Those Navigation Blues

What a race! I am still shaking my head after spending the better part of 26 hours out in the woods of southern New York and northern Jersey two weeks ago, and I am frankly unsure how to even begin writing a report for this one. NYARA’s 24 hour (this year 26) Shag was an epic one day Adventure Race that seemed to overwhelm even the best racers and athletes who came out for the weekend fun. Thankfully, Mother Nature refrained from dumping the expected rain upon us, though I’m not sure that would have been any worse than the constant and saturating humidity and ceaseless misty fog that enveloped us for much of the race. The terrain was rugged and rocky, and the course was absolutely enormous, making the race a battle of attrition and constant CP analysis as we all tried to meet time cutoffs and ultimately return to the finish by the official race end. I’ll attempt to recount the insane weekend that recently was, though I’m sure I’ll still be as befuddled by the end of my tale as I was out on the course…
Bruce and I, after much searching for a third teammate, wound up getting in touch with Tamela Lynch from Wicked Pissah, and she was good enough to join us to round out the team. After a night at the local Best Western, watching the presidential debate, packing and getting to know one another, we set out for Sheppards Pond in Ringwood State Park, just south of the New York, New Jersey border. Well, we should have realized then and there that we were in for a long weekend as the directions I printed out led us to a narrow and dark dead end somewhere in the woods on the wrong side of the pond. We were not the only racers to find ourselves lost in the woods before the race began, and this would not be the only time the woods would envelop us in confusion.
Upon signing in and boarding the busses, we were given our maps. 10 different maps with five passports. We tried to absorb and process as much as we could on the 45 minute bus ride to Storm King State Park on the western banks of the Hudson, but I think most if not all teams were left in awe at the sheer complexity and vastness of the course. The busses dropped us in two different spots, forcing teams to split up and work their way through the first foot section which included 3 mandatory CPs and 7 optional ones. Each racer was obliged to visit each of the mandatory points, either together or individually, but teams could divide for the optional points, sending one person to each of the optional points. Seemed straight forward enough on the map as we were dropped at our different start locations. In theory, Bruce and Tamela would bag four of the optional points near their start while I would hit two more distant ones before meeting them later on in the section. Well, I think we were all a bit surprised to run into each other within ten minutes or so of the start, and within the first half hour we realized that we would already be better off dropping a point. There went any hope of clearing the course and we weren’t even 5 % done! After splitting for a while longer, we ultimately converged at the end of the section on the waters of the Hudson River where we launched our tandem and solo kayak. Tamela and I had the leisurely job of paddling the double while Bruce labored to keep up as we hit the one mandatory point on the river before crossing over to a take out and the start of a second foot leg.
And now, the relatively smooth start evaporated with one silly mistake by yours truly. The foot section took us up into the Hudson Highlands, a park sitting atop towering cliffs and peaks overlooking the river. 8 optional CPs sat atop the bluffs, and we set out hoping to nail most of them. Within twenty minutes, I had carelessly led us to the bottom of a sheer cliff. Yes, the CP was on top of the cliff, and no the trail I thought would take us there stopped at the bottom. I can’t even begin to explain how I made such a careless blunder, and in trying to correct the mistake we wound up climbing up a near vertical cliff anyway, hundreds of feet of elevation falling off below us. The dampness made the rocks, roots and dirt that much more exciting as we scrambled our way up and around the cliff, and when we reached the top, we were surprised to find our very own Jonathan Neely meandering along the cliff-top trails. The rest of the section went somewhat better, and we moved well, finding four more CPs and passing by forgotten though imposing ruins of mills and towns in the shadowed woods of the Highlands. We again realized that we would have to skip several of the CPs we anticipated collecting, and after scrambling through a boulder field for a final CP, we made our way back to the kayaks for a second paddle on the Hudson.
