By Barrie Adsett - Equinox
We like to think of our team as a middle of the pack bunch. That way we don’t have great aspirations crushed when we never mount the podium, but for the 2006 Southern California Scout Adventure Challenge we kept seeing those podium folks all along the course. Yeah, they were in front of us, but not by too much. Our ability to stay with them was pure adrenaline and great navigation by Steve Moore.
The Equinox team for this race was Mayte Aranalde, Jaime Hernandez, Steve Moore and Barrie Adsett. Those dawgs in front better watch out when we are a team again, after one practice together and one race we think we may be on to something. Jaime is the strong man, towing somebody most of the race, Mayte is the pixy who can do it all, including scaling climbing-walls blindfolded with very few instructions, Steve and Barrie are the core of the team having raced together for a few years now, and “just out for a fun time”. But we did go hard at the end as evidenced by the old man having nothing left at the finish line.
This was a SUPER race. All the Scout races are, but Aaron and Heather found a way to take the same terrain as last year and make it navigationally challenging as well as tough because of the quick elevation changes. Yes, you might hear of a couple of problems on the course, like many racers beat the workers to the first CP, and the CP’s on the kayak section were not placed in time. But with 70 teams (that’s like 300 racers) and a small band of volunteers you cannot always get everything correct. Besides, in my opinion, it makes it challenging for the front runners to have confidence knowing they are in the correct CP location to continue after a quick 5-10 minute look-about.
The first section of the race was the run. Let me rephrase that, the first section of the race was an uphill slog for most of us. The first 4 CP’s were to be picked-up in any order. Our team elected to do the BIG uphill first, because we also elected to do some serious bush-whacking to get CP1-D, and we wanted light to see the ridge. The race started at 4 AM, so the “night” section was at the start of the race. We consider we had a great strategy for the run. We would ascend about 1200 ft over 3 miles of uphill to CP1-A. But about half way up the hill we could take a 100 meter flat walk to get CP1-B, this would give us a breather on the way to the top of the hill. We stuck to that plan but CP1-B was not setup, however, no big deal as we had to go back by there on the way down the hill so it was just a 200 m detour.
From that hill we came back down to the valley, up over a smaller ridge (300 ft elevation gain in ½ a mile) to CP1-C. By now it was 5:15 AM and there was enough light to see the next ridge and about where CP1-D was located. We had to do some navigating to get the correct trails to the easier part of a long ridge where we crossed a very narrow ledge to barely find a way up a huge 600 ft cliff. I need to start carrying a camera, this was cool. If this was not an Adventure Race, there is no way you would wander in this area. It was just fantastic, and we popped-out right at the CP location. An easy downhill to CP2, the TA and section 2 of the race.
Section 2 was predominantly biking, with a small hike for an O course and some ropes. Before charging off to MTB, we had to plot the CP locations from a master map. Placing the circles for each CP was easy, figuring the puzzle of how do you go from here to there was not so easy. It was like those kids books where you have to follow a maze to get from the start to the treasure chest, with lots of dead-end choices possible. But having done the Explore The West race in the same area earlier in the year we had an advantage of knowing some (not all) of the trails. CP3 and CP4 were straightforward, but then there were choices to get to CP5. We elected to stay to the fire-road rather than the single-track and I think we gained time on that leg. CP6 was an out-and-back checkpoint and the first time we could see who was in front of us, and they were not too far away.
Finding the single-track to CP7 was easy, but then you had to have faith as the trail wound up the hillside and you could hear other racers yelling “over hear”, “no, more to the left”, “up here”. It all was quite fun and confusing, but if you just rode the winding trail you came across the CP. Then came CP8, my most favorite checkpoint. We missed a trail to go across the hillside to CP8 and rode further uphill (mistake #1), but then as we neared the top of the hill we could see racers just 6 ft above us when the trail went a good 100 meters down and around (we scampered up the hill and passed 4 teams in a flash – cool, that was enough to negate mistake #1). But now we were above CP8 and had to find a way down to it. Again, knowledge of trails from earlier in the year got us down quickly, but not exactly to the CP. We did a loop to where we should have come into this area of the course and looking from that direction the CP was easily seen. What I liked about it was that if you did it correctly the CP was clearly visible, but if you messed up you compounded your error by being disoriented.
