Shane Gibson Team Captain/Primary Navigator     Brinnon Garrett Teammate/Secondary Navigator Kathleen O'Neill Non-Race Support Crew/Race Volunteer/Cheerleader/Official Team Photographer It will take a few moments for the images to load in the scroll window below. When they do, you can click on an image to view a larger more detailed version of it. I apologize for the windows that will popup -- it's a technical issue with the java slider applet. Some of the images are copyright of the race photographers. If the Java image scroller above does not work, you may need to download and install a Java Plugin. Netscape and Mozilla users can visit Netscape's Java Plugin page. Post Race Report, Lessons Learned, and a general overview of our experience. The race was February 1st, 2003 at Snoqualmie Pass near Hyak, Washington, USA. This race is considered a "sprint class" race, which means it generally should be between two to six hours in length.

Table of Contents What is Adventure Racing (AR)? Why Do an Adventure Race? Race Events and Stages Gear and Equipment for the Race Pre Race Preparation and Check In Race Morning and Check In Race Start Race Start to CP1 CP1 to CP2 CP2 to CP3 CP3 to CP4 CP4 to CP5 CP5 to CP2 CP2 to Finish Post Race Lessons Learned Links to AR Information

The race map, marked with our travelled route (yellow), intended route (blue), and the Advanced Course (purple), which we didn't do.

On to the race report!

What is Adventure Racing (AR)?

Shane Adventure Racing is a Multi-Sport race that is (usually) held in an outdoor setting. It consists of different disciplines which are completed using one mode of transport for each section. All modes of transport are (generally) human powered. Throughout the entire race, the course is marked with Check Points (CPs) (sometimes called Passport Controls - PCs) which the racers must visit in order. The CPs/PCs define the overall race course, but racers are free to choose the exact route between each CP/PC. Most races are comprised of teams of two, three, four, and sometimes five racers. Some of the disciplines that comprise an Adventure Race include trekking (hiking), mountain biking, rope work (rappeling, traverses, ascending, etc...), paddling (canoeing, river kayaking, white water kayaking, white water rafting, etc...), snowshoeing, nordic skiing (eg cross country skiing), inline skating, etc... Races can vary in length from 2 to 6 hours for "Sprint Class" races, 6 to 24 hours for "Short Races", 24 to 36 hours for "Day Races", and 2 to 10 days for "Expedition Class" races. Race course length varies between 20 and 500 miles. If you've ever seen Eco-Challenge on TV ... that's Adventure Racing (an "Expedition Class" race).




Brinnon A twisted but fun incorporation of outdoor adventures, fitness, teamwork, and varying degrees of competition.

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Why Do an Adventure Race?

Shane Fitness, fun, and adventure. That's the most succinct a summary I can come up with. Fitness: I've been riding a desk for too many years, after many years of a fairly active upbringing, and four years serving in the USMC. I hadn't been working out enough, getting outside and playing enough, or been in any kind of decent shape. Part of our recent move to the Portland, OR area - and it's greatest appeal - is the accessibility of the great outdoors. The general comfort and interest in the outdoors here is amazing, and the energy is great. I enjoy being in good shape and have greatly missed the feeling of confidence, strength, and most importantly - ease. The incredible relaxed and easy feeling in one's own skin, when you are in great shape, is an intoxicant all it's own! Fun: I've always enjoyed the outdoors, hiking, camping, bicycling, canoeing, rock climbing, you name it. It's fun, exciting, and primal. Adventure Racing is unique in that it combines all of these things, and much more - in a format that is challenging, ever changing, and exciting. What other sport encourages you to go kayaking, canoeing, rock climbing, white water rafting, mountain biking, road biking, snowshoeing, cross country skiing, hiking, roller blading, rappeling (just to name a few elements) ... all in the name of training? Fun is only the tip of the iceberg! Adventure: There really isn't much to say about it. The word "adventure" should pretty well sum it up! I've watched Eco-Challenge on the tube for some years now. In the last few years, a number of new AR race shows like Eco-Challenge have aired. I kept finding myself thinking "Gee, that would be fun. I could do that!". Finally, the move to Portland, meeting new friends, starting to bicycle, eating healthier, and the general atmosphere here reached critical mass. It was time to do something about it! After spending a few months road riding with friends, surfing web sites and reading about Adventure Racing, it was time to enter the scene. I found the Wuhoo! race series on the web, a series of races put on by group in the Greater Seattle, WA area, not far from Portland. The race looked intriguing, a "sprint" class race (meaning shorter in duration, usuall 2 to 6 hours in length), and they had a winter version starting soon. I had also been talking to a professional associate I had met through work, who had done a few small AR races, and was interested in doing the Winter Wuhoo! in a team with me. He and I talked back and forth for a couple of months, but eventually he was unable to do the Wuhoo! race. I was diappointed, but not out. I found a new teammate, via the "teammate finder" on the WorldAR.com website. The rest, as they say, is history... Oh...one note: Brinnon is an awesome teammate! A true score to find her. We both have a lot of the same background in sports, interests, goals, and reasons for wanting to enter into Adventure Racing. We are a very well matched team!




Brinnon Good question, the first password at CP1 was "Are you nuts?" It's something to train for without the monotony of a marathon or single event race Cross-training is great physically and mentally. It's a great way to learn new technical skills, or dust off the old ones For me, it's the combination of being active, being outside, not knowing what to anticipate, working in pairs or a team, supporting and being supported by other locos.

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Race Events and Stages

Shane The Winter Wuhoo! race consists (officially) of trekking (the AR term for hiking), snowshoeing, cross country/nordic skiing, and a rappel. The exact distances, order of events, and route of the race were secret and only revealed during the morning check in process (when we got our maps on race day). The actual revealed course and events turned out to be very little trekking, some cross country skiing, and a heck of a lot of snowshoeing. Officially the course consisted of cross country skiing from Check Point (CP) 1 to Check Point 2 and then from CP 2 (the second time to CP2, which really makes it CP6!!) back to the finish line. Between CP2, CP3, CP4, CP5, and CP5 back to CP2 it was snowshoes all the way. The rappel was at CP5.


