lovely sponsors and volunteers.

Race the Phantom, Dalhousie NB, August 2024

After my 7-year absence from the Canadian AR scene, Reed and I decided to head well north of the border, to the northern-most town in New Brunswick, Dalhousie, to tackle Natural Selection's premier event Race the Phantom. It was an easy, fairly scenic drive. Just across the border, we met up with out friends from Strong Machine and grabbed a solid lunch at a gas station/diner. After arriving in Dalhousie, we checked into our Airbnb cottage in town and quickly headed to race HQ to grab maps and subsequently, load up on pizza. Plotting the CPs took a long time and this pushed back bedtime a bit, but we were able to grab sufficient sleep (5+ hours) before heading out in the AM to the race start/finish/HQ.

Race HQ was located on Native American land, the Eel River Bar First Nation. Here we received a blessing from an elder of the tribe and then set off on bikes for the first leg of the race.

Heading north over the Eel River Bar with Quebec in the far distance across Chaleur Bay.

We completed the bike leg with a couple snafus, including a bee sting (Reed) and becoming concerningly separated for 10-15 minutes while navigating some coastal trails. Soon enough, we reached TA1 and set off on foot to find a couple fairly easy trailside CPs. The only snag we had here was my poor recall of the race instructions and accidentally navigating to and punching a bike CP for the upcoming leg (we would have to revisit on bike 1-2 hours later).

We rode trails for a while, picked up a few CPs in town and then headed down to the canoe put-in in Dalhousie. We dropped bikes and set off into the placid marine waters of the Chaleur Bay. Our first target was the scenic lighthouse. Then we paddled into the mouth of the Eel river, which, due to the timing of the tides, was directly upstream. The current and shallowness of the approaching low-tide led to some pretty slow paddle kms, but we eventually made our way upriver to the next TA in Eel River Crossing.

Up the shallow Eel

We had been noticing some ominous clouds approaching from the west as we neared the TA and were hearing some occasional thunder but so far, the weather had missed us. From the TA, we decided to go grab a bonus CP, which looked to be about a 45 minute out-and-back round trip. We found the location of the CP fairly easily, but when we arrived and searched the area indicated on the clue sheet (SE of bridge), we found nothing. We spent the next 30-40 minutes fruitlessly bushwhacking around the area to no avail. Returning from a random northern attack from the bridge, Reed happened to spot the CP, barely visible right under the bridge. 

I was fumbling with buttons on the camera and ended up with this strange hybrid image.

From the TA, we headed out on bikes via a circuitous route of dirt and paved roads west toward Sugarloaf Park. Within minutes of leaving the TA, we got whacked by a serious thunderstorm.  This delivered 20-30 minutes of driving rain and thunder as we rode along road shoulders. We didn't really mind this cool-off, as the weather had been a little warm and humid for our tastes thus far. After finding  a couple CPs over a couple hours, we arrived at the dirt road heading into the park (below) and slowly grinded uphill for a long time through variable precipitation.

We worked through the saturated dirt roads toward the park for the next several hours into early evening, finding a couple more CPs.

We eventually reached the TA, located under powerlines at the edge of the park, and switched to foot mode.

Pretty landscape and skies at the beginning of the night trek.

We hiked initially on dirt roads, after choosing our route, and targeting the first few CPs. The sun set and we continued trekking, eventually ending up at a CP which required this fun waterfall traverse. We commented that this was one of the best CP locations we'd ever experienced.

We continued on park trails and roads. We noticed how well-maintained and well-signed the foot trails were, even in this fairly remote part of the province. The US definitely can learn something from Canada about having appropriate tax funding to provide for quality infrastructure .

 

We trekked on through the night, skipping 2 CPs and eventually heading back to the powerline CP to retrieve our bikes. After gearing up, eating and giving some TLC to our soaked muddy bikes, we set off (after addressing a surprise flat tire). We biked on muddy roads, through foot-soaking puddles before eventually regaining pavement en route to the TA at Eel River Crossing, where our canoes were waiting.

