You can pick up the previous items in this series via the previous post at http://www.adventureworldmagazineonline.com/adventure-racing/untamed-new-england-leg-4/.

Leg 4 of Untamed New England put teams in extreme northwest Maine, much closer to Canada than the race finish line at the Balsams Resort in New Hampshire.  Leg 5, therefore, would be the great connector from this remote Maine outpost to the Balsams ski lodge.

Teams complete a conservation project at Untamed New England 2010

We considered several creative ways of handling this Leg 5, but ultimately settled on abike leg broken into two parts with a conservation project right in the middle.  Untamed Adventure races incorporate “green work projects” where racers complete hands-on tasks that give back to the community we’re racing through; previous projects in the 2010 Untamed New England included bog bridge building and trail marking (both during the Leg 1 paddle).

This final project would be clearing a new trail for the State of New Hampshire.  New Hampshire has a beautiful waterfall hidden a 1/2 mile deep in the wilderness, and our racers would help cut the new trail to the falls.  The trick for the racers, however, was that they would build the trail from the waterfall out to the road, instead of from the road in to the waterfall.  This meant racers had to get to the waterfall somehow, and we developed our “Team Waterfall Climb” activity to be a fun break for teams and a creative solution to getting teams to the falls to start their trail clearing.

4th Place "Running Free" team from Canada on the Waterfall Climb

The “Team Waterfall Climb” had all teammates roped together via their climbing harnesses (in the style of a glacier traverse), and we placed a set of orienteering flags along the cascades going all the way into the dramatic waterfall.  This was a beautiful location, cool water with the occasional o-flag sticking out of the bank of the river, and lots of verdant greenery.  Teams seemed to enjoy this climb (more a scramble up, over, and around the series of small falls), although this was yet another way for racers to get very wet and I know many who did this stretch in bike shoes spent a lot of time slipping and falling.

After the Waterfall Climb, teams had a short bike-and-tie section (which we also had to rework due to the Leg 4 course changes) before moving in to the final stretch of mountain biking to the finish line.

The biking into the Waterfall Climb wasn’t particularly technical nor tricky, but the portion after the falls was very difficult.  The maps were way out of sync with the terrain, some of the riding was very tough, and Checkpoint 33 proved elusive.  Many teams resorted to bushwhacking -as in Leg 2- through the dense forest to reach CP 33 at Coleman State Park; others managed to stay on their bikes but ended up learning by trial and error that to reach CP33 to the South of the Waterfall Climb, one had to bike a significant way West — not intuitive.

Biking the "trails" at Untamed New England

At Checkpoint 33 there was a payphone that teams had to use to call the race finish line.  This was a method to have an “un-manned” checkpoint but up-to-the minute details on which teams had arrived here, and so near to the finish line it served as a warning for the staff and spectators that another team was approaching.  There was still some good climbs and technical riding through the Balsams Wilderness between CP 33 and the finish line — but it was really the home stretch.  My heart goes out to the team who had a major bike mechanical through the rocky trails after CP 33 and had to call on their satellite phone to organize a rescue — no serious medical problems, but race-over after getting so close to the finish line!

Once teams finally reached the Balsams, we had an optional orienteering section (rogaine) where teams could earn time bonuses by visiting additional trekking checkpoints around the resort.  The optional section made for an anti-climactic finish area, as teams never knew how they stood in the race results until after some calculations and waiting to see what other teams had to do.  I wans’t happy with this, and the optional section ended up having no impact on the final results, and future events will not use this style of rogaine finish, for a variety of reasons.

Eastern Mountain Sports / CheckpointZero team at the mountain summit mid-race during Untamed New England

In closing, one of my favorite moments from the Untamed New England finish line was when the Eastern Mountain Sports / CheckpointZero team arrived in 6th place with an hour remaining for them to obtain optional points.   Jennifer Shultis, their Captain and an iconic New England racer, biked straight up to the beer truck and pulled a Long Trail Ale out before she had even fully got off her bike.  Anybody curious if her team was going to try to clean-up on the optional trekking section had just got their answer: Jenn was in beer drinking mode and after 3 days of rugged, remote, and sometimes downright brutal terrain this team had accomplished their goals.  Finish lines are for celebrating, not for plotting bonus UTM coordinates!

In closing, let me give a hearty congratulations to the winning team GUATS Adventure of Ontario, Canada.  With 2 members tracing their racing roots through the Canadian AR giant “SupplierPipeline” team from years ago, it’s no surprise to see them atop the podium.  2nd place went to a very fast and well-prepared Danish team “Skandia Key Experience;” after the race, they commented how “Untamed New England is not like other races — but in a good way . . . every race claims to be tough and has cautions on the website about taking it lightly, but Untamed New England really delivers!”  Finishing in third place New Hampshire’s “Team Granite” did the home state proud; this team is the current USA national champions (USARA National Champions from 2009), just to put in perspective how strong a field this was.

GUATS Adventure from Ontario, Canada make their way to the Untamed New England finish line as the race winners

In case you’ve missed them, installment 1, 2, and 3 are also here on Adventure World.

Leg 4 was a couple loops based from the Primus Camping transition area, it came at the end of the savage Leg 3 trek.  We knew that trek would be tough, and the Primus Camping TA was perfect to include here as before and after each loop it let teams access their gear bins, camp stoves provided by Primus, and even roomy tents to sleep in also from Primus.