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Gear and Equipment for the Race

Shane Gear - the bane ... and fun of AR. Unfortunately, AR (being that it encompasses many different discplines and events) is very gear intensive. It's also fun, as new toys are great. But, finanancially it's a drain on resources. Fortunately, most of the basics were already in my possession. The biggest investment I had to make was in a decent lightweight racing pack, advanced clothing technology, good racing shoes, and a Suunto sports watch. I have an awesome Dana Design ArcFlex Alpine pack, but it's an Expedition size pack. AR requires you to move fast, carry a lot of stuff, but pack it small and light. In addition, modern synthetic materials have radically altered the comfort level and seriously increased the range and types of terrain and weather that one can race or train in, in comfort. Moisture wicking, windproof, and waterproof layering systems are so far advanced from what was available on the market 5 years ago that it's amazing. Some of the items I acquired: Lowe Alpine Haute Route 40 backpack (2200 Cubic Inches) Moisture Transport System (MTS) t-shirts and long sleeve shirts from REI MTS underwear REI MTS windproof/waterproof tights Columbia Sportswear convertible shorts/pants (I just wear the shorts over my tights for their six very large pockets) Salomon Raid XA Pros racing/hiking/running shoes (gore-tex) Suunto X6 HR watch (altimiter, compass, barometer, heart rate monitor, timers, alarms, clinometer, and it connects to a PC to upload data for analysis), fortunately I got this from a friend of a friend, in nearly brand new condition for about 25% of the list price ($429!) -- oh, and this baby should be able to control satellites in orbit - if I can just figure out how to work it! rappelling prusik (just a short stretch of 6mm rope tied A simple prusik knot tied onto a rope. The loop clips into a carabiner on your harness. into a loop, used as an emergency brake while rappelling) Items I rented for the race: Cross Country Skis (rented from GI Joes) Snowshoes (rented from GI Joes) -- more on these later! Additional equipment that I had owned already, and required for the race: first aid and safety (wind/water proof matches, space blanket, etc...) climbing harness carabiners leather palmed gloves for the rappel ice axe (Merry Christmas! Thanks Kath!)


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Pre Race Preparation and Check In

Shane Pre Race preparation officially started with a team gear check on Tuesday before the race. Brinnon and I got together with all of our race gear in our carry bags or containers. We went over the official required gear list, plus the additional gear and food list that we had prepared. We insured each of us had the proper gear, in good clean working order, and that all items fit. We then placed all of our gear in storage, leaving it for the race. We didn't want to use an item or two, and forget to put it back in our gear bags! Kathleen stepped in on Thursday night, and spent a great deal of time preparing food (sandwiches, fixings, race morning breakfast, drinks, snacks, etc...) for our trip. She was also invaluable in doing most of the basic packing of the vehicle, and taking care of the little things. On Thursday night I did a big carbo-loading dinner, in preparation for the race. Primarily just salad, bread, and a large helping of Pasta and sauce. To insure that we had a relaxed and stress-free preparation for the race, we took Friday off from our respective jobs. We packed up the vehicle and drove up to Snoqualmie Pass Friday morning, planning on arriving at the Hyak Lodge where we were staying for the night, around 1:30 to 2:00 pm. We did manage to get up there around 2:45 or 3:00 pm. We checked into the lodge, got situated in our rooms, dropped our gear in the rooms, then relaxed a bit in the Lodge's lounge/ kitchenette/TV room. We played a little pool, snacked on crackers, cheese, carrots, etc... We went out for dinner at a local pancake house, and did some more carbo loading (Nut and Berry Pancake Stack - yum yum!). After dinner we went to the pre-race check in at the Nordic Center (also called the Old Milwaukie Lodge) at Snoqualmie East. We picked up our race numbers (team 283), race kit, did our ropes safety check, and got a quick overview of how to actually tie and properly use a Prusik! Whew! I wasn't too sure of my tieing and usage technique, having only a 2 minute overview from a very helpful REI Employee. We returned to the lodge, and then did one last final gear check. We packed our gear for the race, and staged everything so it was ready to go in the morning.




Brinnon We showed up to the Hyak Nordic Lodge late afternoon on Friday, the day before the race. The weather was less than enticing, but there was a lot more snow than at Mt Hood...so at least we had that going for us. We had enough time before it got dark to realize that there was nothing "apparently flattish" from which the race could start. Didn't matter the direction- we knew we were going straight up about 15 hours later. Let the butterflies set in. That night, after a minor incident involving being locked out and unable to access my gear (I accept full responsibility), we made it to the gear check to prove our inability to tie a correct Prusik knot - nothing like cramming the night before. But our gloves, helmets, harnesses, biners, and rappelling devices passed the test. The minute I heard Italian coming out of some other racers' mouths, I was tempted to ask Shane and Kathleen to drive me back down I-5 to Portland, where I humbly belonged. I had a hard time getting dinner down the night before and Shane and Kathleen watched me say "this bite is for around 2 pm in the afternoon" or "this bite is to get me across the finish line in blazing glory. Yum." Certainly by this time Shane was wondering who this teammate was.

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Race Morning and Check In

Shane On the morning of the race, we woke at 5:45 am, stumbled around for a little bit, then had breakfast at the kitchenette in the lodge. We stretched and then put our race gear in the vehicle. Unfortunately, we heard about the Space Shuttle accident, while eating and stretching. It was extremely hard, and a very odd feeling, to have to completely put that out of my mind and keep preparing for the race. Race morning check in was at 7:00 AM to 8:00 AM. We arrived at about 7:15 am and picked up the race map. This was the first time the exact route, order of events, and distances of the race were revealed. We spent the next hour going over the race map, and determining route selection, catching features, bearings, land marks, distances, and familiarizing ourselves with the terrain and route. I was very nervous at this point. Navigation is one of the largest, most pervasive, and potentially the most explosive of events to have to deal with. Wrong route selection can make or break a race for a team, The race map, essentially as we received it. while incorrect navigation can quickly demoralize a team. From my limited research and information gathering, it would appear that poor navigation skills, missed turns, bad route selection, and just general mistakes in navigating is a huge contributing factor to negative team dynamics. We had about 45 to 50 minutes to look over the map, determine our route decisions, calculate our bearings, catching features, etc. This was certainly not enough time to get very comfortable with our route and navigation points needed. We did however get enough time to determine a decent route, and overall route changes necessary. Lots of nervous scribbling and note taking ensued, trying to get all the finer details down into our route notes and key points recorded. It was really hard to sit still and try and concentrate on the maps with all of the other teams bustling around, nervous energy building up, and the immense anticipation of our first race! At 8:15 a Captain's Meeting was called ... well, the race director actually started to talk casually to the group. It turned out I was in the bathroom, relieving the vast amounts of water I had taken in to hydrate for the race. Kathleen had to yell into the bathroom that the meeting had started. The Captain's Meeting was really more of a rehash of the route, some points of interest in terms of boundaries and route return requirements from the final check point. Also, it was revealed that after the second trip to CP2 (which made it the 6th CP we would visit), we had a choice of doing the Advanced route, which took the team to the official CP6 location, or the Regular route, which the team would return to the finish line from CP2, via the Nordic Trails 16 and 17. Cut-off times were established for teams wishing to make the decision to do the Advanced route of 1:30 pm. If you didn't make it back to CP2 by then, you would be required to do the Regular route. We also learned that we would be required to carry all of our gear up to CP2, before we could drop our Skis, for later retrieval for the return to the finish line.




