Squiggy Classic

The Squiggy Classic AR March 11, 2007

This was my first time doing the Squiggy classic and the fact it was on a Sunday allowed me to be able to make it to the race. I am very glad I did, as I was able to experience a wonderful race in a fantastic location. I raced this with team Are We There Yet – the classic team of Captain Will Murphy and a fairly new racer Gwilym – whom we now have christened as “G”.

From the starting line which was really just the parking area at Morris Bridge TA’s we were bussed to another location (John B. Starkey Park) where we were greeted by Kip Koelsch who basically counted down the race start and then threw the instructions in the air. We grabbed one set and were greeted by three relatively easy questions; (1) Name of the Squirrel who is mascot for the Wilderness Parks, (2) What is the term for the lines on a topographic map that define areas of similar elevation?, and (3) What is the name for a linear feature such as a trail, stream, road, or lakeshore that closely parallels your route and may be helpful in navigating? The questions were quickly solved and the using the letters of the answers we were able to get a set of bearings and distances to follow to retrieve 3 tokens.

We moved quickly to the first location and located the bucket which contained a “bead” which we pocketed and then started towards the second bearing and our first mistake. A mistake made by many of the experienced teams was to take the second set of bearing and distances from the location of the previous one – which unfortunately was wrong, we needed to return to the start location to head for the second set of bearings. I of course still think the instructions were vague (“Starting Point is the Iron Ranger next to the Please Donate Sign” – with no mention of “for each bearing”) Oh well!, after realizing our mistake after much unnecessary bushwhacking, we headed back to the central location and quickly located the other 2 buckets of tokens. Some teams had been able to turn our mistake (we weren’t the only ones though) into a 10 minute lead and had their boats in the water even before we realized our mistake. From the boats still on the ground – I estimated we were between the 50th and 60th team (of 70) to hit the water.

Once we did get our boat in the water – Will, G, and I moved into one of our strengths. Even though we were using a supplied canoe (not necessarily speedy) – three good paddlers with wing paddles can make a boat flat-out move. Combine that with our determination to make up most of the ground before the end of the paddle – we were hitting it hard. As we approached the first CP on the paddle I looked at the clue sheet and read the instructions, “Record the number of knots in the rope at PP1”. As we approached the checkpoint I could see the number of knots was three and said – “It’s 3, turn around”. This caused confusion and we were still paddling towards it. After a bit of explaining the team was all on board with the fact that the first 3 checkpoints were question and answer.

The remaining paddle was a session of hammering the water, passing boats, a little bit of bumper boats, and preventing ourselves from capsizing. I estimate we had our 16 foot fiberglass canoe up to a solid 6-7 mph on some straight-aways which made hitting the submerged logs pretty interesting. Though the boat had a couple of tips that put the edge within an inch of the water – we were not only capable of keeping it upright, most of the time we did not even break a beat in our paddling. We had resigned ourselves to the fact that if we tipped, we tipped and we would simply jump out, right the boat, and hop back in. We had even gotten to the point that we accelerated into some logs that were across our path – like we planned to bunny hop them in a boat, most of the time we would get across without the obstacle completely stopping us.

We had obviously done something right as we left the water in 11th place, and even though I had not counted the teams we passed – that did seem to make sense. We had a scare as we dropped one of our little beads from the earlier navigation and it disappeared down into the water – but the volunteer manning the CP saw it and let us through to the first special test. As I prepared the maps for the bike leg and changed shoes – Will and G tossed a turnip into a bucket and G retrieved it with his mouth. It took us all of 20 seconds to complete and we were in and out of the TA within the planned 3 minutes including the special test.

The next leg was a mountain bike leg and we got to see a few of the teams that were competing in the other race (the Squiggy Dash) and cheer them on as we biked in the opposite direction of where they were running. I was familiar with about the first half-mile of trails on the ride and I knew that teams in front of us probably had a high familiarity with the trail network in the area. We quickly got our legs under us and got into a biking rhythm. We did not make any navigation errors in the biking section, but I did need to spend time actually navigating. Three times we overshot the control and we overshot one turn, but never by more than 200 meters and we always quickly caught our mistake. Most of the navigation I was able to do while moving on the bike so I did not lose too much time to stopping to read the map. I really enjoyed this section of the course as it was all off-road biking and we only had one interruption for a special test that had us running up and down a hill with each piece of our required gear. My favorite control was the “hidden pond” that forced us off our bikes for a short distance and required us to use the map and read features to get to the control. We did probably lose about 5 minutes on this one searching – but mostly due to me relying on a blind bearing rather than map reading.

