Learn

Do you like crazy adventures? Something a little different, but ultra-challenging? Adventure racing is one of the most gnarly sports in the world-not for the casual dabbler. This grueling sport is made up of several rugged outdoor events occurring almost non-stop over a period of several days. Teams are usually organized in co-ed teams.

Although there is no set format to an adventure race, basically all races include “orienteering,” What is orienteering? Well, participants are in the rugged wilderness and must find their own way out to a new event site. Events in a race include hiking, trail running, climbing/rapelling, mountain biking, paddling, horseback riding, rafting and mountaineering.

“The Raid Gauloises ” was the first official adventure race and was held in New Zealand in 1989, so this is relatively new stuff. This race consisted of 400 miles of mountaineering, horseback riding, kayaking, canoeing and rafting over a two-week period. The first U.S. race was the Eco Challenge, held in Utah in 1995.

The rules of the expeditionary/adventure racing are simple. The first four or five person coed team to leave the start and arrive at the finish as a complete team is the winner. Along the way, they must check into “CP’s” (checkpoints) to have their race passports verified and signed by race management. If any member of any team can’t make it to the next checkpoint for any reason, then the whole team is disqualified at any stage of the race.

So, what do you think? Is this sport going to take off and hit mainstream? Will we be talking about adventure racing in a few hundred years like we talk about golf now? Time will only tell.