Nighttime bike CP in an abandoned RV

We arrived at the final TA just before dawn and, after gathering our paddle gear and enduring some moderate mosquitoes, we were back on the Eel. This time, though, we had the benefit of a nice downstream current. So, the sunrise return trip to race HQ/finish was quite a bit quicker. We had plenty of remaining time so we made a side trip to grab a bonus CP which was on the north bank of the river down an inlet. We ran into our friends Strong Machine friends here, who ended up clearing the course. A short paddle from here had us at the finish line.

All told, we covered 81 miles of maritime Canadian terrain, while accomplishing 8000+ ft of climbing. We had a very pleasant race, mostly free of bugs and without any of the excoriating bushwhacking that I had previously experienced at RTP. Thanks to Troy and the rest of the NSAR team for organizing this great event. We'll be looking forward to our next trip north of the border!

Sorry, bike. I'll make it up to you

Scoring some sweet swag from RD Troy Johnston

NYARA The Longest Day, 6/29/2024, North Creek, NY

 This year's TLD was being held a mere 4.5 hours away, included guided whitewater rafting and was taking place within Adirondack Park, for the first time. For these reasons, plus the fact that we know that we can count on NYARA for a quality event, this was an obvious choice for a summer race - our first of the year.

For a summer race in the northeast, you never know what's in store. Depleting hot humidity? Thunderstorms? Gorgeous dry air? Insect swarms? As race day approached, it became clear that we would be in for some solid rain - over an inch was predicted during the race period. This prediction turned out to be absolutely correct.

The day prior to the race, by contrast, was gorgeous - breezy, warm dry air. Since this race included a short orienteering prologue following registration, the day prior to the race, we got to enjoy a little of this. This consisted of 3 checkpoints in the woods around the Ski Bowl in North Creek, NY. I got a little turned around and cost us about 10 minutes but this was otherwise straightforward. Having not packed another set of race clothes, I ran in cotton boxers and cargo shorts.

After a nice dinner in quaint North Creek, we got to bed fairly early in preparation for the early alarm to get to race HQ - back at the Ski Bowl. We woke to the rain which would come and go with varying intensity throughout the race. We spent an hour or so with the maps, dropped our bikes and then drove ourselves to race HQ #2, Garnet Hill Outdoor Center. Here we dropped gear bins, got some race info and then boarded busses to Beaver Brook Outfitters. Here we picked up rafting gear, stood around and then got back on the bus to reach the put-in. 

At the put-in, we met our raftmates, our raft guide, got more instruction and then got in line to hit the water. We learned some commands on the water and soon after we were on our way down the Indian River to its confluence with the Hudson. Reed had a good bit of whitewater training during his Outward Bound trip a couple years ago and he took the point paddling position (front right), while I, a newb, sat across from him in the front row. I had been tasked with GoProing the river section by race media man Jeff O'Connor and I wanted to have a front row seat.

This was a scenic, fun, interesting and, at times, exciting race leg. We survived rapids up to class 3/3+  while covering 16 miles over 3 hours or so. We rafted at the normal, safe, recreational/instructional pace that the guides were used to, stopping to regroup after the sections of rapids. We also had a mid-trip break on the shore, to eat, use the bathroom, etc. For the final, flatter section of the river, we were allowed to "race" the other boats. Reed and I dug in and tried to boost the pace, but it wasn't really possible to gain any significant time in this way.

We left the river a little cold and hungry, so we were happy to grab some food out of our waiting backpacks at TA1 and get walking. Everyone was transitioning very hurriedly. We had been awake for almost 10 hours at this point without really racing, which felt a little strange, honestly. Everyone was very ready to get out and put some of the hard part of the course behind us.

We set out on pavement and then dirt road toward the entry point into the woods, a little over 2 uphill miles away. We ate, warmed up and got wet on the way.

