Wild & Wonderful race report

Written by Nick Josties.
Odyssey Wild & Wonderful 24-hour Adventure Race
May 19-20, 2012



With our fearless team captain Dima off racing the Longest Day Race in New York's Catskills Mountains for the weekend, the 4-person co-ed team of Robin, Tamir, Nick, and Greg took on the hills, valleys, and rivers of West Virginia's New River Gorge in the annual Wild & Wonderful 24-hour adventure race organized by Odyssey Adventure Racing. The weather was perfect, with clear skies, the high temperature around 80 and lows in the 50's at night. Race headquarters and the finish line were at the ACE Adventure Resort near Oak Hill, West Virginia.

The race started in its traditional way, with teams bused to the starting point on the bank of the New River to load up into 8-person rafts for some Class III to Class V whitewater rafting. Each raft was provided with an experienced river guide for the 14 mile first leg of the race, ending at CP-1 beneath the iconic New River Gorge bridge (the fifth highest vehicular bridge in the world, and the third highest in the Americas at 876 feet above the river).

At CP-1 on the east side of the river, teams transitioned to a trekking section consisting of six checkpoints, all located on the west side of the river. There were three options for crossing: swim the river, or choose one of two bridges (the high bridge at 876 feet up, or the old roadway bridge at about 50 feet up). Team Calleva chose the high bridge and soon discovered why we were the only team to do so. Halfway across, we were visited by a State Trooper who happened by wondering if we were the "jumpers on the bridge" that he had been told about. We assured him we had no intentions of committing mass suicide, but his concern was about illegal base jumpers. After several minutes of pleasant conversation about adventure racing (wtf is that?), maps, route choices, and general foolishness we convinced the young man that we were not a threat and would get our butts off the bridge pronto.



Being on the highest point around and having avoided jail time, we felt the race would be all downhill from here and ran on to CP-2, CP-3, and CP-4 at the end of a beautiful ridge spur overlooking the gorge. The next checkpoint had a prescribed route in the race rules of travel, which directed us to the Kaymoor Miners Trail with CP-5 being at the end of this trail. It turned out that this "trail" was in fact a staircase, with 817 steps down to the bottom of the gorge, following the old path of a conveyor left over from an old mining operation and the 1900's town of Kaymoor, which was abandoned when the conveyor cable broke in the 1950's. Remnants of the conveyor and many of the old structures are still there with old mine openings blocked off with steel bars. CP-6 was, of course, back up at the top of the the stairs and CP-7 back up on top of the ridge. Along our chosen routes, this leg of the race was approximately 15 miles.

At CP-7 we transitioned to bikes to pick up 7 checkpoints along about 11 miles of brand-new and very nice singletrack. Then at CP-14 we transitioned back to trek to tackle the o-course, which offered 10 optional checkpoints. The team picked up three checkpoints before darkness fell and our pace slowed as navigation became critical. Other than being a bit confused for a short time, which ended when we literally stumbled into one of the checkpoints, we executed the o-course well having picked up 7 of the 10 available checkpoints before making a strategic decision to move on to the remainder of the course. At CP-22, which was the end of the o-course, we transistioned back to bikes for the remainder of the race having covered approximately 11 miles on the o-course.

We biked another very nice singletrack trail from CP-22 toward CP-23 and were doing well until at about 2 a.m. the derailleur hanger on Nick's bike broke in half. Being short on spare parts and competent bike mechanics, Robin made a valient effort to MacGuyver the derailleur back onto the bike, but despite the wire twist-tie, shoelace, and duct tape was unable to rebuild the bike. The bike would coast down hills, but would be little more than a scooter otherwise. At CP-23, it was 3 a.m. and decision time for the team. Most of the remaining checkpoints were optional, with a 6 a.m. cutoff time at CP-28 and a 9 a.m. cutoff time at CP-33 (the finish line). The rules of travel allowed a team to miss the 6 a.m. cutoff at CP-28, but that checkpoint was still mandatory, so we would have to get there and back to the finish by 9 a.m. in order to finish the race officially. This became our goal.

We figured out an alternate route along mostly paved and hardpan gravel roads from CP-23 to the race headquarters (CP-33 / Finish Line) and decided to head there first, then we would head out to pick up CP-28 which was only about a mile away, then back to the finish. It was a good strategy, and we reached the race HQ by 6:30 a.m. At that point, another team was finishing their race and offered to let Nick use one of their bikes. The rules of travel do not allow race officials or volunteers to help the racers in any way, but do allow other teams to help in any way they like. So lending the bike was within the rules and the team took advantage of it. We biked to CP-28 and back again to finish the race at 8:00 a.m., one hour ahead of the cut off. This final leg from CP-22 until the Finish covered approximately 19 miles along the routes we chose. The distances traveled by discipline were: 14 miles whitewater rafting, 26 miles trekking, and 30 miles biking for a total of 70 miles.

Proud of finishing officially with a busted bike, we headed off to eat and shower before the awards ceremony. It was during the awards that we discovered that we had missed one of the mandatory checkpoints, CP-32 which was very close to the finish line and we could have easily gotten it in the hour we had remaining, but having not reviewed our rules of travel before finishing, did not notice the mistake. As a result, we did not get an official finish for the race, but were still proud of our performance and looking forward to keeping our heads in the game for the next race.