Tug Hill Extreme, Boonville, NY 5/30/26

 As someone always on the lookout for a shoulder-season AR, this late May race fit the bill and offered a new look for us at the Tug Hill region of NY. Mother Nature more than cooperated, delivering a cool and breezy day with temps between the low 40s and mid 60s. After an uneventful 5.5 hr drive to friendly little Boonville, we checked into our hotel, grabbed some tasty dinner in town and grabbed some takeout pizza for race food.

As racers in our 50s, our new policy is to get a hotel room reservation for the duration of the race (i.e., 3 nights for a 24-hr race) - no need for a hasty AM checkout pre-race and a comfy place to shower and sleep post-race. A little bit of relative luxury to bookend the race.

Bearly containing our pre-race enthusiasm.

The race began at 10:00AM at race HQ Hidden Meadows Campground. The race format was your standard "bike to an area, do a loop there, bike to the next area, do a loop there...etc." with more than the usual amount of out-and-back bike routes. The upside of this format was lots of bike - lots of road, canal towpath, dirt road and a dash of trail riding. This provided a comfortable way to spend much of the race and a nice alternative to the many hours of intermixed forest trekking. Covering a lot of local miles on bike also gives you a better feel for the natural and human landscape of the area you're visiting. Over the course of the race we would log 140 km in the saddle.

After a short road ride, we started our first trek leg in the Sand Flats State Forest. This leg featured 16 checkpoints scattered over a large natural area. To find these CPs, we traversed swampy beavery areas, logged lands in regrowth and standard northern mixed forest. Our race strategy involved trying to clear this leg because it offered a fairly good concentration of CPs  and easier daylight navigation. We competently accomplished this goal, encountering only a couple minor navigations snags while clearing the leg in about 3.5 hours. I enjoyed the varied terrain and the decision-making aspect of individual route choice.

We trotted back into the TA, checked in with Brent, ate a couple bites and headed off onto the next bike stage. This would prove to be a lengthy ride - about 32 miles, on roads, trails and a long stint on the smooth, easy canal towpath. There was a little difficulty at an off-trail CP early in the leg, but then smooth sailing on easy terrain. Because the length of the ride was significantly emptying our tanks, we made a quick stop at Bonnie's grocery for a couple nice cool Mountain Dews before completing the route to the next TA.

Since we decided to clear the first trekking section and the second bike was so lengthy, we didn't roll into TA2 until around 6:00 PM. This gave us limited time to attack the paddle leg. This leg would be the AR inauguration of my canoe, which we decided to bring along from NH for this leg after a test drive and being satisfied with her speed and comfort. We were required to be off the water by 8:00, so we had to hustle. The navigation on this leg was very easy, which was good because our map got wet and started disintegrating after 5 minutes in the boat. We were able to get to 4 CPs in the allotted time on Kayuta Lake reservoir. On the return trip, we were overtaken by the 3-engine craft of Dark Zone Podcast team. At this point we decided to attempt to "draft" them, keeping our bow closely in their slipstream for the rest of the leg. As Rob accurately described the outcome of this endeavor: "If we paddle 10% harder, we can go 15% faster."

Back at the TA, we converted back to bike mode, salvaged the necessary info from our ruined map and headed off as the sun set. This would be a shorter bike leg, which was quite easy and relaxing until we got to Stueben Rd. which delivered several large climbs on mildly washed out dirt roads. Once we surmounted the final big climb, we were at TA3, the location of the large nighttime trek.

Here we found Race Director Chris serving up hot Cup-o-Noodles and instant mashed potatoes to the hungry (or, at least, in need of food) racers. After the big depleting bike climbs, we needed a little recovery and re-gearing, so it was a slow TA. Our race plan was to not spend a lot of time on this leg. The CPs were not very closely spaced here and night trekking off-trail is known for navigational challenge and the risk for wasting time confused in the dark woods. I wanted to be back at this TA by 12:30 in order to leave by 1:00 AM to allow time for the subsequent more easily obtained daytime CPs.

We set off in the dark and got the 3 easy CPs that were near the TA. Then we had to hatch a plan to get a few more of the remaining CPs, of which none were particularly close or easy. We sketched a rough loop that would pick up 5 more potential CPs and struck off into the trailless woods.

The second CP of this loop (CP 36) looked tricky and this ended up being true. This took a couple re-attacks, informed guesses and inter-team coordination to eventually punch. After this, things went smoother and we found the next 2 without issue. 

Rob also found a nice, intact beaver skull. We had found a deer scapula on leg 2, as well.

We skipped the last CP of the loop and headed in, as we were already past my desired time to finish the leg.

Another slow TA here, dragging a bit in the middle of the night, knowing we were behind on calories but struggling to eat much. We then set off on rolling gravel hills before punching out into easier asphalted routes. Here we were occasionally riding and chatting, even singing, with Rootstock, especially after we hit the Egypt Rd XC trails. These trails were pretty easy and this was a nice cache of quick CPs. We then had a bit more road riding before a lengthy (one hour) stretch on the less-maintained Black River canal path. We eventually reached the last foot section, Pixley Falls State Park, just after sunrise. At this TA we were met with another welcome warm food treat - instant oatmeal, which we both took full advantage of.

This section held a lot of CPs that were closely spaced on paper but there was a LOT of elevation change. We had passed on a lot of the night trek CPs so that we could use this section to pick up easier CPs in the daylight. Now that we were here, however, faced with the many steep climbs required to get many of the CPs, our competitive mojo was waning. This was especially true for me; making my body hike up hills had gradually become very difficult for some reason. Nothing hurt and my heart rate was normal - just a slow-motion bonk. We slowly got 4 checkpoints here while Rootstock raced circles around us. 

We were glad to get back to our comfort zone (bikes) for the rest of the race, even if it meant a slow gradual climb on the grassy canal trail (pic above) and one significant climb on Domser Rd. Then it was onto some grassy paths at Potato Hill Farm for the last clutch of CPs before the race finish. I thought that these bike tasks were going to be troublesome in our depleted states, but once we were back on bike, the rest of the race felt pretty easy. So, we finished about 80 minutes before the 24-hour cutoff - not a bad thing as we had time for showers back at the hotel before returning for the post-race festivities.

The top race honors (although outside the premier coed division) went to Canadian 2-man duo Attack from Above, who absurdly cleared the entire course in under 19 hours. Top coed finishers were VERT and Rootstock, also clearing the course. We ended up with 58 out of the possible 76 points - with our typical solid but not stellar performance.

We enjoyed the home-grown vibes of this race, the nice locals we met and the very good racing terrain in the area. It seemed like everything went generally as planned during the event - kudos to Tug Hill Outfitters and their volunteers!