Having been raised in NY, but spent much of my adult working life in the south, I’ve not had a chance to do any adventure racing in the north east. When Eastern Mountain Sports approached me to join them at Untamed I jumped at the opportunity, not only to race in a new area of the country, but with some of the best and most experienced racers I have the pleasure of knowing.
Untamed New England is the only AR World Championship qualifier in the US, as well as being one of the few multi day races this year. For the longest time, I thought the race was only 2 days, but a couple weeks out I realize that I had in fact committed to a 3 day race. I guess I had better read the web site a little closer next time.
Based out of the Balsams Resort in northern New Hampshire the race proved to be one of the toughest races of this season, both competition wise and course wise. Drawing many of the top USA and Canadian teams such as Team Granite, GUATS Adventure (half the old SRS team), ATP/Solomon, Tecnu Extreme StaphAceptic. Also going the race was the powerhouse team of Danes, Team Skandia Key Experience. With half a dozen teams sure to be fighting for the qualifying spots, the pace was unrelenting.
The race started with paddles on a series of lakes connected with portages of varying difficulty. We got off to a reasonably quick start, and got off the first lake in about 15th place, but a quick transition to portage mode, we passed most of the teams as they struggled to load boats onto wheels and balance gear. The first portage turned particularly heinous very quickly, turning from a nice paved road to a hiking trail I’d be hard pressed to ride my mountain bike on. Trees were so close together in places the boats had to be tilted sideways to get through. In others, we had to lift them over stumps, through mud, up and down over steep embankments. Nothing like starting a 3 day race with a red lined heart rate.
At the end of the first portage we were challenged with the first of three conservation projects, the first of which was to help build an elevated walkway on the Cohoes trail through a swampy area. After numerous hammer and nail themed jokes, we made it back to the boats and continued the paddle.
As night fell, we got to the team orienteering relay portion of the race. This was a unique addition to a race, and I enjoyed it. Each member of the team had to go out and collect up to 6 orienteering flags by themselves. Jeff, Jason, and Jennifer all had orienteering experience so it was not a difficult task for us, but some teams definitely had some issues out there. After the orienteering it was back to the boats, to the fire station TA where we would switch to bikes and get a hot meal. I can’t imagine what the firemen thought of 120 guys and gals stripping down in their parking lot getting into dry clothes and wolfing down huge plates of spaghetti, but it must have been interesting for them to watch. The first bike leg was fairly straight forward and as we got to the next TA we were excited to get on our feet for a while. Silly us.
Water pouring from the dam we were let across
The first trek started out innocently enough. We took a diversion through the town of Happy Corners in a quest to find an open store. We got to town a little early for the store, but managed to get a hot cup of coffee at the local restaurant. It’s amazing how much one appreciates the little things in life at times like that. Continuing on the road we planned on cutting across the river feeding from the First Connecticut lake when one of the locals, watching from his front yard, asks where were headed. After explaining our choice of routes and moving on up the road he comes driving by in his truck and say’s he’s going to unlock the gate on the dam so we can walk across. Never had that happen in a race before. The generosity of all the locals was much appreciated.
Stay tuned for day two and why we were so silly.