Brinnon After a restless night's sleep, we woke up at 5:30 am to cram a bowlful of oatmeal down a resistant body, double checked We also received the Nordic Trails map. that we had all our gear in good order, or at least as good as possible not having a clue how the race would start. But we had so much pent up energy and nervous excitement, we were ready for an outlet. They gave us the map and we pulled up a booth for the half hour before Race Start to "plot our course" and strategize. Fortunately, Shane is an excellent navigator- moments like these that I will forever be grateful for the US Marine Corps training and thankful that Shane had to do it not me. They deliberately don't give teams a lot of time to look at the map, so we did our best to plan, and make notes of catching features, landmarks, distances, and elevations to and between each checkpoint. Shane ran off to the captain's meeting and I folded the map neatly and inserted it in his map holder...without telling him how I had oriented it. More on that later...

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Race Start

Shane Of course, finding out at the last minute that we had to haul all of our gear to CP2, from the start line was a bit of a surprise. We had all been indirectly led to believe that we would be staging out of the start/finish line area, and equipment staging would happen there. So teams ran out after the meeting, at 8:30 (which was the official race start time), and started strapping *everything* to their packs. It was a bit of bedlam and chaos as everyone grabbed gear, stowed skis and poles, jumped into their snowshoes, and prepared for the start. I've never actually carried skis on my pack, points up, sticking up into the air about 4 to 5 feet above my head. I kept forgetting about them, and bending over to lace or tighten things up, help Brinnon with her gear, etc... I almost whacked people every time, how I managed to avoid actually smacking someone was beyond me, as it was a pretty uncontrolled melee of thronging racers, all clustered about the ski racks - frantically shuffling their gear about. We all managed to get to the start line about 8:40. At approx. 8:45 the race was officially off! It was almost anti-climatic, the huge build up, then the push forward to start the race.


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Race Start to CP1

Shane Brutal, painful, and humiliating. Okay, maybe I'm being a bit over dramatic, but it was indeed a real eye opener! The race started out with a 1250 foot climb with only about 3300 feet of distance (0.625 of a mile), right up a ski lift. It was about 200 yards up this initial climb that problems began to develop. Snowshoes....we'd never worn before. Almost immediately I was popping out of my bindings, lunging out of the snowshoe. Brinnon also encountered problems with her snowshoes, same thing. We had to stop at least a half dozen times to rebind our snowshoes. I was very worried about the outcome of the race as we had just started and already fallen to the back ranks, dealing with severe equipment problems. In addition, I was having a hard time catching my breath, and getting into the swing of things. I've always had issues catching my wind and getting settled into a groove in high-output sports. But, once I do catch my wind, and settle into a groove, I can go for long distances, and with good speed. But starting up this hill was killing me. I was very concerned about the entire race. We finally made it up to the top in about 48 minutes of climbing. There was an odd taped off area, where most of the other racers were transitioning from snowshoes up the hill, to cross country skis. The actual checkpoint was about 100 yards into the trees from where everyone was transitioning. We dropped our bags and went into the trees, found the CP1 marker. The keyword for CP1 was "Are you nuts?", apt indeed! Any stray thought of doing well in this race was seriously squashed. We were in second or third from dead last.




Brinnon Finally having strapped the skis, and other AR paraphernalia on our packs, we joined the other geeks at the start line and by that time knew we were heading straight up the mountainside, where most normal people take a chairlift. It was no coincidence that 80 Our route from Start to CP1 of us trudged up Mt Hyak beneath a chair lift, people looking down at us, waving, and undoubtedly ridiculing us. We had some problems with the snowshoes, the bindings popping off and partly because we hadn't trained in such steep terrain in snowshoes. We were at the back of the pack, already lost sight of the people who chose to jog the incline. I realized our good fortune when a team a hundred or so yards ahead of us lost one ski off a pack and the ski did what the rest of us should have, turn around and cruise right back down to the bottom at 50 mph. I tried to move to snag it, but it was way out of my reach and moving way too quickly (nothing to do with me being slow). A spry middle-aged man came trudging past us to retrieve the ski, and before I knew it, he cruised right by us again up the mountain. Needless to say that was the last we saw of him. Finally, we reach CP1, where the teams are still pretty close together, changing out of snowshoes into cross-country skis. We sort of caught our breath, and exchanged nervous glances.

