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Team Mighty Dog takes second in the Blue Ridge Adventure Race

Kirsten Reff / 17.04.2006

Team Mighty Dog takes second in the Blue Ridge Adventure Race held April 8th, 2006! The race spanned the Wilscott, Noontootla and Blue Ridge quadrants of the Cherokee National forest in Blue Ridge, GA. All teams met Friday, April 7th for the pre-race meeting with a discussion of rules, the distribution of maps and checkpoints. A great pre-race meal of pasta, salad, and closely monitored cookies was provided by The Cabin Restaurant of Blue Ridge, GA. There was no gear check, deemed by the race director, Ron Zadroga, as unnecessary for the 6 to 9 hr sprint race. “You’re adventure racers….if you don’t know when you need to wear long underwear, than you don’t need to be doing adventure races.� This was met with both laughter and complete appreciation from the teams.

After the meeting, we headed to the hotel to combine all necessary gear and plot out the course. Prior years of doing the Blue Ridge AR, as well as other races in the same area helped with route selection as we planned our attack. Ron gave some additional route selection choices for the start of the race in that we were allowed to choose one of three checkpoints as checkpoint one. This allowed not so experienced racers to stick to safer, but longer routes. The more confident orienteerers could choose to go after some more obscure but closer points requiring some bushwhacking. With Ardie’s experience, bushwhacking was our definite choice.

Saturday morning started out cool and rainy. Our support teams were directed to drop us off at Friendship Church, just past the top of Skeenah Gap. We got there at 7 am. The start was scheduled promptly at 8 am. This left us with an hour to mill about in the cool and rain. Thankfully it cleared up within a half an hour. It looked to be the perfect racing weather…at least for me!

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