Endless Mountains Adventure Race

Day One at Endless Mountains - Race Director's Review

Abby Perkiss (Rootstock Racing) / 21.06.2022

What a first day for the 2022 Endless Mountains Adventure Race! The community of Punxsutawney and Pennsylvania American Water offered racers an enthusiastic welcome, hosting a pre-race breakfast buffet as teams dissected maps, plotted routes, and ruminated on a course that has already offered some navigational challenge and strategic decision points as the racers “warm up” for the real Pennsylvania wilderness that awaits them on day 2.

Punxsy’s most famous resident - Punxsutawney Phil, the legendary groundhog who has been portending the turn to spring for decades on Groundhog Day offering an opening greeting to start the day. The racers were thrilled, lining up to take team pictures with Phil before gathering for the start on the town green.

Stage A and Stage B served as a warm up and very well may have given teams a false sense of security. Short and sweet, with limited navigation and terrain and near ideal conditions to start the day, the top teams knocked off these early stages in three hours. Top North American teams, Bend Racing and Bones, seized an early lead and have been jockeying for the lead ever since, often running, biking, or paddling alongside each other.

After the start, teams navigated around Punxsy, searching for thirteen checkpoints, all associated with six-foot Punxsutawney Phil statues that are scattered around town. Artistic sculptures, these Phil statues draw visitors throughout the year and highlight the town’s vibrant history and culture. After locating the checkpoints, teams returned to the start to check in and continue onto TA1, passports now in hand.

A short run up to Gobblers Knob, site of the annual groundhog prophecy, followed and then teams set off on bikes. Generally, this twenty-mile ride was fast and straightforward, but several teams did make early mistakes: missing turns, bypassing CPs, or struggling with the heat. These opening stages are warm ups for the much bigger, more physical stages ahead, but the navigation will also become more challenging, so RDs Brent Freedland and Abby Perkiss expect to see more teams struggle with navigation as the race progresses.

Stage C, sponsored by MRS Packrafts USA, broke the race open. Water levels dropped significantly over the past week, and while it was largely navigable, teams found the going challenging. For teams able to read subtle lines and signs in the river, they were able to make steady progress, but many teams spent significant amounts of time walking their rafts until the river finally deepened into the picturesque Curwensville Lake.

The low water levels put all the teams behind the time estimates, but the back half of the field really suffered. Lead teams were largely able to clear the river portion of Stage C before dark; much of the field had to contend with darkness and colder temperatures as they worked their way through the section, falling significantly further behind than expected. Nonetheless, teams are forging ahead with a smile and positive attitude, knocking off the packraft-O around Curwensville Lake which allowed teams to raft or trek for eight CPs, on land and water.

As night winds down, lead teams are well into Stage D, a seventy-mile bike ride supported by Visit Clearfield County. After a big climb out of Curwensville Lake, teams rolled through the town of Curwensville before tackling their first truly significant climb of the race, which led them to the rock labyrinth at Bilger’s Rocks.

Bones arrived first, rolling in at 11:30 PM, followed by Bend Racing seven minutes later. While the technical scrambling, bouldering, and caving was not a section to “race,” Bend made a move to take the lead. Their climbing experience clearly allowed them to read the map a bit more cleanly, and they successfully located the 12 CPs scattered among the crevices, tunnels, caves, and cliffs of this boulder maze in a race-best 36 minutes (as of this writing, nine teams have successfully completed the challenge as of the dawn of day two).

While these two star teams from North America are leading the field, Rib Mountain Racing, third place finishers in two recent USARA National Championships, have been hanging close behind, ready to pounce if the leaders falter. As the race progresses, this will be a storyline to watch, as Rib Mountain is known for their stellar navigation, and the team has more experience racing on East coast maps and terrain. It won’t be a surprise if they make a move.

As Day 2 begins, lead teams are contending with relatively minor, but sometimes tricky navigation decisions as they bike into Moshannon State Forest. Mid-pack teams are working their way through and to Bilger’s, and the teams at the back of the pack are still working on finishing up the packrafting.

Daylight is creeping back into the PA Wilds, but with it comes the beginning of a heat wave that is going to make what is waiting ahead even more challenging. For all teams, the monster, remote, Quehanna Wild Area awaits, and a fifty-mile rogaine (approximately half of which is mandatory) is going to shake up the field.

The Endless Mountains Adventure Race is a demonstration race in the AR World Series and part of the USARA points series, this year sponsored by Toyota Tundra. For the link to live tracking and ongoing commentary, visit www.facebook.com/rootstockracing