Gluttons for Punishment Adventure Race Norm Vance

This article is about a major adventure race held here in the late 1990s:

 

The North American Supreme Adventure Race crossed Pagosa Country this summer. Organized by Four Winds Adventure Racing Inc., the race put participants through the most grueling and, most people would say, unbelievable mental and physical experience in the mountains imaginable.

 

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Adventure racing is considered an "extreme sport" as well it should be. Race organizers try to include the most strenuous activity over the harshest terrain possible. For the Four Winds Supreme Adventure Race, they chose a route across the San Juan Mountains of Pagosa Country and south to Taos, New Mexico. Over 300 trail miles and seven days with very little rest.

 

The teams are mixed gender, five person teams who paid a team entry fee of $10,000. They were allowed a two person support team who carted around supplies and equipment.

 

The race had mandatory rest and sleep stops every couple of days with physicians, chiropractors, physical therapists and massage therapists on duty. Your writer's lasting memories of the racers include them being nice, strong, healthy, and scarred from obvious mishaps.

 

The race began at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado with the first train whistle of Saturday morning. The eight teams did a gravel road mountain bike sprint east, to the Pine River, where they changed to two and three person inflat­able kayaks. They white watered the Pine to Navajo Lake. The Navajo Lake test was to paddle across the lake from the Pine River to the San Juan River. This was scheduled to be a fourteen hour paddle. They suffered high winds, two to three foot swells, frigid water, and did it at night with lightning storms! Team Soar came out of the water in nine hours. Team Adidas tried to keep up but, neglecting to bail their boats, had one member go hypothermic.  He was rescued from the lake and taken to Mercy Hospital. As a precaution, each team carried transmitting radios in case of emergency but the moment that they turned it on they were disqualified.

 

From the lake they did a seventy mile mountain bike ride on gravel roads and jeep trails traversing southern Archuleta County on Trujillo Road, Valle Seco Trail, Highway 84, Blanco Road, Left Hand Canyon Road /Trail, Porcupine Road, Mill Creek Road, Fawn Gulch Trail, Highway 160, and six miles up the East Fork Road where the FIRST rest-sleep stop was located. The faster teams came in late Sunday afternoon.

Team Knucklehead took the minimum sleep period and started early in the morning. This segment started by hiking with full packs and snowshoes up Treasure Mountain Trail. At snow line the snowshoes were put to use for thirty to forty hours on the snow of the Continental Divide Trail. Knucklehead blazed the trail and continued on to Platoro Lake while other teams built quick snow caves and napped during the night. This section ended at Platoro Lake where a mandatory rest stop allowed rest and medical attention. From Platoro they were back into the rafts and went from the absolute headwaters of the Conejos River waters to Antonito, Colorado.  One raft turned over; a team member was caught in barbed wire near the shore and nearly drowned. From Antonito they biked into New Mexico, then switched to horses and rode south overland to the Rio Grande Gorge. Here they crossed the gorge by rope, and then rappelled 800 feet down to the river with their kayaks on their backs. They then white-watered rafted out of the gorge and biked to the Town Park of Taos. Team Knucklehead won.

It was an incredible journey and in post-event interviews the majority of the teams said the day-plus spent on the snow was the most memorable part of the race.

Before the race started a banquet was held at Fort Lewis College. An Indian ceremony was included to bless the racers.  Team Adidas was presented a special Indian handmade staff and instructed to carry it to the finish.  Even though the team lost a member and was disqualified, the surviving team members continued on to the finish, staff in hand.

Your writer followed most of the race from banquet to Taos. My wife, Ruth, and I did a 48-hour stint of checkpoint and trail duty as volunteers on the Pagosa leg. This is one occasion where I can truly say that just watching these guys made me tired!

Thanks to Extreem Magazine for photos.

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