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CP1 to CP2

Shane After getting into our cross country skis, we oriented ourselves on the map, determined where we needed to go. We then aprehensively pointed our skis down the steep slope of the ridge to where the Nordic Trails began. I say aprehensively, as both Brinnon and I haven't done any cross country skiing for many years. In my case I had only been once in about 13 years, and that was a relatively flat easy loop with the family. We had tried to get up on Mount Hood with skis several times to get our legs under us, but Mother Nature foiled us many times. Brinnon was able to get a morning of skiing in, even though the snow was in horrible condition. We both tried to go up and ski, but the rain had melted the snow to the ground ... in January! I have been primarily a big down-hill skier for many years. Within 20 feet of sliding down the hill, I tried to make a nice fancy parallel turn ... in my cross country skis. Let me assure you, that doesn't work well. I instantly ended up head over heels! After about 6 to 7 falls Our course from CP1 to CP2 - note the deviations from the planned route (blue highlights). within a 50 yard downhill stretch, I took my skis off and walked down to the Nordic Trails entry. The downhill slope from there was much more gentle, and a groomed cat track. We put our skis back on and started down the hill. Fortunately, it started to come back to me pretty quickly. I was starting to get into the forward lean, knees slightly flexed, and long ignored skills started converging on some form of proper form. After the long climb up from the start, and finally starting to feel our skiing legs coming back to us, optimism wasn't too far behind. We picked up one or two places on the trails, but not really enough to make a dent into our dramatic trailing of the pack. At this point, we needed to start paying attention to the trails, navigation, and our heading. We needed to catch a few relatively unmarked trails, and make a critical off-trail turn. I was able to grossly estimate our position from terrain, and a few unmistakable man-made objects. However, I couldn't for the life of me get my bearing to make any sense with the actual direction of travel I thought we were on! Everything was reading 90 to 180 degrees off bearing. Had we that grossly misread our headings in the morning prep time? After overshooting our turn by about 25 yards, we realized our error, and corrected. We dropped off the main groomed trails onto a Nordic black diamond trail, which was closed. That pushed us out of the hanging valley we'd been wandering around in, and put us squarely into the trees. Within a couple hundred yards we stopped and transitioned back to snowshoes. The trees were closing in, the brush was getting thicker, and our abilities on skis were much less than those on our snowshoes. We made our turn off the black diamond trail (called the Frog Legs), and turned into the hill, and into the thick of the trees. The plan at this point was to gain elevation to 3700 (or slightly above) feet, which CP2 was located at. Once we hit our elevation, we turned cross-slope and stayed at the same elevation. The goal was to locate Frog Lakes, two very small lakes in a slight bowl. This would provide our catching feature, and our turning point. We quickly hit the lakes, or at least one of them for sure. The larger of the two lakes was pretty distinctly a lake, although very small (about 20 yards across). The second lake was really more of a soupy mush of slush and dirt, that might be a lake. We decided to call it a lake, make our turn, and I started pace counting. Bam! We hit CP2 dead-on! What a rush...despite having huge and very scary issues with finding our bearing, we nailed CP2. With a bit of dread and a strong drink of morbid curiosity, I found myself uttering those words that bespeaks an underlying competitive nature: "What's our ranking?". "Fifth" was the reply. At which point I almost fell over with disbelief. Logic asserted itself, and I immediately knew they had to be pulling my leg. I strongly expressed my disbelief, they reassured me they weren't kidding, we were the fifth team to check into CP2. Slowly, elation spread as the information started to sink in. Then almost simultaneously, Brinnon and I let out an awfully loud "Wuhoo!". Ah, how this race was aptly named! We quickly got serious as we realized we were in this race! We dropped our skis, grabbed a quick snack (Odwalla bars), some water, and grabbed our Avalanche quiz sheet. Okay, now this really annoyed me. Part of the race was a quiz on Avalanche safety precautions and information. I don't object to being required to understand safety measures, but when the race material clearly stated they would hold an overview seminar about Avalanche Safety, of which the pertinent information would be shared, and it wasn't, I was miffed. Within minutes of our "Wuhoo!" of excitement, 4 teams showed up at the checkpoint. It turns out that several (read that as meaning "about 18 teams") were lost in the trees below the checkpoint, trying to locate it. Our yelp provided the last bit of direction that the nearest teams needed to find the checkpoint. Hmm... probably a Lesson Learned bullet about this below! We quickly saddled up got our bearings, and stepped off at a quick pace. We were both very excited about our potential position, and sudden optimism was born.




Brinnon Good thing Shane and I hadn't had any time on skis the previous weekends, and that my last cross-country ski excursion of any significance had been in college. I think. We thought better of relearning down the first part of the steep slope, so hiked down to more inviting groomed trails. It all came back to both of us, though not necessarily gracefully. This is when the navigation challenges came to the surface, as the visibility was low, we knew that we needed to start looking for a place to get off trail, but my map placement and our bearings didn't reconcile. Oops, I didn't debrief him, and didn't realize that he rotated the map holder when we was navigating. So North took on a new meaning. There were several teams within our sights, and all of us knowing the general direction of CP2 but with different ideas of where to take off from the trail and start bushwhacking. We did our own thing, and that was a good thing. Despite periods of total silence, and feeling like we were suddenly far from everyone and anything, we eventually made it to CP2, the fifth team. The crew at CP2 told us that everyone was either above or below roaming around. Given the location of CP2, tucked away in trees on a hillside, it didn't surprise me, I was just thankful for Shane and his Suunto watch! I suppose that is a lesson learned in Adventure Racing, as tempting as it is, don't follow other teams. Three other teams arrived to CP2 on our heels, so we dropped our skis and went on our way. This is probably when we lost a fair amount of time on "annoying things" like gear and packing. I wanted extra gloves which I had put at the bottom of my pack not anticipating needing them so soon, if at all. What I thought would be an easy trick to unzip the pack despite the gear attached to the outside, ended up being more difficult, and teams passed us en route to CP3 as I struggled with straps, and reconfiguring my stuff. Grrrr.

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CP2 to CP3

Shane Optimism quickly gave way to frustration. Within a hundred yards of leaving CP2, we were having snowshoe issues again. My snowshoes were giving us the most grief. We trudged on, but at some points, I was popping out of my snowshoes every 50 yards of travel. About 30 minutes into the problems, we stopped and I changed out of my ski boots and into my Salomon Raid shoes. Since I was comfortable in my ski boots, I didn't want to be stopping to change shoes often, as that time quickly adds up. But something had to be done to fix the snowshoe issue. Fortunately, my Salomon's work like a charm, and I didn't have any more issues popping out. Brinnon was able to settle her shoes as well, and her problems seemed to go away too. It turned out my problem was due to the cheap bindings in the Tubb's snowshoes, and the smooth rounded backs of my ski boots. The binding kept slipping loose from the buckle, and then sliding down the boot back, and ultimately, off the shoe. We crossed several creeks that had a strong flow going. The snow banks on each side of the creeks ranged from two to four feet in most places. We were looking for what appeared to be a neatly defined intersection (on the map at least!) of two creeks, at which point we were going to make a major navigational change towards CP3. We quickly realized that the state of the run-off was causing several minor tributaries to become a large network of creeks. We weren't going to be able to use a simple creek intersection as our turning point. Somewhere along this stretch, we realized why our bearings were all turning out wrong. My compass appeared to be too cold for the needle to rotate freely, causing it to stick. I had to tap the compass pretty hard to get the needle to loosen up and rotate around correctly. However, the largest issue was map orientation. Early in the morning, I ran to the bathroom, just before the Captain's Meeting. I asked Brinnon to neatly fold the map up and put it into the map case. I got back, in the chaos of the Captain's Meeting, shuffling our gear, getting to the start line, and actually making the start, we forgot to communicate which orientation the map was in the case! I forgot to tell Brinnon that I always put North towards the top of the case. After folding the map so it best represented the topology we needed to travel across, it made more sense to make North point to the long edge of the case. Which isn't the top where I usually put it! We straightend that out, and suddenly bearings, terrain, and routes were all lining up properly! We stayed slightly high from where we wanted to be, so we'd have the benefit of being above where the control point for CP3 was at. Plus, it's always much easier to move downhill to find something, than it is to climb back up a hill, which you had just recently descended! We came out of the trees, and back into the hanging valley at our anticipated location. We started our cross-slope trek out into the valley, looking for CP3. We reached a ledge, which was the official definition of the location point for the CP3 control marker. But, there was no control marker! We could see from our elevated perch that there were two or three teams wandering around the hanging valley, also looking for CP3. In addition, we had just passed a team in the trees, who weren't very far back from us. Finding this control point was very critical to us maintaining a good race standing. We dropped down off of the ledge we were on, and noticed a team several hundred yards down below, congregating around a small ledge. Was that it? It sure looked like they were a team in transition. We started moving towards them. But we kept feeling that they were too low, too close to the creek, at which point it was clearly defined where the creek was running, and all of it's higher up tributaries had converged into a single stream. We then started to move parallel to the slope again and keep a sharp lookout. Then, up above us, about 100 yards away, I saw a flash of orange in a tree. We turned slightly towards it, then Brinnon caught it. We fast hiked through the snow up to it. We quickly found the control word for the check point; "Extra Clothes". We moved down off the ledge, to the back side as quickly as we could. After calling attention to the exact location of CP2, we didn't want to give away CP3 as easily! There were several teams wandering around looking for CP3, all looking at the other teams for a clue!