Ecuador's "Proyecto Aventura" team enjoy the Hospitality at the Primus Camping TA

What nobody realizes is that the Leg 4 loops were absolutely butchered at the last minute by land managers over in Maine.   This slipped under the radar for the first 9 months of our permit conversations, and it was a big disappointment to rework this section (although the bright side is I have some great biking terrain to include in a future event, if I can negotiate access!).  So we originally had a very tidy bike leg, with plenty of technical riding etc, but we had to re-route this at the last minute and our options were very limited.

Teams Complete the Swim/Trek

So, we had to rework the swim/trek to be a bit more conservative since there was a reasonable chance that fast teams might be swimming in very cold conditions.  This meant creating a “visit 3 of the following 4 checkpoints” situation for the Leg 4 swim/trek, and adding a trek-only point in that mix that would provide teams a way to progress in this area of the race without having to swim in case it was wicked cold that morning.  New England weather can be very unpredictable, and the odds of “wicked cold” setting in were probably about 1 in 4.  The other checkpoints on this loop were also shifted so that they could be visited without having to swim (or only having a very short swim).  All of this happened in the final week prior to the race, so it was a bit of a panic to fit all these pieces together.  It actually also shifted some of the other Legs downstream in the race, but I won’t explore that topic here…

Team Skandia Key Experience on the Swim/Trek, with the Early Morning Fog for Company

The end result was a watered down Leg 4 bike leg that could be finished way too quickly to use our original Leg 4 swim/trek, so also a watered down Leg 4 swim/trek.  Ultimately, everything worked out fine and the leaders did choose to sleep once they arrived to the Primus TA.  The lead teams went out on the swim/trek around 6 AM, with a definite chill in the air but because of the precautions we took with the checkpoint placements nobody had to actually be swimming until 7 AM or even later if they chose to walk the long way around the shore of the lake.

Team Granite, from New Hampshire, Prepare for an Early Morning Swim

The weather cooperated that day (now, day 3 of racing) with warm temperatures and clear skies for good photos, so there’s some great pics from this section of the race.  Hopefully teams enjoyed the variety from the Primus Camping TA, and the adventure racing “hospitality” of the Primus tents and camp stoves.  The next stage of the race, Leg 5, would be really the homestretch.

Tonight at 8:05pm our first team crossed the finish line, the Swedish team #17, Explore. After 84 hours of racing, including 185km of mountain biking that ended just a few kilometers before the end, they entered Playa Samara where a big crowd of staff, media and other competitors who are no longer in the race greeted them with cheers, flashes and applause. Everybody wanted to witness the last steps of a team that set the race pace since the beginning and remained strong through it all, even despite Per Vestling’s very bad knee. At some point the paramedics recommended him to stop, but he inspired so many by walking through that finished line, doing what he did best, smiling big!

Helena Lindnord from the swedish media accompanying team Explore, was interviewing Jari Kirkland earlier today, and Jari said before resting or showering she wanted a juicy hamburger and french fries! And her wishes were granted, and her whole team got a share, as well as some ice cold beer that went with meal.

That closed the action for Playa Samara tonight. The remaining 4 teams that remain in elite competition have been neutralized at checkpoint 36 for safety reasons and will spend the night there once they arrive. Tomorrow at the crack of dawn team Quechua #12 will be released at 4am, then Bosi Zoom Radio #15 at 4:30am and all other teams and racers at 5am.

The second place is expected to arrive at the finish line at 7:30am.

To order the race DVD, visit http://legendaryrandyericksenfilms

We called Leg 3 the “3 Summit Trek” and we knew this would be a difficult stretch for teams.  Over 30 miles, with long off-trail sections, punctuated by some mountain summits and a rope course mid-way through.  If anything, I think we undersold the difficulty of this leg.  The teams who completed the whole stretch arrived at the Primus Camping transition area and uniformly declared that to be the most challenging trek of any race they’ve done.

Of course, with the benefit of hindsight maybe teams will change their view, as teams in Untamed New England had raced in harsh places such as Patagonia.  I need to follow up to see if teams still stand by their opinion.

Regardless, this was a trek to remember and I’m guessing there were as many routes through here as there were teams.   For a look at the route taken by the winning team GUATS Adventure, check out this google map where they outlined their trail/road travel (in blue) and their bushwhacking (in red).  The GUATS gang is partially made up of the old SupplierPipeline team, so these are among the most experienced racers in North America.  GUATS went on to win the race, powered by this legendary effort on the 3 Summit Trek.  Truly, their effort on Leg 3 will go down in the record books!

Untamed New England Leg 3 ropes course

Besides the route decisions and off-trail travel, this Leg had some scenic views and our main ropes course for the race.  We intended to rig a tyrolean traverse and a rappel mid-way through the Leg, but the rope crew made a last minute change and setup a zipline instead (it’s really just a tyrolean where you start high and can slide down, requiring no effort to cross).  I was initially disappointed in the change, but once I tried the zip line out I was convinced that having this low-effort element to the race would be a welcome change from the brutal trek the teams were in the middle of.  So, while the rope site wasn’t a technically difficult one, it would be a chance for teams to switch muscle groups and put their climbing gear to good use!

