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WHAT IS ADVENTURE RACING?

WHAT IS ADVENTURE RACING?

Adventure racing is an endurance sport which involves travel on foot (trekking or running), mountain bike and by water (canoe, kayak, raft, occasionally swimming).

What differentiates AR from other racing sports is the inclusion of wilderness navigation using a map, compass and common sense. There is no set race course; participants must find their own route from one checkpoint to the next. The checkpoints (CPs) are marked on maps which the racers receive shortly prior to or at the start of the race. AR also differs from other sports in that racers are part of a team of 2-4 people who travel together the entire time.

The races can last from several hours to many days and are unsupported, for the most part, which means that the racers carry what they will need (food, water, gear) in backpacks for the duration of the race.

To succeed, racers will need athletic endurance, navigation skills, mental toughness, good pre-race planning, strategic decision making as well as a strong and supportive "team" mentality.

Sound intimidating? While it's true that longer races can test even the toughest outdoor athletes, AR is a very open and inclusive sport. Beginning racers will feel welcome at nearly every event. Most races are organized so that anyone at any level of experience and fitness can participate.

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Rootstock Racing 2 Rivers Adventure Race, Forksville, PA, 5/18/2019

25 hours into this race, we were looking at a possible podium finish, 2 hours later, we rolled over the finish line... into 18th place.


2 years ago Mason and son Reed made the trip south to do Rootstock's 2 Rivers Adventure Race. That edition was a 12-hour, peri-urban affair. For this year, the race location had been moved to the sparsely populated rugged forests of northern Pennsylvania and the duration had been cranked up to 27 hours. Our team this year would be Mason and Rob. We drove 7 hours to Forksville, PA and checked into the comfy Millview Mountain Motel, up the road from the race start at the Forksville fairgrounds. After scoring some filling grub and a couple PA brews at the Forksville Inn and Tavern, we readied gear and set a 4:45 AM alarm for Saturday morning.

After dropping off our bikes and shortly after receiving the maps, the race began at 7:00 with a 16 mile canoe trip down the busy Loyalsock Creek in 50 degree sunny morning weather. The creek could be considered a small river, at least now, in spring, with creek waters zipping along, losing 200 feet of elevation over our 16 mile trip. Class I and II rapids were the norm during the paddle, separated by stretches of flatter water. Maintaining the canoe in the preferred right-side-up orientation was frequently challenged but we managed to successfully navigate everything the Creek threw at us with luck and a modicum of skillful route choice. Other teams were less lucky, with many flips, swamps and several canoes rendered unusable by rushing waters and rocks. One canoe was even pinned irretrievably underwater despite salvage attempts via winch. 

We had a blast on the creek, enjoying the speedy waters, scenic surrounding highlands, sunshine and abundant waterfowl. We found the checkpoints without trouble and rolled into the first TA in 3rd place.


Morning fog over a calm section of the Loyalsock Creek

A less calm section    Photo: JS O'Connor

Action shot of Mason getting soaked as the bow submerges in the rapids. This happened quite a few times. Thankfully a bailer was mandatory gear for this section.                   Photo: JS O'Connor

TA 1 breakfast food

Following this TA was a bike leg. Course designer Brent Freedland let us know that the optional checkpoints for this leg were likely to involve confusing, technical navigation and that it might be wise to pass up these in lieu of more favorable challenges later in the race. We, like most of the teams, took this advice. The resultant ride was a 40 minute cruise to the next TA in the Loyalsock State Forest where we would begin the long day trek. After snagging the first couple easier CPs on scenic waterfalls (plenty of rushing water in the woods around here) we moved on to the trickier CPs. We had the good fortune of falling in with Cliff and Kate of Strong Machine AR through this stretch, chatting as we worked through a couple CPs. Afterward, Rob and I set off to grab the next 3 CPs with only moderate delays before what amounted to a 5k road run to High Knob, a scenic overlook in the western part of the park. 

Waterfalls aplenty on this course


Ascending Nettle Ridge
Taking advantage of the High Knob vista to score a stellar selfie.

Descending steeply off the knob, we accurately picked off one more CP before heading off toward a seemingly straightforward feature which was about a 1 km bushwhack away on the edge of an overgrown marsh. Despite navigating to the correct place and actively searching around for over 90 minutes, no flag for CP E was found and we had to give up and move on. "Moving on" in this case was a 25 minute bushwhack through fairly dense mountain laurel thicket. 

Our GPS track as we tried to find CP E (blue star as indicated by Brent, post race). This is crazy.

We successfully located the next CP on the other side of the mountain laurel, on a scenic rocky spur before descending steeply on rocky terrain for a laborious return to the TA at the end of this leg. 
Scenic rocky spur

We had traveled about 16 miles in a little under 7 hours and found 9 out of a maximum 10 CPs. Relatively successful, yes, but the frustration at CP E, and slow terrain afterward had us in a bit of a funk as we entered the TA. Our moods were soon buoyed however by a sliced watermelon provided at the TA (pretty much the most delicious thing to eat/drink during a race) a water refill at the creek and getting off our feet for the first time in a while as we switched into bike mode.