Brinnon A half mile later, a dozen "snowshoe no snowshoe" with Shane's bindings popping off, it finally was necessary to stop so he could change out Our route from CP2 to CP3 (more changes in blue). of boots and into running shoes that could grip the snowshoe binding strap so we could proceed in the deep snow. The combination of those two glitches probably lost us a bit of time, and allowed teams who came into CP2 later, catch up if not beat us to CP3. Another lesson learned is to have trained in the gear for the race, and pack with more anticipation. We found CP 3 relatively easily, tucked away in trees but in an open valley and hillside so we could catch our bearings, and the sky had cleared partially so we could identify Mt Catherine and Mt Hyak. The bonus of this period was that we finally figured out why the navigating had been so confusing...and we corrected our 90 degree booboo. Lesson learned is that even with a primary and secondary navigator, talking through the navigating out loud and both understanding the route is helpful and, um, really important.

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CP3 to CP4

Shane CP3 to CP4 route - short and sweet. The trek to CP4 was very easy. Most of the trip was groomed Nordic Trails (trail 16 to an unmarked, but well defined trail). We quickly snowshoed down trail 16, came to the turn, debated for a moment or two, trying to be certain that this was the correct turn. We decided on making the turn, and within 100 yards of the turn, the Control Marker was found just off trail, but easily visible from the trail. The control word for CP4 was "Food".




Brinnon Definitely the easiest and the quickest route, on groomed trails on snowshoes, no significant elevation gain, and an opportunity to shove our faces with some food- not an easy task while one is panting, but better here than on the next leg. We were on the heels of one team and heeled by another, finally the sense of a "race" kicked in.

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CP4 to CP5

Shane We planned on back trekking the trail about 300 or 400 yards, and then turning off-trail to head up to CP5. The topography going up our intended route was a slightly longer climb, but only about half as steep. Upon reaching CP4, it was aparent that all prior teams took the direct route, straight up the slope. We quickly debated this route change, the steepness of the hill, vs. the longer hike to our hill route. We decided to go ahead and go straight up the hill from CP4 to CP5, as the route was well defined, and the trail was already packed down and steps had been kicked into the slope. The climb up to CP5 was brutal. Nearly straight up (about a 65 degree slope), and contained several really large step-ledges from fallen trees. We were in a small pack of climbers, about three or four teams in total. The total elevation gain turns out to be woefully shorter than it felt during the climb (only 950 feet)! We ended up directly underneath the end of the rappel section. It was nice to know exactly where we were in relation to the rappel, but disheartening to know we'd have to move parallel to the ropes section, and then climb up another 100 feet of altitude. We reached the rappel section, which was in deep, but short and stunted trees. It was a constant battle to keep from getting hooked on a tree, smacked in the face, or just tripped up by the trees. We dropped our packs, pulled our snowshoes off, pulled out our harnesses, and began to gear up for the climb down. Unfortunately, we were slower to transition than a 4 person team behind us, so we had to let them step in front of us while we finished transitioning. Then the waiting began. Aparrantly a slightly earlier team had been on the ropes, and someone's prusik had locked up because he wasn't handling it correctly. This caused a twenty minute delay on one of the ropes, as the poor guy tried to figure out how to unlock his prusik. For those of you unfamiliar with a prusik, it's simply a 6 or 7mm rope, tied with a double-fisherman's knot, into a loop. One end is coiled around the primary climbing rope, and the loose end pulled through then clipped into a carabiner on your harness. When rappelling down the rope, with your non-control hand, you hold the prusik knot open on the rope, so it doesn't grab. If your primary carabiner fails, or you loose control, simply let go of the prusik knot, and the whole kit locks up and grabs onto the rappel rope. The primary mechanism that creates the friction between the prusik rope and the climbing rope is your own weight. To get out of a prusik that has locked up, you generally loop Off to the Rappel! (major route change on-the-fly!). your knee into the primary climbing rope, holding it into a loop with one hand, then lift your weight up off of the prusik knot. You can then simply open the knot up with your other hand, and continue on. However, if you aren't familiar with the mechanics of how a prusik works, or how to unlock a prusik, and you've let go of your prusik knot because you were rappelling faster than you were comfortable, it's very hard to settle down and work through unlocking it. The net effect? The huge delay on the ropes. We ended up waiting to get on rope for about 30 or more minutes. Which isn't fun at all when you are completly soaked through from stream crossings, snow, and serious sweat. We tried to determine our ranking at the ropes by asking the volunteers running the rappel. Unfortunately, they hadn't been keeping track of the teams coming through, nor did they have radio communication with base camp (equipment problems). The control word at CP5 was "Flashlight".