It’s hard to do justice to the intensity of the wilderness through here.  There are areas where trees have grown so tightly together it’s almost a wall of branches, bark, and deadfall.  There are mazes of moose trails up and down the mountains, but you can go crazy trying to follow a compass along routes like that.  This trek did showcase the true wilderness of New England and just how remote and rugged it can get out here.

The first team to finish this leg was GUATS adventure from Ontario, and this proved the turning point of the race for them.  They passed a number of teams on the second half of this trek.  The Danish team came in a few hours later, and Team Granite from New Hampshire came in just a minute after the Danes.  It’s telling to see that this would be the eventual race podium . . . this 3 Summit Trek will surely go down as one for the ages.

Team Tecnu Extreme competed at the Untamed New England Adventure Race last week. 41 teams from the US and Canada as well as Ecuador and Denmark all came to Dixville Notch, New Hampshire to compete in the 3 day race and hope for a chance at qualifying for a spot at the World Adventure Race Championships that will be held in Spain in October.

Leg 1: Portage with a bit of paddlingThe race started at 12:45 PM on Thursday. Teams of 4 were given 1 canoe and a kayak for the first leg of the race, a 40 mile paddle on Second and First Connecticut Lake, Lake Francis, and the Connecticut River & 6 miles of portaging. (2 miles of which was what we in AR call “Boat Whacking”, carrying the boats and all of your gear through the woods.) In the middle of the paddle leg as night fell, we had to stop for an Orienteering Relay. Each one of us had to take a turn and complete a small “O course” before continuing with the boats. We did really well in this section and were back on the river in no time and had moved ahead to 4th place.

Leg 2: Taste of NH trails via BikeBy 1 a.m. we were back on land and off on our bikes. We passed EMS in the transition at the Beecher Falls Fire Station in Vermont and were now in 3rd and feeling great. The bike section started out on dirt roads but became a bit tricky trying to find some of the trails in the dark and eventually a few teams caught up with us. I would guess that there were as many routes across Indian Creek as there were teams. There didn’t seem to be any major trails or roads connecting CP 12 to the Great North Woods ATV Trails to the east. We managed to bike up and down and road paralleling the river and found an old single track that connected them for us. We arrived at the TA 2 convinced we had lost a few more places, but apparently everyone else was having trouble and we had only been passed by 2 teams.

Leg 3: Nut up or shut up Trek Now we were off for a monstrous trek at 7 AM. Friday. There were 2 cut offs in this section. One was at the ropes course at 7:30 PM and the other was at the end of the trek at 8 AM, Saturday morning.We moved fast and efficient early in the trek, but we were not choosing the best routes. Teams were presented with MyTopo maps as well as a stack of other supplemental trail maps. Some trails were out there some weren’t. We stopped trusting the trail maps, did the longer walks around, learned the trails were actually there, and got frustrated. We decided that we would plan to do more bushwhacking and eliminate the frustrating trails. We took that plan to a whole new meaning when we couldn’t locate a trail to climb up to the summit of Magalloway Mountain. We bushwhacked a direct route straight up to the summit. It was thick, steep and hot. To the surprise of the CP staff we arrived from the opposite direction every other team had. We then took off on trails and roads down and around the mountain to the ropes section. We happily checked in and out of the ropes course which consisted of a fast zip line across Garfield Falls and a short rappel back down to the water’s edge in 4th place about 1.5 hours behind the leaders. With all of our troubles and questionable routes we were still right up there fighting for position going into what we saw as the crux move of the race – a long bushwhack at night with sleep deprived navigators and little for features to catch your mistakes.

We motored up a ridge as fast as we could to utilize the fading sunlight. We ran on the west side of our ridge taking any moose trail that we found that moved us north and east (uphill). From a saddle we started making our way towards CP 22. We needed to head to the northwest and climb up and over a hill top to find the large Stubb Hill pond on the other side. The climb up to the hill top got steep and very thick. We were still pushing hard in the fading light and a combination of that and the thick bush pushed us to the east of our bearing. Matt and Kyle spend hours scratching their heads and trying to make sense of where the team could have been. We knew we needed to get to the tallest point of the hill top in order to relocate and go down towards the pond. Mari took a look at the map and suggested we could be on a one contour line hill top just to the east of our main hill top. Her suggestion made sense and we hiked west to find the lake. Haste makes waste, and we wasted hours and tons of energy searching for this cp. It was time to regroup. We needed to use care and nail the final ridge traverse up to CP 23 on top of the east peak of Bosebuck Mountain in Maine. From there we still had quite the descent to Lake Aziscohos and TA 3 and the 8AM cut off. It would be close. It didn’t matter how many teams passed us during our mistake, we were now racing against the clock, and if we missed the 8 am cut off, all of the teams ahead of us would be untouchable. Looking ahead to our traverse we noted 2 tricky spots with the rest being straight forward. We nailed the first tricky move by descending the thick Stubb Hill and landing on a broad saddle. The next move was to traverse a hillside, descend it and hopefully pop out right on top of a very narrow ridge line that would lead us to our next mountain. Well, we screwed the pouch, ended up wasting some time trying to recover, took a ½ hour nap, woke up freezing and climbed back up to the top of the hill to re-attack. We moved ridiculously slow in boy scout fashion as we leapt frog each other to maintain our bearing in the woods. Just as we came out to the ridge line the sun started to rise and we began the long hike along the ridge to the CP. We all knew the 8am cut off would be hard to hit. In fact we actually reached CP 23 and the summit at 7:55. 2 hours later after 16 hours of straight buckwhacking, we were down near Lake Azicohos and learned that we would skip the next MTB section and continue on foot for the swim/trek leg. 8 teams made it to that TA before the 8 AM cut off. Bummer. The wind was taken out of our sails. The best we could do was 9th. And that is what we were going to do.

