It’s hard to believe its January and we are already racing!

The North Georgia Adventure Race or NGAR is a 30 hour race that took place in the beautiful mountains of Northern Georgia primarily around the Fort Mountain State Park. The chosen three Team SOG racers were Kristen Dieffenbach, Matt Shreve and myself, Steven Baker. Our team was fortunate enough to have a support crew consisting of one of Matt’s good friends Taylor.

I began my journey Thursday night by driving to Blacksburg, VA, this overnight stay allowed me to break up my 10 hour drive and visit some old friends from school. I spent the night with Chris Clarke and Heather Fisher who were kind enough to let me crash on their couch. Chris made an excellent send off breakfast of eggs and biscuits before I left for Georgia and he left for school. I arrived at Fort Mountain State Park around 1PM Friday afternoon, and caught a quick nap before Matt showed up with the boat and the remainder of the mandatory gear required for check-in.

The NGAR staff was very well organized and made checking in a breeze. Matt was lucky enough to get a brand new 17 foot canoe with a middle seat from an Atlanta rental outfit, it had the tags still attached and everything! It was a great treat to receive the maps at check in; this gave us plenty of time to plot points and layout our route. After checking into race headquarters we setup camp in our cabin, which was a misnomer as was more like someone’s home – complete with china hutch and washer and dryer. Matt, Taylor and I pulled all our gear into the ‘cabin’ then Matt and I plotted the map while Taylor followed along recalling his days as a marine sniper and his ancient plotting tools.  We ate dinner throughout the plotting of our maps.  Taylor brought some excellent homemade chili that was much appreciated. Matt and I had just about finished the map work when Kristen arrived on the scene, just in time since she had the contact paper for water proofing the maps. This proved to be critical later in the race as some teams were forced to drop as their maps became soggy unreadable mush. Taylor and I waterproofed maps while Kristen walked Matt through what gear he would need during the race. This was Matt’s first race over 10 hours and was eagerly absorbing the wealth of knowledge Kristen was presenting to him.  Kristen and Matt had finished packing by the time I was satisfied with the maps. So I packed my gear while they loaded bikes and their gear into the vehicles for transport. Once everything was loaded and ready for the morning we headed off to bed for the last sleep we’d see for the next 30-40 hours.

Revelry! Revelry! Revelry!  This is how we woke up, Taylor had already packed his things and was shooing out the door so we could head to the race. After a couple of wrong turns on the way to the race start we decided Matt would not be in charge of navigation, but we’d love him all the same.  We unloaded the boat and bikes and laid out our gear for the start of the race. The race began with a 1 mile prologue (in this case it was a run) to separate the field since the boat landing wasn’t big enough for more than a few boats to leave at a time. I was nominated to be the lucky prologuer and run to the bottom of the dam road and back up.  While I warmed up for my run, Kristen and Matt scouted the best route down to the water for the boat put in.  There was an obvious path down, but they were able to find a nice back channel path that would save us time and jump us places for the put in.

As we gathered around the starting line we were giving our last minute instructions and notified that there was a bass tournament and a rockfish tournament that would be occurring while we were out on the water. Boom bang, the gun went off and I was on my way down what was more of a rock garden than a road. Kristen met me at the top of the hill with my PFD so I could dress while turning in my prologue lollypop that I had sprinted for.  I had managed to get back to the boats in third and we were on the water in 8^th It was obvious from the start our pre-race decision to use canoe paddles was going to slow us down as we were not able to keep pace with our competitors despite Matt’s great water skills.  He was able to provide us with some great pointers so despite the equipment handicap we plugged along and eventually fell into a steady rhythm. We reached the first checkpoint after trying to avoid constant bombardment from crazed bass fishermen in drug smuggling cigar boats. I couldn’t quite figure out why their boats needed to go so fast but they did none the less and they seemed not to notices us as they flew past. We portaged across an easy finger to shave paddle time when heading to CP2. We continued our rhythm and were only 8 minutes off the leader going into CP3.  Upon arriving at CP4 we made another portage, this time with what felt like a 500 ft climb only to bushwhack with the canoe off the back side.  Matt and I shouldered the canoe while Kristen shouldered the packs and paddles.  Amazingly, we made it to the water without any major slips down the steep hill.  As hard as both the up and down were, the move shaved a serious amount of paddle time. We exited the water in 15^th place – not bad considering our paddle pace.  And as we found out later, some of the teams out of the water ahead of us had opted to skip some of the points so they weren’t truly ahead of us at this point. We punched CP 5 coming out of the water.

No tears were shed as we left the paddles and PFD’s with Taylor who set up a really well organized first TA. At long last we were on our bikes and in our element.  We hit CP6 at the bottom of the same dam road where I had run for the prologue and continued north towards Fort Mountain State Park, picking off three or four teams along the way. The ride began as a mostly flat road ride and eventually turned into gradual gravel climb before reaching CP7. After reaching CP7 we had to climb a steep and muddy single track, much of which was hike a bike. Eventually we reach the paved access road at the park entrance and coasted downhill to our support crew pit stop TA1 where Taylor was waiting with hot oatmeal and chicken noodle soup. Shortly after leaving the comfort of the transition area it began to rain and didn’t let up until well after the race had ended Sunday.