Brinnon It was already past noon, we'd been moving constantly for almost 4 hours, and although I felt tired, I was having a blast. On our initial route plan, Shane and I had planned to retrace a little bit towards CP3 and then head up the mountain to where we knew the rappel point was. On the map the contour lines were much more "reasonable" if we retraced our steps, in fact looking at the most direct route between CP4 and CP5 (rappel point) looked impossible. Lesson learned is that the most direct route is possible even when it looks impossible. From CP4 there were some tracks straight up, and we swallowed our naivete and began a brutal ascent up to CP5. The snow was really deep, and the hillside was really steep, we were behind a few team s, and there were a few behind us, and yet others already coming down, barreling down the hillside. Who'd heard of switchbacks? Yeah right. This was straight up, and at some point 2-3 foot ledges requiring lifting the legs and pulling up our body weight. When we got to the top, we had to get in line for the rappel ropes to be free. This was another point in which had we anticipated better our gear and the transitions, we could have saved ourselves some time. BUT...taking off the snowshoes, getting out the rappel gear, putting the snowshoes and poles on the pack, and getting already to go took me way too long, not because I was exhausted or delirious, but because my helmet clip had come off, I was having problems strapping my snowshoes back on the pack over the ice axe etc, and I felt like I had 2 left hands and 2 left feet. We lost our place in the rappel line to a team of four, and had to wait that much longer. At this point I was irritated with myself and with my gear and shivering horribly because we stopped moving, and were in the trees and there was no where to move around. The rappel itself was anticlimactic, a few dozen yards of bushwhacking, some drop, and some more bushwhacking and some more drop. It wasn't that exciting and it wasn't that quick. When we got to the bottom, we made that transition back to snowshoes pretty quickly and careened down the same steep slope we had ascended, looking pitifully and sympathetically at the teams who were just ascending at this point. My snowshoes came off a number of times as the terrain was steep and deep, and both Shane and I spent a significant amount of time on our bums, and backs, usually feet first slowed by tree wells or steep embankments. It was almost fun, and certainly more quick than coming up.

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CP5 to CP2

Shane Yes, that's correct, we head back to CP2 after rappelling at CP5. If you meet certain time cut-offs when you reach CP2 (originally set at 13:30, adjusted to 12:30 because the course was so much harder than the race director anticipated or intended), you then have the choice of the Advanced course, or the Regular course. The Advanced route includes a final check point (CP6), which is another mile further out. The Regular course is simply returning to the finish line. The rappel down was more of a bush whack down a hill slope, than a true rappel. The first half of the rappel (about 50 feet), was on slope, with trees, and huge post holes from previous racers stepping on soft spots next to the trees. It was a battle to keep your prusik open, control your descent rate, dodge the trees, keep your ski poles from getting caught up on the trees, and avoiding the enormous post holes. Some of the post holes were 2 to 3 feet deep, and fairly trecherous if you stepped (or more likely; plunged) into one. Having seen a racer going down the ropes just before me who struggeld for a few minutes to get out of one, I was keen to avoid them! After the slope, you then had a short 20 to 30 foot true rappel drop, another slope (at least bare of trees this time!), then another 20 foot drop to the bottom of the rappel. Clipping out was a quick process. I dropped my pack, pulled my snowshoes and ski poles off, climbed out of my harness, and turned around to take a picture of Brinnon coming down the rappel. Unfortunately, I was either too slow transitioning, or Brinnon screamed down the rope at serious speed, so I didn't get a shot of her on rope. We both headed down the steep descent to the bottom of the hill. Most of the trip down was a slide on your fanny (I found this was a lot faster than trying to walk down the steep hill in snowshoes. One problem I had with climbing in snowshoes is my weight. Because I'm a large guy, and have way more weight than the average snowshoer, I have to wear 33 to 36" snowshoes. This makes for an enormous platform to try and walk up what essentially amounts to small little steps. I found that the back of the snowshoe was so long, that my foot and weight basically cantilevered off the edge of everyone's previous steps. Thus, the easiest and speediest method, and the method that seemed to take the least amount of energy, was simply sliding down on my behind. I ended up fast walking, ski-sliding, and behind-sledding down more than half the descent distance. We cruised from the bottom of the climb down the hill slope (which lands you right back at CP4), and across the hanging valley, to the tree line. At this point we were very comfortable with the route, in a groove, knew exactly where we were going, had traversed the terrain before, and were moving quickly.




Brinnon That's right, we had to go all the way back to CP2 to pick up our skis, turn The return to CP2 from the Rappel - rather uneventful. in our surprise avalanche safety quiz and get ready for the last leg. We didn't have much of a problem finding CP2 again, and moved fairly quickly even though we had to work hard for it and cross a stream a few times. We made it back up to CP2 and had obviously lost our 5th place position that we'd had 3 hours earlier, and were now hoping to finish with some dignity and not in last place. We knew of at least 5 or 6 of the 26 teams that were behind us, and I think the competitiveness in each of us kicked in. There were two other teams who were heading out on the last leg at roughly the same time, and by now the CP2 volunteers are reminding us all how to get back (they were cold and tired and probably anxious to get to the beer as well). It was a jovial last checkpoint, but Shane and I wanted to get moving.

