ITERA

The ITERA Route – What we know so far!

Rob Howard / 09.08.2025

Teams received the much anticipated expedition route at the race briefing tonight – but only the first part of it!   They’ve received maps and route books for the first 9 stages, which take them to Transition 9 ... which is at the Bagaduish Outdoor Centre, the race HQ!

The race start location was one which no one had guessed or expected, and will be at Shieldaig in the Northwest Highlands, with the opening stages taking place on Loch Torridon and on the spectacular Munro peaks of the Torridon mountains.  It’s a 2.5 hour drive to get to the start, which is on the other side of the country.

After an opening 5km run the first paddle stage will be on Loch Torridon, which is a sea loch and well known to Durty Events as they organise an Xtreme Triathlon, which starts there.  The first paddle checkpoint will be the start location for the Celtman X-Tri. 

After a 2.5 to 4 hour paddle comes the first mountain stage, and it’s a big one described in the route book this way.  “This is where ITERA gets real. Two of the classic big 3 of Torridon and regarded by some (course planner included) as the best hills in Scotland. These are amongst the oldest rocks in the world anywhere, formed up to 1 Billion (yes, really!) years ago.”

The full route on the ‘Torridon Giants’ stage has checkpoints high on Beinn Alligin and Beinn Eighe, and teams can traverse their summit ridges with 2500m of ascent on the full 33km distance.  The high checkpoints are not mandatory (there are not many mandatory checkpoints on the route) so there is a short course option avoiding the high peaks which will immediately force some teams to make choices. 

Teams aiming for a full course finish will head for the summits, but those who want to take a short option, which some will to ensure they can finish, may decide to do so early given how tough this stage is.  It’s a choice which could help ensure they hit later cut-offs and give them more options later on the race, but not an easy one to make!

Teams missing a checkpoint get a time penalty and are ranked on time (including the penalties) and not on which checkpoint is missed first or on the number of checkpoints visited. (It’s a unique ranking system amongst ARWS races.)

Stage 4 is a 90-120 bike ride, which will take teams on a ‘Tour of the Highlands’ to reach Loch Ness. This is a stage all teams will be on during the first night and there are several route options and 2700m of climbing.  The quickest teams are expected to take over 12 hours on this ride.

There can be few better known or more iconic locations in Scotland than Loch Ness and stage 5 is the ‘Loch Ness Monster Hunting’ paddle.  At the course reveal and briefing Tom Gibbs said teams should take a photo if they see ‘Nessie’ and rights would be shared with the race!  They will all see Nessie as one checkpoint is on a statue of the Monster, and by a castle.  It’s a popular tourist spot but not many visitors arrive by kayak.

Next comes one of the big special stages, a spectacular descent of the Foyers waterfall and gorge, which will be one of the highlights of the race.  A similar stage was held once before in a Salomon X-Adventure race 20 years ago, but nothing like it has been staged in the UK since.

Now teams are heading back towards Badaguish, riding over the Monadhilath Mountains and then paddling on the Upper Spey river, before bike and trek stages on the lower Cairngorm hills takes them back to Badaguish.

Arriving back at a transition at HQ will be psychotically tough as teams know the race will finish here, and the finish line may even be set up, plus there will the temptation to stop, but the race is far from over! 

Here they’ll get the remainder of the maps and course, and there was a hint about where it might not go from Tom Gibbs.  “There is an obvious expectation we’ll go into the main Cairngorm peaks,” he said, “but we’ve had more difficulty here with permissions than at any other race, and could not do all that we wanted.  We still have an amazing course, but it might not be what you expected.”

Once the briefing was over teams collected their packets of maps and dashed off to study them and pack the bags and boxes they need to hand in to race staff this evening.  Then they have one more sleep before the start, and will get on the buses for the start tomorrow morning.