Following this was a quick orienteering course (CP’s 9A, B, C and D) to use some fun trails. Our team has no stories about these CP’s, though I hear many other teams had fun sliding down the hill in the under-brush. Then CP10 and CP11 were placed so that you used certain roads to get back to the TA where there was a ropes challenge.
The ropes were interesting and fun. We were a 4 person team so Steve and I got to fly down the zip-line, then run back up to get a blindfolded Mayte and Jaime, who we had to escort to a climbing wall, where they had to climb while still blindfolded. Three person teams needed to have one person do both the traverse and the climbing. We did this section very quickly considering the penalties they would impose if you elected to skip it. Then it was off to the final section of the race, a bike ride to the lake and the kayaking.
We jammed on the ride to the lake, at one point I looked at the odo and we were in a line doing 30 mph (heck we could have been in the Tour de France time trial – they averaged 24.xxx mph). At the lake we got the inflatable rafts and Steve quickly pointed out the spot we would paddle to, from CP13 it was to aim directly for a hill behind the kayak CP, beach on an “island” on the map (no longer an island because of the low water level) and walk directly to kayak CP14-A. While paddling we saw many racers wandering looking for the CP, so we knew it would be a tough find. The CP was NOT where we expected it. We should have noted the time and spent a max of 10 minutes looking, but there were other good racers wandering the woods, so to speak, so we spent almost 1 hour (with everyone else) looking for something that never existed. When we did abandon the search and go on to CP14-B, Ed went by in a boat and apologized for the CP not being placed (he had just put up a make-shift one). We then simply followed him to CP14-B. CP14-C was not where it should have been, but we wasted no time there and proceeded back to the boat drop.
Along the way we had some fun as one boat was taking on lots of water. As fast as we bailed, it remained half full. It was like taking a bath as you paddled. It was quite funny, but very frustrating and difficult to steer. When we realized a plug had come out and fixed that it self-bailed and we got to shore easily. We assumed that for our team, and others in our predicament of no kayak CP’s, there would be a time adjustment for the kayak (and that is what happened), so once back on the bikes we would be racing again.
The last part of the race was a simple 5 miles back to the finish line, only it was not so simple. With about 1 mile to go I simply ran out of steam. My heart rate watch later showed my skin temperature went over 100 and Jaime had to tow me to the finish line where it took a while to cool off.
We came , we saw, we were humbled. It was a fun race and our team really appreciated the course. Everyone knew it was going to be hot, those who had been to Blackstar Canyon before knew of the huge elevation changes from ridge to ridge, but I don’t think any of us anticipated the navigation being as challenging as it was. It was not difficult, but you had to stay on the ball and on a couple of occasions you had to remember you had been this way before. A small error equaled many minutes. I estimate we covered about 38 miles in a little over 9 hours (6½ hours adjusted time).
A huge thanks to EVERYONE who helped with this race. The race front person (for the Scout AR it’s Ed Shapiro) always gets to be known, but behind-the-scenes I know that a lot of work was put in by Nancy, Bill, Bill, Aaron, Heather, Karen, Paul and many other people I do not know. Thanks from our team and all the others who are too tired today to pass on their thanks. If anyone is considering this race next year, you will need to get your entry in soon after entries open because with 70 teams this year they have to set a limit some day, and for all the years this race has been done it has been challenging, lots of fun and inspirational watching the Scout racers who will be the future of our sport. I have not mentioned the winners, because we could not catch them to identify them, but go to http://www.scoutar.com to see results when they are posted.
See you next year
Barrie
