Wildlands Adventure Challenge, Orland, ME, 10/11/20

 2020 was/is obviously a year of new challenges for everyone. In the AR world, it was a year of race cancellations and postponements. A scarce inconvenience certainly, compared to the effects of the pandemic on many people, but so it is that the most recent entry on this blog was also the Wildlands Adventure Challenge, one year ago.

Using some creative ways to prevent the gathering of people, facemask requirements, no-touch checkpoints and other accommodations to minimize or eliminate the possibility of unintentionally staging a super-spreader event, the good folks at Strong Machine AR were actually able to responsibly get a race on the books in 2020.

Demand for race entry was so great, they ran the same race on back-to-back days (Saturday and Sunday). This can be attributed to the eagerness of any adventure racer in the region to do an actual race in 2020, and may also reflect a new interest in AR stemming from the recent resurrection of the Eco-Challenge TV show.  The original Eco in the 90's and 00's was a huge reason many of us started AR in the US.  Hopefully the modest success of The World's Toughest Race will have a similar effect on a new generation of racers.

Whether due to Kate and Cliff's already established success in attracting new racers or because of the show, there were a lot of new racers, particularly women out on the course. This was great to see. In addition to running the race twice, they were also running a beginners' 3-hour race concurrent with the usual 8-hour affair, both days. My son, Reed (17), and I would be doing the 8-hour race, while my wife and 10-year old daughter were debuting as the NH Trailettes in the 3-hour race!

We checked in to race HQ (Craig Brook National Fish Hatchery) just after dawn, and received our (staggered) start time. We learned that the first leg of the race would be a short Score-O in the forest and trails in the vicinity. Teams had to decide how to most quickly accumulate 24 points out of the variously-valued checkpoints nearby. 

We selected a route that involved minimal elevation gain but a little bit of fine navigation. Our first target, a 4-pointer, took a bit more time than expected because when we arrived, we saw it about 30 feet below us, down an extremely steep ravine wall.  Tumbling into a gully was not how we wished to begin the next 8 hours of racing, so we worked our way around to a more manageable area to descend to the CP. The other CPs in this section were less dramatic. The plotting of the trails on the trail brochure was not highly accurate, leading to a few delays but overall, we moved well enough through this first section, finishing in 51 minutes.

We then scurried down to the edge of Alamoosook Lake to begin the lake kayak. I was hoping we'd be in a tandem kayak, faster than a single and a good way to equalize team paddling speed, but the 2-man teams received 2 single kayaks. Fortunately they were pretty nice kayaks (not sit-on-tops). There were 5 possible CPs on the lake. 3 were relatively close by and 2 of them would be take a little more time to reach. This was an obvious place where the 2 types of teams would diverge. Those gunning for the podium should grab all 5, while the rest should grab the 3 and move on to the next legs. We were surely in the latter group. Reed paddled his boat well and we scooped up the 3 shoreline CPs without incident, traveling in a pod with several other teams. 

Although not nearly as windy as was experienced by Saturday's racers, there was still a stiff breeze out there, raising a little chop on the lake. The autumnal views from the paddle were really splendid; at one point a bald eagle soared high overhead on a nice tailwind.

After only 46 minutes, we were back on land and gearing up for a bike ride. Because of the no-touch CPs and favorable exit/entry techniques, we had retained dry feet during the paddle - unheard of! Between this and the drought forest conditions to follow, we actually enjoyed dry feet for about 80% of the race.

Drone's eye view of the area around race HQ. JS O'Connor photo

Our bike ride would take us on dirt and paved roads from the hatchery to the heart of the nearby Hothole Valley Parcel. On the way we would pick up 2 fairly easy CPs in areas familiar from last year's race. We completed this ride in 72 minutes, arriving at TA3, to begin the trekking section of the race.

At the TA, we quickly changed out of bike shoes and readied some food to eat during our initial hike. It's often challenging to eat while you're riding and especially while kayaking. Trekking usually allows you to consistently use both hands to feed yourself and is a good time to tank up on calories. As we approached the first target, we hurriedly plowed through some Pringles and Fritos. The first CP was easily found after a 10 minute hike. The next would require a substantial ascent, to a small mountaintop, off-trail, primarily through a young beech forest.