Leg 4: A little late to get your feet wet trekAfter a painfully flow transition from trekking to trekking we took up to get 4 cps in a counter clockwise loop with three of them being out and back swims of 100-200 meters in length. We moved slowly. We were bummed as our mistakes during the night could not be made up for like we have done in past races. No more teams to catch, but plenty of time to do it in. We finished our trek/swim loop and took off Saturday evening on our final bike leg to the finish line at the ski resort in Dixville.

Leg 5: Every last drop bikeWe cruised into the first few points easily and eventually made it to our team waterfall climb where we were all roped together and had to rock hop up a creek bed finding checkpoint flags along the way. It culminated with a beautiful waterfall glowing in the light from our headlamps. From there we started a 5 mile loop in which we had to take one bike, but only one bike. We strategized and made good time on this section by allowing those that were hurting the most to make the most use of the bike. It was great having the one bike, until we needed to bushwhack 600 meters down a hill side with it. But again we took turns sharing the work of carrying the bike through the thick woods. We had a mandatory ½ hour break after our one bike leg and we got our last bit of sleep in; giving us a whopping total of 1 hours of sleep in 70 hours of racing.We woke and headed on our way to collect the last few cps of the race. We biked on paved roads, dirt roads, sandy roads, gravel roads, double track, single track, muddy trails, grassy trails, and pretty much every other surface you could imagine. Many teams had called it quits during these last few bike cps, but we persevered at times giving up all hope on the trails printed on our maps and used more outdoor logic to find our way. With 45 minutes to go until the 10 AM finish on Sunday morning we elected to push ourselves to the max on an out and back hill climb in order to grab the last mandatory CP on our course and be back by 10am. With a herculean team effort we got the job done and came across the finish line at 9:55am Sunday morning, Tecnu Extreme/StaphAseptic, in 9th place.

Skirting along the Canadian/US border, teams biked a logging road network and got into some climbing on the bike up and over the Indian Stream Ridge.  There were confusing new roads introduced in here (not on any map we could provide racers, and we didn’t have time to map the whole network for teams on our own).  It was tricky, and I suspect most teams were already thinking about the tough 3 Summit Trek ahead of them in the race, instead of the more immediate challenge on the bikes.

The crux of the leg was the crossing of Indian Stream itself — a shallow river meandering north/south along the valley.  There is only one bridge over the Stream, and that is many miles South and easily adds an hour or two of cycling.  It looks like most teams elected to cross the marsh and carry their bikes to the other side — a very physically challenging undertaking, particularly as most did this at night.

After crossing the Stream, a well-mapped ATV network set the stage for the final checkpoint on this Leg before teams reached Transition Area #2 and dropped their bikes.

Team 23 (Team Granite) At Transition Area #2

A couple hours after sunrise, Running Free reached this TA first (much to their surprise, as they laughed when they were informed that they reached this location first!), closely followed by Team Granite.  Somewhere in the night the Danish team had given up an hour or two to some new race leaders . . . but it would not remain that way for long.  No lead is a safe lead this early in a race, with so many high caliber teams!

The team from Ecuador made a route error and ended up accidentally crossing the border into Canada.  They were detained by the US Border Patrol for a couple hours, as one racer on the team didn’t have a copy of his passport with him (that was mandatory for all teams for just this reason!).  It was a nightmare scenario: the team from South America getting snagged by border patrol for an unauthorized border crossing!  Imagine explaining why you’ve got a backpack full of climbing gear, headlamps, food, and other equipment . . . all with a thick Spanish accent . . .

The team from Ecuador accidentally crossed the US/Canadian border

A bit of patience, and a few explanations later, and the Ecuadorians were back on their bikes again.  They brushed it off as part of their authentic US experience.

I personally stopped by the Border Patrol office while they were being held, in case I could do something to assist, but the process was underway (lots of paperwork, apparently) and there was nothing for me to to help, other than to confirm their story.  They were sitting in the Border Patrol office with their bike shorts, helmets, bike shoes, race jerseys etc and I wish I had a camera.  BP was treating this like a major offense (I don’t think they have “minor” offenses in their vocabulary) and the Ecuadorians were being made an example of.

No matter, once they got released the Ecuadorians got back on their bikes and kept racing (and, indeed, raced a great race for those so new to this terrain and our style of event).

Leg 3 was up next, for the Ecuadorians and for all the other teams, the very much anticipated 3 Summit Trek.