This bike leg would take us primarily on dirt roads through the bucolic forested local terrain, as we picked up a few easier CPs along the way. The first major task on the bike was a steep road grade, possibly private (we honestly couldn't tell) that gained us about 700 ft of elevation over only a mile (did I mention it was steep?). After this we pretty much cruised easily on more level roads, had one more big climb (500 ft) and had a few long, fast descents. We spent a lot of this leg chatting alongside the Mercators team, who we've raced against many times over the years. While covering 36 miles, this leg was pleasant and straightforward, and we rolled into the next TA at dusk with plenty of gas in the tank to begin the 2nd half of the race. RD Brent was serving up hot grilled cheese at the TA which was worth its weight in gold at this point.

At this TA, in McIntyre Wild Area, we would begin a night trekking loop with nine CPs available. None of the CPs were on a trail and many were well removed from easy navigation features. Compounding the technical nature of this task was darkness. Navigating in the woods at night is notoriously tricky, distances and terrain features become difficult to judge. We also knew, from knowing Brent's style and inspecting the maps, that there would be several very challenging flags out there. We could get the CPs in any order. We began with a pretty easy find across the rushing Rock Run. Following this was a hilltop CP which looked to be in a poorly defined "saddle" - a lower corridor between 2 soft peaks. We found it, in a very WELL-defined saddle, but it took almost 2 hours. The next 3 were on creeks and not too tricky but took some time covering distance and descending technical terrain. We then cranked steeply uphill to another pretty easy flag before setting off over several km on a plateau for the next CP, T. The map showed a stream leading right to the target but as we feared might happen, the stream broke up and essentially vanished far before we got there. We used some other features, reattacking and eventually finding it after spending a chunk of time. 40 minutes of trekking, with more technical steep descent, and we were back at the TA, 21 hours into the race (4:00 AM).

Patch of Lady Slipper on night trek, with artsy headlamp vignetting.

The final stage would be a bike back to the Forksville fairgrounds, where we had started. We had been told it would take a minimum of around 3 hours to complete this leg. But, for the willing and able, there were up to 5 optional CPs to be gained. Leaving the TA around 4:30 gave us 5.5 hours until the finish time cutoff and we were keen to scoop up as many of those CPs as we had time for. Although were technically on "roads" for the first 40% of this leg, they were more like neglected road grades that hadn't seen a large vehicle or chainsaw in many years.  So, the surface was soft, there were lots of fallen trees and face-high saplings/branches and generally uphill. Consequently, it was 90+ minutes to cover the first 5 miles of the leg, with no nav problems.

One moment of comic relief: As we near the end of this slow bike section, the "road" intersects a 10-foot deer fence. We had been through a couple deer fences on the first trek and were familiar with the little hatch you swing open to pass through. This one did not seem to have a hatch, though. We checked a couple padlocks on it but, no dice. After a minute of befuddlement, Rob climbs to the top, straddles it and I hand up our bikes which he deposits on the other side before hopping down. Once down, he places a hand on the fence and a large, standard door-size panel swings easily open and I walk on through.

Shortly, we were on pavement and zooming downhill and cruising flats, followed by some easy dirt road terrain to pick up CPs U and V with no difficulty. We still had 3 hours until the finish and things were looking promising to clear the bike leg. So we continued on rural roads and then easy forest roads to grab CP W on Bearwallow Pond. Now we had a little over 2 hours to pick up the final CPs and cruise to the finish. Given the easy terrain and easily found CPs thus far on the leg, this seemed very possible. We hadn't seen any teams around in a couple hours and felt like we were making a strong move to finish the race. 10 minutes later we arrived at the "trail" system where the final 2 CPs on the leg were located. Pace slowed immediately because of the unmaintained nature of these road grades and the non-straightforward trail layout relative to what was mapped. We were still feeling pretty good though as we dropped into a stream gully where we expected to descend to CP X at a waterfall. This is when the wheels started to come off. We were obviously tired and thus not navigating at a high level. We were also hurrying a bit because of the clock ticking in our heads. There was also a point of confusion in that there was more water on the ground than the maps suggested. The stream valley we were in had a rushing, significant flow and lots of small/medium waterfalls. It seemed like we had to be in the main stream valley rather than where we actually were - an upstream reentrant without even a blue line mapped at its bottom. Then I sighted a trail feature which exactly matched one near the CP and thought I knew exactly where we were. This was upstream from a confluence which I mistook for a very topographically similar one downstream, cementing my incorrect conviction about where we were. From this point on, we never actually knew where we were and spent too much time incredulously finding zero CPs, hiking rocky stream gullies in bike shoes and dragging our bikes through the steep woods. Because we were incorrect about our location, the bailout haul-ass-to-the-finish option was also seriously delayed. Thus, when we emerged onto a road and began riding full speed toward our best guess of the direction of the finish, we were probably out of time to make the 10:00 AM time cutoff. On our Hail Mary all-out ride back, Rob's derailleur decided to suddenly start rubbing on the spokes, stopped tensioning the chain and began dropping the chain every couple minutes. At this point it was obvious that we would be over time. Our hope of a good race finish was officially gone. We rolled into the finish line as race awards were commencing, 19 minutes overtime, hemorrhaging CPs by the minute as a penalty for our lateness.

Despite the poor official final ranking, we felt pretty good with how we raced. Only 3 teams found more CPs. We learned some lessons about end-of-race management, and like all races, logged some navigation and strategy experience. 


We loved this area for AR - rugged, forested, sparsely peopled. The designed course was also a hit - tougher nav than we usually see (not necessarily a bad thing), featured some cool terrain and was very well-organized overall. Rootstock definitely know what they are doing, we'll be looking forward to our next race with them.


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