North American MultiSport

30HR ADVENTURE RAGE

The PBF/CITGO team of Bonnie Rutherford, Nathan Folks, Matt Fitzgibbon and Matthew Jourdan endured the long 8-hour drive to the upper part of Michigan to the town of Boyne Falls this past weekend. We competed in the Infiterra Salomon/Moosejaw Adventure Rage. For those of you who are wondering. Infiterra is a group that promotes adventure races in Michigan, Salomon is an outdoor gear company and Moosejaw is an outfitter company.

Right off the bat we found the Rage to be one of the best organized races we have ever done. We had a mandatory gear check that had to be done by a certain time or a time penalty might be assessed to the team before the race gun even went off the next day. Every piece of gear was checked. Mainly for safety purposes. We carried various items to be used along the course and also items in case of an emergency. We then were tested on our repelling and ascending skills.

We then had a nice pre-race/meeting meal. The meeting started with the dispersing of three 2x3foot topographical maps of the surrounding area. We were also given UTM plots to map our 16 checkpoints (CP's) We were to be bused that morning to the start area which was north of the ski lodge that we were staying at that night. The lodge was also to be the finish. We spent a great deal of time plotting points, marking "out of bounds" areas and marking our course. You could take any roads and trails you wanted except those that were off limits.

Race start time was Saturday at 6 am which is 5 am Indiana time. We left the lodge at 5 am to arrive at the start around 5:30. We made final preparations and headed to the start line. The start was at the base of the highest ski slope in Michigan. We were instructed to find 6 checkpoints before heading to CP1. The gun went off and the 35 teams headed in various directions. We headed towards the 1st point, which was at the very top of the slope.

It was pretty dark still so it was an amazing site looking back and seeing a stream of lights heading up behind towards the summit. It was a long tough trek to the top. Many teammates pushing each other up and fighting other teams for the best position up the sandy slopes. We hit the 1st point and then the second, third and fourth. 5 gave us a little trouble but we managed and then grabbed 6. Each had a punch that imprinted on a card to show we were there. We headed off to CP1.

We arrived at CP1 and found ourselves in 2nd place overall only 10minutes down. CP2 was the worst of the day. Somehow we got off the correct path and found ourselves in the wrong ravine. We spent over an hour looking for it and upon arrival found ourselves down 1hour on the leading team and now 12th overall. We then started running to CP3 and nailed it. CP3 had a cargo net that we had to cross (with our climbing harness on) and then we repelled down the backside to the ground. We left CP3 in 10th.

CP4 was a run to the start of the paddle section. We passed one team in route to the paddle and that put us in 9th. We arrived at CP4 around 10:30 so you can see the time for the trek/run section. We timed our food for 45minute intervals to keep fueled. At CP4 we hit the water with one team in sight. We had to cross a lake to the entrance to a river on the other side. We decided after a half mile or so to join our canoes. (We had two canoes with two in each) We figured that two boats end to end could move quicker so we used a bungie to connect and it worked. We caught the team ahead at the mouth of the river. We then sat in a lock with the other team.

This was a first for me. The lock allowed us to stay in the boats while the water level was changed to the level of the river. This meant no portage. We then headed to the end of the river, which dumped us into another lake. Along the way we hit CP5 and had to show our safety blankets (gear check) We were still around 1hour behind the leaders. It took 2hours to go from CP4 to CP5.

The river dumped us in a large lake where we had to stay within 100meters of shore due to the large waves. We could now see two teams in front of us. We had to get to the other side of the lake to another river entrance. A straight shot would obviously be the short cut but with the 100-meter rule we found the paddle to be long and tough. The waves beat us to death and combined with the wind made it nearly impossible to keep the boats straight ahead.

We eventually disconnected the two boats and made our way. We noticed two motorized boats heading towards the teams in front and they were dealt time penalties for not being within the 100meter rule. The teams would have to stay at the next CP until the penalty was up, like hockey. We finally found the next river entrance and headed up stream to CP6. We were told that this river had the fastest current of any river in Michigan.

Matthew Jourdan
CITGO/Gray Goat Multisport Racing