Now, ahead of us, was a big hilly trek. We could attack the CPs of this trek during this leg and, because of the loop shape of the course, again on the penultimate leg. We elected a plan of grabbing a good chunk of these now. Our plan was to get most or all of this trek done, with fresh legs in the daylight, as we'd probably not have time left to re-attack the wilderness later

We grabbed the first 3 without issue, navigating through open forest and later, a bit of trail. The forest was fairly open and not too difficult to traverse. We had occasional contact with a few other teams who had also chosen this route.

After the 3rd CP, we made the decision to undergo a long trek on trail to 4 CPs which were located around the heights of Gore Mtn. Ski Resort. This began as a straightforward, mostly uphill trek. After a while however, the trail became harder to follow, dumping us into boggy meadows and leaving us searching for the non-obvious linear tracts of ferns which defined the trail. We began feeling the first twinges of fatigue as the steepness of Gore Mtn loomed ahead. Reed was also feeling some early chafing from trekking in wet bike shorts for hours.

We climbed steeper and steeper grades now, sometimes on all fours in the wind and fog near the top of Gore, after gaining over 2000ft on the trek. I'm not sure if it's just me but I often struggle to navigate on USGS maps in these highly modified ski resort landscapes. There were enough clues, however, to eventually navigate to the first of the Gore CPs (CP13). Now that we knew exactly where we were, it seemed easy enough to stay on track to find the next 3 up here. What seemed easy ended up being fairly challenging, however, which became a theme during this race. We did not make great time up here, but we were ultimately successful in finding all 4 using adequate nav and plenty of determination. Highlights included a tough scramble up a very steep brushy knoll for CP 16 and a nice foggy lookoff from the Twister Cliffs.

Looking down the slopes of Gore Mountain

Deer in the mist

After the 4 high-elevation CPs, it was time to drop down off the mountain to find 2 more CPs in the woods en route to TA2. At this time there was a lengthy downpour and the sun was setting. We wasted a bit of time trying to find a trail that was incorrectly mapped on the wrong side of a power line cut and stream instead of just bushwhacking to it perpendicularly. Then it was a soggy trek on trails which became progressively more slow and technical as we paralleled the aptly named Roaring Brook. By this point, we were definitely feeling the trek. My lower back and knee were hurting but both responded nicely to a strong dose of ibuprofen. Reed, on the other hand, had developed worse and worse chafing and was having a lot of discomfort even at an easy walk. This was concerning, with only one major stage behind us so far.

We made our way downhill to TA2 via the now somewhat familiar slopes of the Ski Bowl and found, to our great excitement, a bunch of hot food waiting for us.  NYARA staff had prepared several food options and we both dug appreciatively into a steaming plate of mashed potatoes, meatballs and gravy. Reed painfully, belatedly applied chamois cream while I changed maps and geared up for a long bike leg.

After slamming a post-dinner coffee, we left on bikes. There was a mountain bike and road/gravel bike option at this point and we decided to tackle the road bike first. This way we could get a break from the wet woods and hopefully Reed could recuperate with some non-technical saddle time.

There were 6 CPs to find along a big gravel and pavement loop that would end up being 33 miles. Some of these were straightforward. Others seemed like they would be easy but then ate unnecessary chunks of race time. The rain came and went as we clicked off the miles. As dawn broke, we found ourselves nearing the end of the loop, approaching TA3. I was, uncharacteristically, having trouble remaining fully conscious in the wee morning hours, and Reed's chafing was progressing. 

At this point, there was no way for Reed to hike or mount a bike without major pain and there was a substantial chunk of each yet to come. So, we decided to call it quits here after 19 hours, 65 miles and 7k ft of elevation gain.

Although we were rendered unofficial for the 2nd straight TLD (broken pedal last year), we came away having had a solid race experience and were happy to have made the trip and experience the majority of the course which NYARA had created for us. We will certainly be back to give it our all for the next edition.

Post-race gear dry-out