We came off the bike ride in 7th place, another jump – but except for two teams that had a good lead – this part of the pack was very tightly grouped with maybe a 10 minute spread between 5-6 teams – great racing! We were now in my element – foot navigation and we took off at a light trot. We made quick work of the first three checkpoints – and we used direct (rather than trail routes) for them. As we were heading for CP4, both Will and I agreed that we would be better off doing 4-7 in a different order – so we headed from 3 to 7 passing by the TA and a grinning Kip Koelsch who was watching us make a possibly race killing mistake. The passport stated that we needed to complete the CP’s in order and we were heading in the wrong direction and for an hour penalty as we bushwhacked towards CP7. We reached the trail which the checkpoint was along and for some reason I went totally brain dead and directed us to go along the trail the wrong direction and also for a long distance. We did catch our mistake and come back and find CP7 – but an easy control that would normally take 2 minutes had cost us an easy 10 minutes. I was resolved after that not to make any more mistakes and was puzzled at myself for making this one (had I lost that much concentration?). We started for CP6 doing the “backwards” thing when we ran along Team Flight heading towards CP7. Mike was puzzled to see me going the wrong direction and I was puzzled to see them just now completing orienteering section. I quickly calculated in my head the amount of time spent in small chunks navigating the bike section and our differential in speed (having raced along side Mike and his team I know they move much faster on bikes than we had) and had them at least 45 minutes ahead of us – which did not mesh with their current location.

Mike quickly explained how they had gotten into this location in the pack, they had done the course out of order and had been forced to redo control 4-7 or take an hour penalty. He also let me know that I was about to do the same. He gave me some hints (helpful) on the upcoming controls, and though I had nothing to offer, he knows I’ll return the favor in some upcoming race. This is (by the way) what adventure racing is all about. For those who wonder about helping out other teams – I have towed members of other teams, gone back and helped lost teams, stopped to render assistance many times and feel that this is what really makes a good adventure racer – more than just winning. I also have seen this in folks like Mike and his team and many other racers – and it is what makes me proud of this sport.

Anyway we were quickly back on track and hit CP4 – CP6. At CP6 we ran into an entire host of teams who were looking at the aerial map that had the location of the actual control. A quick glance and I knew the location and we headed off with a large group of teams. The funniest moment on this was when Jim from “Team Jim’s Bicycles” started crowing – which I guess was the signal they used to signal they had found the control. I simply yell – “Over Here! Found It”. Will was a bit tired at this point – but we were still able to keep a decent pace to CP7 and back to the TA as a large group of teams including Gecko and Jim’s Bikes all ran into the TA and we all took off together on bikes.

I’m glad most of the other teams have confidence in my navigation. We reached one point where a few trails headed off into different direction and I had to determine the correct trail. Many times when there are a lot of teams – the whole group slows down waiting for someone to take the navigation lead. This was not the case here, I directed Will through the trails somehow getting slightly off, but also quickly correcting and we picked up the last bike Checkpoint and started the sprint to the finish line. After leaving CP I we saw one team who we had biked with and ran with earlier heading back the opposite direction. We had no time for explanation – but I was willing to bet they had forgotten to visit CP I. Ouch!

Only one navigation decision remained – as we reached the river I stopped to confirm that we needed to head to the road and cross the river. Will had headed the wrong way so I biked after him to pull him back and some folks followed me. Other folks were at the intersection looking confused. As I came back to the intersection and headed down the correct trail I simply shouted to the other teams “This Way to the Road!” and we all hopped off our bikes as we got to the road and pushed them up the hill and over the guard rail. Will, G, and I were the first on our bikes with a large pack behind us. I was ready to sprint in to the finish, now less than ¼ mile of actual riding. We all came across the finish line within seconds of each other.

In the end we finished 5th, with 4th place going to Lenny (a solo racer) who crossed the finish line with us. We did win our division (3 person male) and I was very happy with our team performance. I had not navigated a perfect race (a very elusive thing) – but had navigated well. For those navigators out there, they will understand the compulsion. As soon as you finish any race – you are eager for the next one so you can avoid the mistakes you made last made looking for that perfect race. I think that is also the lure of golfing!

Thanks to WeCeFAR for a great race and a good time. I’ll be back for this one – and yes Mike I think you should set it, and I’m looking for a real navigation challenge! And special thanks to my team-mates Will and G - yes I do want to race with you again, it was great.