The second paddle was a longer, 12+ mile cruise south, and we passed by the empty, stone forts and houses that dot the shores and islands of New York’s mighty river. West Point loomed over the western banks of the river as we made quick time down river, and after climbing up a 10 foot waterfall for the one CP on the leg, we took out and embarked on yet another running section. We quickly made our way up and away from the river, finding the first CP with no trouble. The second CP (all optional at this point) proved more elusive, and after wasting far too much time wandering in small sylvan swamps and retracing our steps, we finally gave up on the second CP and made our way south to a large cave hiding the next CP. At this point, darkness began to fall, and before long we were making our way along rocky trails, headlamps struggling to light the way as a heavy mist settled in with the night. We constantly found ourselves losing the trail, and our progress slowed as we turned our attention on getting to the end of the foot section. We managed to score a few more CPs on our way out of the woods, but our attention became focused on getting to the bikes and then on to the net foot section where we hoped the smaller area would allow us to score more points.
It was near midnight when we finally rolled out of the TA on our bikes. Almost 13 hours had passed by and this was our first biking section. Legs were tired, and the cool night was immediately chilling as we rode quickly through the saturated air. 10 miles of roads quickly slipped away and we found ourselves out ahead at the next TA. We set off on foot once again with 1 ½ hours to rack up the points in the small loop of CPs in the hills above. After quickly grabbing the first CP, our hopes began to rise. After numerous minor errors on the previous foot section, frustration had begun to set in (for me at least) and this initial success was a welcome turn. Unfortunately, we then spent the rest of the time we had available to us off trail, searching for a big-point CP, and ultimately we had to leave it behind and head back to the start. Almost two hours for one CP with a low point value when we expected to nail 4 or 5 CPs. Bruce kindly declined the maps when I offered to turn them over, and we set off on a long biking section that ultimately led us to the haunting and somewhat unsettling Jungle Habitat.
Jungle Habitat was a drive-through safari park established in the early 1970s by Warner Brothers. A precursor to Great Adventure, the park boasted lions, tigers, bears and other less ferocious creatures such as otters and peacocks. Several maulings and a death in the paws and jaws of a lion damaged the park’s reputation but it took a local community vote over the issue of expansion to shut the park down. Without approval to expand, Warner Brothers felt that the park was a financial drain and shut the park down. Stories of animals left to decay and others left to fend for themselves linger, and today the park remains for weekend warriors to explore.
NYARA took full advantage of the Jungle Habitat, setting a series of CPs in the nooks and crannies of the ruins of the park. A spiderweb of old, eroded paved roads wandered through the woods, and bizarre structures could be seen from the roads in the woods. One CP sat in the abandoned Otter enclosure and another sat in a tunnel that opened into an enormous, weed infested parking lot that sat silently beneath the dawn sky. Our luck finally changed at this point, at least for a few hours, and we made quick work of the section, picking up several CPs in good time before embarking on the bikes for a ride back to the final bike/trek, which would finally bring an end to day.
I wish I could say that all went well from this point on, but several more wrong turns on the trails cost us more time, though maybe little if anything in additional points. A final mandatory point, one more big point CP, a few smaller ones and we rode to the finish. Flustered and reeling from 25 hours of mistakes, I jokingly commented that I’d probably miss the finish, and I then proceeded to lead us right by the finish without realizing it…
I honestly think if I could go back and add up all mistakes I’ve ever made in Adventure Races, they wouldn’t quite add up to the sheer number of blunders I made last month in the Shag, and yet we still managed to pull out a 2nd place in the premier division behind EMS and 3rd overall behind Scott and Pete from ATP. This is, of course, par for the course with AR. You never really know how you’re doing, and even when things look bleak, a diamond in the rough can always be found.
As for my bruised and battered confidence: I went out to DVOA last weekend to restore my navigational credentials. I walked away from Camp Horseshoe bloody and befuddled, wondering if my bad luck from the Shag would torment me for the rest of the season. Tomorrow, I hit the trails, fields and woods of Tyler for a second chance at redemption and next weekend Bruce, Sara Percy and I take on the 6 hour Edge. Hopefully, I’ll find my inner GPS sometime soon so we can go into Nationals next month with all this behind me, for I still find myself replaying those misty hours in New York and New Jersey in my mind, wondering what exactly went wrong…