Things were not looking good a few months before this… our most important race this summer. Two of our teammates John and Denise, could not race with James and I (Harper). With a very stacked field and time running out, we had some serious shoes to fill in our recruitment process in the few weeks before race start. Luckily, we were able to nab veteran Ontario racers Jayme Frank – who has countless expedition victories under his belt and Barb Campbell – a well respected navigator who captains the successful Tree Huggers adventure racing team. With our team set, we were happy we could compete in the premier co-ed category, which contained 3 spots for the ARWC in Spain next month. With a new team and fierce competitions our hopes were top-10 with a lofty goal of top-5 if all went well.

Untamed New England is the only Adventure Racing World Championship qualifier in North America, with a great atmopshere to boot. This was apparent at the pre-race social at the host site, Balsams Wilderness Resort (New Hampshire), where Long Trail beer was served and you were able to mingle with other racers, staff and sponsors. We were lucky enough to be joined by Justin, from Princeton Tec lights, and his girlfriend Beth who lived nearby in Franconia. It was great to chat with the Bike/Outdoor Manager of Princeton Tec over a few beers about adventure racing, marathon mountain bike races… and lights!

After the social, it was time to weigh (and re-weigh… and re-weigh… and..) our gear bins, which had some pretty steep restrictions of 35lbs per racer for the 3-day non-stop race! “Luxury” items such as Red Bull, Boost, warm clothing, sleeping pads, canned food, etc. all were sacrificed and left behind while necessities barely made the cut.

In the morning at race registration we quickly received our maps and had a brief few hours to plot the UTM’s and strategize routes. James and I took the first half the course while Jayme and Barb took the latter half. With no time to spare, we highlighted our route and hoped in our brief time that we had made some efficient navigation choices. Barb and I went over them again on the bus to the start to make sure they looked good.

After a 90-minute bus-ride to the paddle start the race was on with a quick paddle prologue around Second Connecticut Lake, where we obtained 4 CP’s spread around the lake. We were quickly in the top 6 or so teams heading into the first portage of the paddle. Since the portage was mainly on roads we made the (very good) call to use portage wheels. A HUGE asset given the long roads we had to traverse and the HEAVY Royalux canoes we were paddling. After a few adjustments we finally had our portaging system dialed in and moved through the teams onto the trail portage we, as Canadians, are used to. It was a thin trail that was recently cut with barely enough width to fit a boat. Since these were monster canoes we had to pull, push and drag them through the trail along the soft floor of the forest. It really sucked. The effort used was redlining us early in the race, in a very unexpected section and the narrow trail was preventing anyone from passing other teams. After what seemed like forever on the 4K-ish portage we finally made it to the conservation project at CP2, where we had to build a portion of wood bridges over a wetland. It was a quick 2-minute job and we hopped back in our boats to settle back into paddling.

We maintained our 6th place position paddling over the next few CP’s and into the Orienteering relay section of the race at CP9. Rarely can all 4 racers navigate but this was the case for our lucky team. We decided I would go first and do the long, hard course; Barb would take the short, hard section; Jayme the short, easy and James would anchor us navigating the long, easy course. I bobbled the first CP wasting 10 minutes or so, but after that was pretty clean in my hour or so out there. The rest of the team spiked theirs and as we expected we made up some ground passing two teams and heading back onto the final paddle section now back in 4th.

Since it was now dark, around midnight, and cold, I decided to wear my tights and gore-tex clothing. There was only a short 6K paddle into the TA but I assumed as long as we didn’t tip I would be okay in my only set of warm dry clothes I was carrying… Of course shortly into the paddle Jayme yells “ROCK!” and within seconds we are dumped into the Connecticut River, clutching any equipment we could before it went downriver. SH*T! Not only were we cold and wet but the boat was being pinned against a rock, with thousands of pounds of water keeping it submerged. We were expecting to hear the crack of a snapped canoe at any second… but after a few minutes of us moving it ever so slowly, it held up and we were able to maneuver it away from the rock, dump it over and hop back in. Barb, who was paddling the solo kayak, was skilled enough to grab all our gear floating downriver and once again we were back racing after what could have been a race-ending accident.

Luckily the next CP was also the TA and happened to be at the Beecher Falls (CT) Fire Department, where they were spoiling the racers with hot spaghetti, brownies, and coffee. WOW! This was awesome – a huge boost for our spirits and gave us some much needed hearty calories since we had been racing for 12 hours now. The warm fire department also allowed us to air dry our wet clothing that was recently submerged in the whitewater. We took a long-ish TA here, but it was just too nice to resist hot meals and the great volunteers here feeding us delicious food.