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CP2 to Finish

Shane I was really hoping we'd make it back to CP2 to have the option of taking the Advanced route back to the finish. But we were way too late for that, and the cut-off time had been moved up from 1:30 to 12:30. Only three teams made the cut-off, and took the Advanced route. We got to CP2 and sat down to fill out our silly avalanche safety test. Unfortunately we also were required to compose a Haiku about an Avalanche, as some twisted form of a "mystery event". Deciding not to be phased, and not exactly caring about any symetry or beauty of it, we ended up with a bunch of scribblings, which I'm having a hard time reading, but should be a Haiku of: fast avalanche slide you and your teammates scramble ski fast - ski one each By this time, we'd been up to CP2, down from CP2, back up to CP2, and felt very familiar with the route out of CP2. However, we decided to stay on the North side of the creek on the way down, to avoid all of the stream crossings on the South side, which had been our previous and well known route. It was a tough decision because we knew if we couldn't cross back over at a lower elevation, we'd be in trouble. The cruise down out of the trees was fast and easy. We dropped out of the trees, hooked back up with the creek, and started looking for a crossing. we knew we could keep going, and eventually we'd hit the Nordic Trails, which had a bridge crossing. But that was a good 1/2 mile down and out of our way, amounting to a full mile of extra travel, plus a drop of 200 feet elevation, which we'd have to gain again (ugh!). Mild annoyance, disappointment, and nervousness was mounting; as we couldn't find a quick easy crossing. Deciding that since we only had a few miles back to the finish line, all of which would be on skis and shouldn't take too long, we decided to go ahead and cross anyways. We jumped down the 5 foot bank of snow into the creek, which was between 12 and 18 inches deep. For the most part we tried to step on a bunch of bushes with our snowshoes, trying to create a walking platform across the 8 foot wide creek. That sort of worked, but we pretty much just ended up filling up our shoes with freezing cold creek water and soaking everything from the knees down. Fortunately for us, we were already so wet from sweat, previous stream crossings, and snow/slush that it didn't matter too much. Either my adrenaline was running fast enough, or my body was producing so much heat that the water in my shoes didn't even feel cold at all. We struggled up the other side of the creek, basically kicking steps into the side of the snow bank. We quickly finished off the remaining 200 yards out of the valley floor to the groomed Nordic Trails. Again, not wanting to give away any position or provide any incentive for the teams following to move faster, we snowshoed a couple hundred yards around a bend and over a ridge line. This effectively hid our position, and speed (or probably more acurately - lack of speed!) from our followers. We then dropped our packs, pulled out our skis, and transitioned to our final event of skiing. I had to change out of my Salomon's and back into my ski boots. By this time we'd been through enough transitions, were familiar with the process of strapping on and taking off our gear, that we moved pretty quickly. I think we got through the whole transition in about 5 or 6 minutes. At that point, we knew we just had to sail back via the groomed Nordic Trails (16 down to 17, all the way home!). We started cruising down the hill, and were doing very well at this time, as we were finally in the groove on our skis, and feeling good. We came upon Reed Gillette and his teammate (sorry, don't know his name), coming back up the trail. It seems they were heading down 16, and it started going uphill at some point, and they thought it must be the wrong trail. We assured them as best as we could that it was the right trail. Reed is a local to Portland, OR - and a recent new member (as are Brinnon and I) to the PDXARN (Portland Adventure Racing Network) group. We stopped for them to catch up with us, so we could finish together. Unfortunately, Reed's teammate has having issues with his gloves. We asked them if they wanted us to wait for them, so we could finish together. They said, no, so we decided we wanted to get back as quickly as we could. Dropping down from trail 16 to trail 17 includes a big long stretch of black diamond downhill skiing. Neither Brinnon or I were up to doing that on skis, especially since the trail was The "Regular Course" return to the finish line. very very narrow, and there was very little room to maneuver. So, we jumped out of our skis, and ran down the hill in boots. Fortunately the trail was packed enough that it wasn't an issue to do in our boots. We reached more ski-able trail terrain (at least for us!) quickly, and stepped back into our skis. We were starting to wonder if we were ever going to find trail 17, as we were pretty much heading in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go, and our descent was much longer than we had anticipated. But, the terrain and map features were matching up, so we stayed steady on our course. Eventually we hit trail 17, which we made a hard left turn onto. This trail remained relatively flat with a little bit of elevation drop up front, then a fair amount of elevation gain. We passed two recreational skiers going out for an evening ski. We asked them if they knew the distance back to the Old Milwaukie Lodge (the finish line!). They thought it was about 3 kilometers. Let me tell you something...three kilometers (or about 1.9 miles) seems like a long long time when you've just spent 8+ hours of hard labor, you're hungry as all get out, and you're eager as heck to hit that finish line! True enough, it was around 3 kilometers (by my estimation it was 3.5 to 3.8 kilometers). There was one small fork in the trail, which turned to the right. It was aparent that several skiers had been taking that fork, ostensibly to head back to the lodge/finish line. However, I wasn't sure it was the right one, and I sure didn't want to have to climb any elevation to get to the finish line if we ended up lower than we meant to. I knew the route we were on was going to at least deposit us directly above the lodge, in which case we could just side ski, or run down to the finish line. If you haven't figured it out yet, I really hate to climb hills unless we have to! I'd rather come out above something, and then descend to it, as this minimizes the amount of energy, lowers the annoyance factor, and provides a better view of your objective from above. That last bit of downhill I thought I could snowplow down to the finish line. Boy was I wrong. I fell and rolled within 15 feet of starting down! Brinnon had taken her skis off for another stream crossing, so she continued to run down the hill. I picked myself up, got out of my skis, then picked them up, and ran down after her. I quickly caught her, and we turned to the finish line. One last stream crossing again (yes, another)! At this time we didn't care, the concept of slogging through a stream had gotten to be old hat, and no longer held any annoyance for us!. Crossing the finish line was amazing! It was exciting, immeasurably pleasing, emotionally charged, downright exhausting, and at the same time completely numbing. An intense wave of emotions washed over us with a constant tide of drained exhaustion.




Brinnon We went back down the mountain toward the groomed ski trails, and ended up missing one of the earlier and easier stream crossings and went nearly knee deep through some willows just to get to where we wanted to go, an option neither of us would have considered hours earlier. In my mind, This would have been our route if we did the "Advanced Course". I was convinced that given the amount we had climbed in the last 7 hours, the last leg, all on groomed Cross Country trails had to be predominantly downhill. What goes up must come down. The Winter Wuhoo never ceased to defy our intuitions. We skied not only away from where the finish line was, but seemingly UPHILL. We finally dropped down a black diamond to hit another trail, and because of hazards and steepness, we ran down that in our boots. The ultimate destination was farther and farther away. Shane and I knew that it was the way to get down, both on our topo map and our cross country trail map, but I was having a hard time believing it. Eventually we made it to Trail #17, the one that would take us to the finish. Wuhoo. But not so fast. For all the steep ascents the previous 7 hours, the final descent to the finish was ridiculously gradual, and we were working hard those final 5 miles, no coasting about it. We kept pretty quiet, until we made the decision to pull out our headlamps because it was getting dark in the trees. It was the last haul, and we knew we were going to finish within a half hour, but my body was excited and wiped out, wanting to go hard to the finish but limited by tired back, shoulders and legs.

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Post Race

Shane Our official ranked position was 14th with a time of about 8 hours and 41 minutes. We're not certain of the exact time right now, as the final results haven't been posted, but our ranking was confirmed at the finish line. The only thing that remained was to chow down on the free food that was part of the post race celebration! I'll tell you what, low grade hamburger, fries, and salad never tasted better in my life! Oh, and a Widmer Hefewiezen! Yum! We chowed down, gathered our gear, and began to wonder if Kathleen would be done from her volunteer duty at the finish line. Just as we were getting ready to head out to ask her, she showed up, the last of the teams having finally checked in. We headed back to the Hyak Lodge, where we stayed the night before, and they graciously allowed us to keep our room for as long as we needed after the race. We showered, packed, and headed home.