Leaving the TA we rode a short distance to CP8.  Leaving CP8 we got turned around for 20 minutes or so after switching to the park map.  After we realized it had been marked wrong the night before we were back on track. I regained my orientation and we were on our way. We continued on bike down some knarly single track complete with boulders and ice that was better suited for goats than wet mountain bikers. Not long after starting down our first trail we switch back to hike a bike to ensure our safety travelling up and down the steep downhill’s in the Georgia Blue Ridge Mountains. We clipped off CP9 and CP10 no problem. We passed some teams heading the wrong way but we stayed the course and found our points without trouble. Leaving CP10 we hit a mix of paved road and gravel climbs before arriving at CP11. CP11 was the transition from bike to trek and we arrived just as dusk was falling.  We had a few laughs with some young TA helpers, organized maps, changed shoes and we left slightly ahead of another team we had passed on the way to 11. We bushwhacked down the site of the CP/TA to cut off a portion of the road, and travelled north traversing the mountain on gravel roads.  The steady rain continued and small pockets of fog had just begun to roll in.

The beginning of the end. As primary navigator I led us down an old logging road to cut off another long portion of road. We weren’t on the logging road long before it became overgrown and hard to follow. We continued, following terrain features and eventually the road ended. After some indecision and no visible offshoots we eventually bushwhacked down a re-entrant only to come out right where we wanted, CP12! In the fog and rain, it was a very lucky spot as we weren’t really looking for it yet.  Feeling confident, we struck out on the road to find CP13.  Matt had begun to feel twinges in his knee and Kristen was confident he was feeling IT band issues.  She taught him some IT and glut stretches that he could do on the trail to try to keep the damage and pain to a minimum as we went.  From the old road, we thought we found the trail that would cut us across the mountain towards CP13.  After a bit of bushwhacking and following the overgrown trail, we discovered we were back on the trail we had used to head for CP12 before we lost it!  We found another team that had spent quite a bit of time here and they filled us in on all the angles they had attempted from this trail.  We were confident about where we were on the map but the trail leading to CP13 did not seem to exist and without an altimeter, and given the time we had already lost bushwhacking to 12, we were not confident about bushwhacking to CP13.  Matt’s knee was not holding up well to the rigors of bushwhacking either.  So we opted to head back out to the road, run down and around to the TA and attach CP 13 from the other side.  The down was a nice steady paced run and Kristen gave Matt some pointers to keep his knee safe on the down run.  All seemed to be going well in the drizzle and fog.  Then we hit the TA and headed back up.  Almost immediately we discovered a slick and thick mud trail that made for very slow going.  Matt began to have trouble staying warm.  Kristen concentrated on feeding him while I focused on the maps.  While the travel up to 13 was pretty straight forward, it was certainly not easy.  The trail was rocky, muddy and at times very steep.  Matt began to shiver and Kristen tried to warm him with hand held pocket warmers.  Unfortunately the now driving rain and high winds made it impossible to activate these little air activated heaters.  At the very top when we found 13, we found momentary shelter from the wind.   We used my space blanket and wrapped it inside Matt’s outer layers to try to help warm him.  He was shivering at this point and we were afraid to strip him down before using the space blanket.

We pushed the pace trying to help warm up Matt as we headed for CP 14.  A short trail jog brought us to a spot where we had to dive in on a bushwhack to CP14.  Without an altimeter and in the continued rain, it was slow going.  Working with another team that was down a member, we spread out and worked our way toward CP14.  Once we found it, it was a further bushwhack down to the trail and then a run/slip/slid to the TA.  Matt was still very cold and his knee was screaming.  We had also all run out or very low on water, a nasty irony given the rains and wind.

Back at CP15/ the trek to bike transition, Matt huddled by the fire while I changed maps and Kristen changed shoes.  We had hoped to continue on after I downed 4 s’mores, but Matt was done.  Having gone over twice as far as he had ever raced before, the pain in his knee and the cold got to him.  After being sure that Taylor was on his way, and talking to the TA folk, Kristen and I double checked the map and were on our way.  A wet, very foggy downhill didn’t do much to warm us up as we tried to control our pace on the wet rutted roads.  The guys at the TA had assured us that the rain was done for the night.  We road on, psyched for the pavement even though we found ourselves climbing again.  The climb warmed us and we set a good pace.  Soon we were at CP16, a neat mountain bike camp.  They had graciously opened their dining hall for the race – a warm little space with pot belly stove, warm stew, and shelter from the wind.  We went in momentarily to check in and get more water.  As we left the warmth of the little building, the rain started again. And it started to come down hard and cold.  Kristen looked at me and said ‘you really want to do this?’ and we decided that this would be our end point for the race.  Excellent training for a January and a great way to light the fire for the rough weather training that is sure to come over the next few months as we prepare for season.

-Baker