Pumpkin Scramble V: Nightmare Before Christmas
This year’s Pumpkin Scramble was spectacular!
Kathryn / 09.12.2007
The first Malibu fire happened on the original October date of the Pumpkin Scramble, so it was postponed to December. Then just a week before the race, a second fire broke out and this one very close to the course. Fortunately, the fire departments were able to get this blaze under control within days. Volunteers and I had just enough time to get CP markers out on the course before event day. Or at least we thought we had enough time, until the rains hit! As fate would have it, a big rain storm hit the day before the Scramble. We feared the course would be a muddy mess, and it didn’t look like the rain was going to stop any time soon. But it did! And the land was so dry before this rainstorm that all the water soaked in and made for perfect conditions—not too dusty and not too sticky.
On the day of the Scramble, everyone awoke to wonderful clear blue skies and cool temps. Athletes who checked the temperature gauges in their cars at the start, wished they hadn’t! It was a brisk 35 degrees at 5am…good incentive to get going as soon as possible! I was sure happy that I brought out my big furry, warm dog costume for the start…brrrr….ruff!
The fifth edition of the Pumpkin Scramble was a 12 hour Rogaine-style adventure race, where CP’s were awarded points according to their difficulty and team rankings were determined by a total point score, rather than the number of CP’s found. Teams had to find 2 CP’s in each sport (mtn biking, trekking and paddling) to remain a ranked team. Some teams skipped the paddle and continued on unranked. Bonuses were awarded to teams who competed in costumes--7 of the 20 teams dressed up. Many who didn’t, wished they had when they saw how much costumes affected the overall results.
This year’s Pumpkin Scramble started at 6am at the remote Mishe Mokwa trailhead up on Yerba Buena Road. Apparently this wasn’t remote enough for an underground event b/c no sooner did I send off the racers, then a ranger pulled into the parking lot asking about a race. Fortunately, this ranger was cool and didn’t seem to mind…and there isn’t much they can say since I drill every competitor and volunteer to say this is just a ‘birthday party’ or ‘scavenger hunt’! Plus the costumes tend to lessen the amount of flak we get—it’s hard to get mad at people in fur antlers and superhero lycra! 60 athletes on 20 teams competed in this year’s Pumpkin Scramble. All seemed to have a lot of fun on the course, and challenged themselves getting to unknown landmarks. Many teams mentioned the sunrise over Balance Rock as the highlight of their day.
Most teams went directly from the startline trek/bike loop on Sandstone and TriPeaks down to the ocean for their paddle leg. Competitors could enter the water at Leo Carillo Beach or El Pescador and paddle South to as far as Lechuga Point before exiting the water. High winds on the water that day forced us to shorten the planned 10 mile paddle for safety. Most of the novice teams were happy about this, but the more experienced paddlers could handle the water conditions and some convinced the water safety volunteers to let them paddle a little longer. After the kayak leg, most teams then headed to Point Mugu State Park where there were many bike and trek points to be found.
One of the funniest CP’s turned out to be in the midst of a boy scout campground (which wasn’t there when we set the point). The boy scouts took to either hiding or pointing out the CP marker at whim. Here you can see them laughing in a couple team photos of the marker. Some teams passed right by it, not wanting to disturb the boy scouts, only to return after checking every other campground to no avail!
Strategy plays a key role in a rogaine style adventure race. On this course, the CP’s were all fairly far from parking areas, so we opened up the car rally element to include any legal parking space—since it didn’t make all that much difference where teams accessed the trails from. This really spread teams out as they had more choices from which to start biking or trekking. The Brown Clouds drove all the way to the Valley side of the Santa Monica Mtns in order to avoid a long bike climb, and this added to their speed in reaching several more CP’s.
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