Brinnon Kudos to the race coordinators and volunteers, who 8 1/2 hours later still welcomed us across with enthusiasm and support. Shane's fiancé, Kathleen, was waiting for us and had been volunteering all day, watched us head up the mountain and disappear for 8 hours. We did cross in blazing glory, having just completed our first Adventure Race and feeling relieved, satisfied, and without thinking about it too much, eager to do another one. We learned that the first place team had done it in just under 6 hours, much longer than the race directors had anticipated. Due to mediocre conditions and snow levels, they had to change the course and make us go higher and harder so that the whole race took much longer than anticipated. We also learned that some teams hadn't made it to CP2 the first time, and other teams didn't finish (DNF if you want the AR lingo) for a variety of reasons. So overall, our 14th place finish was respectable enough for both being AR newcomers.

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Lessons Learned

Shane There are so many little things we learned during this race, a lot of them were "duh!" we knew that items, a lot of them were minor things that were highlighted throughout the race. The most important thing we learned is that Brinnon and I make an excellent team. We have the same mentality, drive, interests, and most importantly we didn't have a single second of frustration with the other. The largest and most important lesson I learned, is one of those that I knew, but didn't head. Know and train in your gear before you race in it! Here is a break down of the things we learned: snowshoes This is that "duh!" thing. I had rented Atlas snowshoes from REI for training. But, REI didn't rent cross country skis. So I decided (against my better judgement) to rent the Tubbs that GI Joes had, when I got my cross country skis at the same time. The Atlas snowshoes uses a double binding around the heel/ankle area. One strap, similar to the Tubbs, that simply loops around the lower heel. The other wraps around the upper ankle. If the heel strap pops out, the ankle strap should keep things at least settled down. This in and of itself, would probably have saved us at least 30 to 45 minutes of time at crucial stages of the race. I'm convinced that this alone took us from 5th place at CP2, to 11th to 13th place at the top of the rappel at CP5. We probably would have placed somewhere between 6th and 8th if it wasn't for this problem. food No matter how much you bring and plan for eating, the hardest part about intaking calories, is actually eating! It's extremely hard to chew when you're gasping for breath, you've got to wash almost everything down with water, and technical race food (eg energy bars, gels, etc...) tastes like crap no matter what! I think that finding edible and tasty food that's easy to digest and extremely high in energy/calorie content is going to be an ongoing challenge that will just take time. water I'm a big guy (6'3", 245 lbs). I also have a very very high metabolism rate when my engine starts to warm up. I sweat a lot when working hard. I took 3 liters of water, which I planned to last for 6 hours of work. I believe that it did (I didn't exactly clock when I ran out, but it was about there), but since the race was much longer than projected, I was left without anything to drink in the field. Brinnon carried 3 liters of water as well, which we both suspected would probably be way more than she needed. It was, but her reserves were what I needed the last two hours of the race. I still grimace at her having to carry all of that extra weight, 3 liters of water is bloody heavy all on it's own, let alone all of the other mandatory and non-mandatory (but necessary) gear we had to carry! Again learning how to better and more appropriately ration water intake, calculate needed volumes, and sticking to that plan is going to be a constant learning curve. transitioning Transitioning is something that is an art form. You'd think that with my experience in the US Marine Corps (which prizes speed and efficiency in transitional stages), would be enough to make me quick at moving through transitions. Unfortunately, I don't think my transitions were very quick, efficient, or speedy enough, especially for a short (okay, it ended up being fairly long for a) sprint class race. Some major points to keep in mind before a transition: think about where you are at (gear-wise) what you need to accomplish (where you need to get to) think about what items you have to take off what items need to be put into or strapped onto your pack think about what items you need to take out of your pack visualize where in your pack those items are visualize the order in which you need to accomplish the above tasks go over your list mentally mentally transition in your mind move efficiently check points No matter how elated you are to have nailed a check point, no matter how many place standings you've gained between check points (even if it is from almost dead last, to nearly the top of the pack), never shout out in excitement! This will only serve to draw teams within your vicinity directly to the very precious little clump of dirt you have all been laboring to find ... and they haven't found it yet! double check (map) Always insure that your orientation of the map is as you expect it to be! If you think North is one way, make certain that it really is! The primary navigator should be 100% responsible for insuring this, don't let a seemingly simple task create immense confusion about your location, this could be detrimental to you completing a race, and potentially life threatening in extreme conditions and weather. I'm 125% at fault for not having checked that my map was pointing North, as I usually place it in my map case. two sets of eyes on the route Make sure both the primary and secondary navigators completely agree on your routes, you are in check with each other about your catching features, hand rails, distances, elevations, and important topological elements. This will insure that if your mind wanders for that absolutely crucial few minutes of a route change, you've got a second pair of eyes to catch it. share info about your route and major catching features If racing in a four person team, make sure all team members are fully aware of the route and features they should expect to be encountering. They'll feel involved with the process, confident about your route decisions, and move with more surety. If you do start straying off-route, make sure that major catching features are also shared, so they can help correct your route before it becomes a huge mistake. This also holds true that both the primary and secondary navigators in a two-person team are both aware of the route features.




Brinnon navigation and following other teams As tempting as it is, don't follow other teams! gear and training Make sure you train in the gear that you will be using in the race. packing your gear Always pack with with more anticipation of what events you will be competing in, and how you will need to use your gear. communication about navigation Even with a primary and secondary navigator, talking through the navigation out loud and both understanding the route is helpful and, um, really important. route selection The most direct route is possible even when it looks impossible.

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Links to AR Information

http://www.WuhooAdventureRace.com/ The Wuhoo! Adventure Race official website. (Click on "About" then "Winter Wuhoo! 2003" to find the race we competed in. http://members.aol.com/galleyno7/vt006.htm How to tie and use a prusik - useful to see how it's done, but make sure you understand how to tie and safely use a prusik first! http://www.WorldAR.com/ The WorldAR website, where I found Brinnon's entry in the teammate finder. http://www.Eco-Challenge.com/ The Eco-Challenge website, often cited as having popularized and brought AR to the masses within the United States. http://www.InspiredAdventure.net/ Inspired Adventure is a Portland, OR area AR Training company. http://www.ClubSports.com/ Club Sport has an enormous rock gym, which is where we practiced our ropes and rappelling skills.

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