It was at the time that I began to notice how great the weather was. Here I was, cranking up this hill, and, sweating certainly, yet somehow, not uncomfortable and not seriously dehydrating myself, wow! The temps in the 50's and steady breezes were providing a perfect environment for the effort level we were putting out. We never became too hot or cold at any time during this trek - a rare comfort bonus which I did not fail to mention and enjoy throughout the race. I'm sure Reed got tired of my repeated weather-related exclamations. Between the weather, interesting off-trail terrain, and the fall foliage, this was one of my favorite treks ever.

The lichen-encrusted summit near CP 10

After this summit CP, our next target was...another summit CP.  As expected, this would necessitate a substantial descent and ascent.  This part of the forest was not too bad for off-trail travel, better than average, except for being pelted by whippy beech branches.

Awesome view from CP 11. Hothole Pond is below us.

Then we needed to descend to the mouth of Hothole Pond, to find CP 12. The bushwhacking in this part was a little more slow and technical, with lots of boulders/erratics on the face of the mountain, some down trees and lots of brushy blueberries to wade through. CP 12 was an easy find on the bank of the pond and then it was time to bushwhack up the back of Great Pond Mountain to find a CP in a reentrant (stream gully). I had a little navigator's self-doubt here, thinking that I hadn't "aimed off" accurately enough because as we ascended, at length, the reentrant became less and less a reentrant (as they tend to do). But, soon enough, there was that lovely flag, after ascending just a little bit more.

At the beginning of the trek, we had been moving really well and clicking through the CPs faster than anticipated, leading us to wonder if we could clear, or nearly clear this section. The bushwhacking had become quite a bit slower for the last 2 CPs, however, and we were no longer maintaining that favorable pace. Therefore, we decided to not go after CP15 after all; we'd just head back to the trails, do an out-and back grab of 14 and then pick up one more close CP on the way back to the TA, which would give us plenty of time to bike back to the finish at race HQ.

We fell in with a couple other teams on the way to 14 on the Birding Trail with the clue listed as "Edge of Marsh."  Once the trail petered out and a marsh appeared to our right, we followed behind the train of racers to the marsh. We poked around this wet slow terrain for a little while and came to the eventual realization that this wasn't a train of racers on a well-worn track to a CP, it was just a bunch of people milling around. I had been taking a bit of a break from navigating and ill-advisedly assumed the teams ahead were on track. Standing in the marsh and looking seriously, this time, at the map, it was clear that this was not where we were going to find the CP. A little stress began to creep in at this time. We had a little time to find some more trek CPs before we really needed to get back to the TA, but not much, and now we had wasted a lot of it. I really did not want to go over the 8-hour time limit. Through the slow terrain of the marsh-side peninsula, I led us on a southward trek. The map suggested that the CP would be at the tip of the peninsula on the "Edge of Marsh." After many more minutes of grinding through this terrain, I was losing hope. I felt we had gone too far and I gave us a 5-more-minutes turnaround cutoff. Soon, though, the end of the peninsula emerged and, to my immense relief, a flag hung there. Whew.  We copied down the code word and had just started back north when I had a thought and went back to check the CP number attached to the flag. This was 15, not 14. Ohhhkayyyy. So...some more studying of the map and recalibrating to our new known location, and we were off to the actual location of CP 14, which we found right where it should be from the map. Weird how that happens sometimes.

We had spend a lot of time working around this area and hadn't left ourselves much time for the bike back BUT now we had 2 CPs to show for it - a lucky payoff for our efforts. Team morale status bar refilled to the top. We jogged and hiked back to the TA, grabbing a quick out-and-back on-trail CP along the way. We had bagged all but one CP on the trek leg in a bit under 4 hours - solid.

We transitioned quickly back into bike mode. We had one hour to make the ride back. That trip, on the way here, had taken 72 minutes. On the return trip, however, we would have more downhill and would not have to stop for any side trips to CPs. After a lengthy dirt road climb, we had an opportunity to take a shot at one more CP (21). We probably, but not definitely, had enough time. We discussed it for a minute before deciding to play it safe and enjoy a stress-free ride into the finish.

At the finish line we spent a couple minutes chatting with overall winners Untamed New England (including team members Rob and Dave who were on our winning squad last year as well). We reunited with Pam and Eliza, who had a fun and successful 3-hour race, trekking, kayaking, navigating and finishing in the top 50% of teams in their first AR.

We enjoyed socially distanced tasty burritos and beer with a few friends lakeside before heading out.

We would sincerely like to thank Kate and Cliff White of SMAR for their tremendous efforts is organizing these races under the conditions imposed by COVID-19. The entire family had a great experience and can't wait to return for more outdoor fun in 2021!