Arctic Team Challenge - Greenland - July 2004

[ARReports]

The 2004 Arctic Team Challengewas an expedition-length adventure race held on the east coast of Greenland from July 17th to 24th. From the ATC website:

Arctic Team Challenge is an adventure race held in the very heart of Greenland’s remote East coast. Ammassalik District. The 5-day combined stage and expedition race will take the teams through a distance of about 250 km and 9,000+ vertical metres in the magnificent and wild beauty of Ammassalik Island.

The SleepMonsters site has a great series of race reports from this event:

...The epicentre of today’s drama was checkpoint 3. This peak involved the first strategic decision that was required by race management as part of the tactical attack. After the opening 2-3 hour long MTB stage, with 1370 vertical meters of total ascent, the teams had to split up, 2 and 2. The strongest pair had to take the long way around to checkpoint 1 and 2 ...

http://www.sleepmonsters.com/racereport.php?race_id=540&story_order=asc#

And the ATC site has a great set of news reports and some incredible photos:

...Peak Performance also experienced drama. They chose the wrong route to the glacier and, suddenly, they were standing above the rim of the glacier. They had to crawl down the hillside and finally jump onto the glacier below them. In retrospect a fun experience to the team, but not without danger at the time it happened. They also lost time as it took them 45 minutes to go 200 meters...

http://www.atc.gl/news.html