After pulling ourselves away from the comfort of the fire station, we got onto the bikes where we cycled a long road which paralleled the Canada/US border, also along a river. Eventually we caught up to EMS while starting the climb over the mountain east of us. It was a maze of unrideable unmapped trails that we had to walk much of and were soon joined by Granite, who had also caught up to us. We must have made a poor route decision somewhere on the mountain as we soon merged with a nice (but also unmapped) gravel road, which was being traveled by for a while before us by our competitors. Our slight lead over the main pack of racers slowly diminished as we were soon riding with other teams, including our friends on Milton Basement Racers. After a final “gate” unmanned CP the hope was to get east across a creek via an unmarked bridge everyone was hoping to find. We headed south until the gravel road hit an ATV trail that was bearing east. I decided to take this, hoping this ATV trail would take us across the river to our east but soon another bikewhack ensued and it was only Granite and us left to figure out how to get across the river (as now the ATV trail was heading back west). Their lead navigator who was off his bike and scouting indicated the river crossing would just require a quick 200m bikewhack through some thick vegetation. I didn’t like the idea of following another team into what seemed to be a bad route choice but since it was checked out I figured the quick bikewhack would get us back on track with the other teams that had long abandoned us. The estimated 200m bikewhack was at least double that but eventually did lead us across the creek and onto a mapped road. We had assumed we now had lost 10 or so spots in the process but kept positive while heading to the first bike CP. Quickly we noticed the lack of bike tire tracks on the trails and thought it was odd… maybe we had mapped a different route than most. While attacking another bike CP and still no bike track, we thought maybe our bikewhack ended up GAINING us spots instead of the expected loss, and we now were possibly in first place. A quick road ride out of the bike-o section into TA2 confirmed we were now leading Untamed New England, with Granite a minute behind us. It was a pretty big shock to us and we later learned from Grant (the RD) bikewhacking across was actually the fastest way across that section!

With us now leading the race we made a quick transition so we could also exit the TA before Granite, and before any other teams appeared. The next section was considered by most to be the crux of the race a monster 55K trek which would contain “significant bushwhacking”. We left the TA around 6:20am and set out on a series of roads heading east towards the first summit of the “3-summit trek” called Magalloway Mountain, also CP16. We ran most of the roads and eventually found ourselves passed by Granite and Skandia who proved to be better climbers. A quick picture was taken at the top featuring the spectacular views and we took a bit of time here to eat and replenish some fluids. Unfortunately at this time we also learned that we had forgot most of our water purification tablets at the last TA and Barb’s supply of 10L worth would be quickly gone in the heat of the day. We couldn’t risk dehydration at this crucial part of the race so we decided to take our chances with untreated mountain water (which has been good to us… so far!).

CP17 was removed so we could now attack CP18/19 using a different route, hopefully requiring less bushwhacking. We made the choice to take the north descent off the mountain and then bear east when it wasn’t too steep to descend. We made our way down slowly through the thick brush and within an hour of leaving the summit we heard a huge crash and in front of us was the largest moose we’d ever seen. Jayme, who was leading the descent, stood still while the rest of us looked around for a place to run should this beast charge. After what seemed like forever (maybe 10 seconds) the bull walked off casually in the direction we (thankfully) we not bearing. Whew!

With the slight jitters of such a magnificent sight we plugged away down the north side and finally east through more thick vegetation, a swamp and eventually onto our road, which took us into CP18/19 at Garfield Falls – the traverse and rappel. We made quick work of the ropes course and maintained our 3rd position, still behind Skandia and Granite. The out-and-back nature of the CP allowed us to scope out our competition who were behind and on our way out we soon saw Technu, GUATS and EMS who were all trailing us by about 30-45 minutes.

Since the racers were falling behind on the estimates several more trekking CP’s were removed and we now were heading directly to the other 2 summit CP’s – CP22 at Stub Hill Pond and CP23 at Bosebuck Mountain Summit – which was now taking us into our 3rd state of the race – Maine.

We took a very conservative approach to Stub Hill Pond following a re-entrant up to a saddle, then ascending up a ridge on a bearing and into Stub Hill Pond. At this time I had been doing most of the navigating and was looking for a bit of a break. I called upon Barb to please take us into the next CP while I could give my mind a break. It was a challenging request as now the sun had set, thus making it our first tough night-time CP. Our initial approach was to attack it by staying high along the ridgeline for approximately 4K hopping between ridges, summits and saddles in a crescent shape onto Bosebuck Mountain summit and CP23. However, we found whenever we got higher the vegetation got thicker and since we needed a precise bearing from peak to peak between thse CP’s the effort would be immense and the reward a very slow and painful bushwhack. We decided to switch it up and try another approach which might be easier at night – descend down from the saddle at a bearing until we hit 2500 ft of elevation. From there take an east bearing until we started climbing, at which we should be summiting the mountain.

Everyone had a job for this attack – Barb was keeping us on bearing, Jayme was leading the bushwhack on a bearing, James was timing us and I was checking our altimeter. The strategy worked perfectly and we soon found ourselves at the summit of Bosebuck. Unfortunately in the dark we could not see the highest point and there appeared to be false summits everywhere. After probably an hour of looking we finally found the real summit and the CP. We descended down the mountain and onto a road which took us into the next TA – the Primus Camping TA on the shores of Aziscohos Lake. Finally we would be able to access our long awaited gear bins, which we had not seen since we dropped them loff before the race. We quickly dove into our hot foods and took advantage of the Primus stoves to heat hot water for soup and noodles. We’d been racing now for 37 hours straight, without sleep and were now exhausted. We initially planned to get our gear ready to leave before we went to bed but were too tired and decided to wait until we slept for a few hours before getting ready.

After a quick 2 hour sleep, for what we planned would be the only sleep of the 3-day race, we departed for a quick bike section and another quick trekking/swim section. By now our feet were hammered with blisters from all the bushwhacking of yesterday and moving forward fast was a bit more challenging. After our final swim CP I was stung by a hornet… this was just not going to be my day!

We left the Primus TA on our bikes for the 100K ride in 4th but it was hard to tell as all the shortcoursed teams had now joined us. GUATS, Skandia and Granite were all ahead and only 8 teams had made the 8am cut-off to be officially ranked in the Premier category. It appeared the last trek had really hammered down a lot of strong teams.

We biked our way up and over several ranges which had some awesome fast descents. We moved well through this section as we were so happy to be off our feet! Eventually we made it into the next ropes section at CP30, which featured a waterfall tie-in hike, conservation project and ride-and-tie. We tied in and tried to minimize falling in the slippery creek leading up to the waterfall. Once at the waterfall, we unclipped and worked 30-minutes on cutting a trail before making our way back to the CP. Back at the CP, we departed on our bike-and-tie, which was a little questionable given we had to bikewhack down a river 200m from a trail – but we got through it without any issues. Once back, the staff had requested to see our satellite phone. I dug into my pack searching for it but – wham – it was not there. SH*T!!!! The staff let us know that they had been radioed by the last TA that we had left it there and we were to serve a 2 hour penalty. This was so disheartening, especially since we were now only 30 minutes behind Granite and a podium position. My team members were great to me but I was not happy with myself and this was the first time I had ever forgot a mandatory item. I guess while doing the maps back at the last TA I must have set it aside and left it there while re-packing. Ugh! There was nothing we could really do about it so we tried to make valuable use of our time by looking over the routes, purifying water, resting, eating and hiding from teams who were chasing us.

Once our 2-hour penalty was served we were off again onto the bikes to make our way to CP33 at Coleman State Park. We thought this area would be tricky as we had to utilize a number of ATV/snowmobile trails and dirt roads, most of which were unmapped. We were careful as could be in the initial stage, taking our time, taking lots of bearing and looking around at features. I thought we were on track to obtain the CP within an hour of leaving the last TA but unfortunately it all went wrong when we must have went down a trail bearing resemblance to others on my map. Soon we were all over the place, taking every trail until realizing it was not going the right way, was climbing too much, etc. After 3 hours of blundering around in there we made our way up and around a mountain thinking we were on the infamous “5″ trail only to find we were almost back to where we had started 3 hours ago – Argggghhh!!! It was extremely frustrating and by now I figured we were in last place of the ranked premier teams (8th) and was also starting to worry about the finish line cutoff back at the Balsams. However, the plus side of this location was that we now new exactly where we were and before long found ourselves on the elusive gravel road which would take us into the Coleman State Park CP33, which was actually a phone call CP.

I didn’t really want to know how far we’d dropped but Jayme insisted on finding out. I proposed we take a quick 20 minute break at the park and eat, re-focus, etc. but once we learned somehow we were now in 3rd place that quickly changed to a frantic let’s get out of here (In actuality the staff on the other end of the phone call was incorrect – we were still 4th – but who cares, we didn’t lose any spots)!

Photo courtesy Luis Moreira

We kept on track for the rest of the biking and finally made our way into the Balsams resort with 3 hours to spare for the final rogaine section. We’d learned we were still in 4th but could maybe pull out something in the final hours of the race should Granite, Skandia or GUATS make a big navigation mistake or go over the 10am cut-off. We flew up the mountain and quickly grabbed the next 2 CP’s before having a short “discussion” about trying to get 1 more. After doing some math and assessing how slow I was moving on the downhills (at this point my feet were just toast but particularly on the descents) we decided to risk it and go for one last CP. Of course, the last one ended up making us a little nervous as it was probably 100m from where we had mapped it, but we did get it and made it back to the resort with a good 30 minutes to spare. We were finished!

As we had somewhat expected we finished 4th, with the same amount of CP’s as Granite, but who had made it back to the finish about an hour before us. Second place went to Skandia, a great young team from Denmark and the winners were our friends and fellow Canucks on GUATS. Congratulations!! Other notable mentions were Milton Basement Racers (7th), ATP (10th) and Spirit (13th) – all great results given the extremely tough competition, navigation and terrain we had covered over the 3 days.

Even though we had missed out on the podium by less than an hour, I am still extremely proud of this team. Everyone really pulled together and we made a great team out there, always looking out for one another and truly making this a team accomplishment.

We gave teams plenty of warning that there would be some tough portaging on this course, so they all (should have) arrived prepared.  Unfortunately, some teams were more prepared than others and once teams had plotted the route for the first 12 hours of racing at Untamed New England 2010 I know some racers who were anxious about their portage setups.

Team NYARA/Krell Fabrications starts to portage at Untamed New England 2010

There was about 6 miles total portaging as teams worked their way down the headwaters of the Connecticut River — 30+ miles of paddling on pristine lakes and rivers, but I know the racers will only mention the portages.  One particularly nasty portage came after the starting paddle-o prologue, where teams negotiated the narrow, rooty “Moose Alley” trail with their watercrafts.  I know a few teams lost their portage wheels and carts at that early juncture, making for a long and hard remainder of Leg 1 to come!

The fast teams were running through these portages with yokes, harnesses, and handles crafted from their paddles.  They were making good time — but for those with less sturdy setups, this was a rough beginning.

Leg 1 included two green work projects, things we work into our courses to spice up the race and give back to the community we race through.  One project had each team construct a bog bridge along the Cohos Trail (so each team had to carry in the timber, place the boards and logs, and drive the spikes in with their race-provided hammer).

Orienteering Relay at Untamed New England 2010

Near the end of this Leg was the Ultimate Direction Orienteering Relay, and that proved a lot of fun.  Each team had 4 loops to complete (one was “easy & short,” one was “easy & hard,” one was “easy & long,” and one was “hard & long”).  Teams discovered the mapped area had extensive quarrying around it, requiring some careful compass work and map-reading to really figure out the terrain.  While one racer was out on their specific course (each racer had to complete a different course), the rest of the team packed gear, examined their maps, ate, and hung-out by the fire.  It turned into quite the party with bonfires, media, and spectators all in the same wooded parking lot.  The dark night made the orienteering tougher, but the energy at the hand-over area more than compensated and I really like how the relay worked out.  There were also shooting stars in abundance!

The final bit of paddling on this leg had some gentle whitewater to shake the teams up, and in the dark the rocks and navigation proved too much for a couple teams who swam some on this stretch of the river.

As far as the “horse-race” aspect of this first portion of the race, to say it was a see-saw battle is an understatement.  I think a different team led the race at each of the manned checkpoints (Team Kinetic, Guats Adventure, Skandia Key Experience, ATP/Salomon, Running Free, Tecnu Extreme Staphaseptic, Team Granite, etc…).

Danish team Skandia Key Experience led at Transition Area #1

At the conclusion of Leg 1, the Transition Area where a hot pasta meal was on offer from the local fire department, the team from Denmark — Skandia Key Experience — had opened a small 20 minute lead.  I think the orienteering-relay played to their strength, and the Danes were obviously fast paddlers and had a solid portaging strategy.

I wish I had a video camera to capture the look on the firefighters’ faces: here was team of Danish adventure racers gobbling up a bowl of pasta, sauce, and salad, all topped with a brownie — in about 2 minutes flat.  They were a blur in the Transition Area and sped off on their bikes before the 2nd place team even came off the river.

There are 6 sections, or “legs,” to the race and I’ll examine each one in turn:

• Leg 1: Paddling, Portaging, Conservation Projects, and Orienteering Relay through the Kingdom of Water
• Leg 2: Mountain Biking through the Indian Stream Territory
• Leg 3: 3 Summit Trek and Rope Course mid-way through
• Leg 4: Swim/Trek and Biking loops on Lake Aziscohos
• Leg 5: Mountain Biking, Team Waterfall Climb, Conservation Project, and Bike & Tie into and our of the Crystal Mountains
• Leg 6: Rogaine Section in the Balsams Wilderness

Teams Punch an Orienteering Flag at Untamed New England 2010

This series of posts will begin in earnest tomorrow, Weds, as for now I have many tasks to see to with closing out our course and finalizing race passports and time splits.  So look for more soon, and wish me look going over the muddy tyvek passports and race staff clipboards from across Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

Leading Teams:
1-GUATS Adventure – Canada
2-Team Skandia Key Experience – Denmark
3-Team Granite – USA (New Hampshire)
4-Running Free – Canada
5-GOALS ARA 2 – USA
6-Eastern Mountain Sports / Checkpoint Zero – USA
7-BRAT – USA
8-Milton Basement Racers – Canada

Race at a glance: 8 out of 41 teams completed the full course. 9 teams did not finish and two teams received unofficial completion (due to dropped teammates).
GUATS, Skandia, and Team Granite have all earned spots in the Adventure Racing World Championship (ARWC) kicking off in Spain, September 30th.

•Team 5 ( Eastern Mountain Sports/Checkpoint Zero)
•Team 11 ( BRAT)
•Team 14 (GOALS ARA 2)
•Team 15 (Milton Basement Racers)
•Team 18 (Running Free)
•Team 23 (Team Granite)
•Team 24 (Team Skandia Key Experience)
•Team 28 (Tecnu Extreme/StaphAseptic adventure racing)
•Team 29 (GUATS Adventure)

Teams completed a very difficult 3 Summit Trek to arrive at Bosebuck. They had to do a considerable amount of bushwhacking to reach the summit of Magalloway Mountain, Stub Hill and Bosebuck Mountain-some of the most difficult trekking of any Untamed Adventure event. Team 24- Skandia Key Experience was the first team into Checkpoint 24 at 1:44 a.m. with Team 23- Granite one minute behind. Many teams did not make the first cut-off of 8:00 a.m. at Bosebuck, puttingthem on shortened bike and swim/trek loops. The second cut-off was to make it to Bosebuck by noon on Saturday. Teams that did not make that cut-off were directed to skip the Checkpoints at Little HellgateFalls and instead to bike directly to The Balsams to complete the final trekking leg.

Teams that made the first cut-off at Bosebuck and were able to continue on to Little Hellsgate Falls (CP30-32) will be doing a team waterfall climb, conservation project and bike and tie loop. Teams 24 (11:39 a.m.) and 29 (11:41) were the first two teams on the full course to arrive at Little Hellsgate Falls with two minutes separating them.
We have had 6 teams withdraw (none due to medical emergency) : # 3 (Berlin Bike), #6 (NYARA), #20 (Salomon-Chlorophylle), #27 (Team Untamed Adventure) and #35 (GOALS ARA3).

The weather report keeps vacillating on us, but in this case for the better – looks like we’ll miss the rain entirely. Temps will dip down to the 50s this evening.