Team Rookie Rampage
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This view of Tomales Bay, Calif., shows the location of the first part of the 2007 BAAR Brawl Adventure Race Training Event.

While working as a writer for the Primal Quest expedition adventure race in Moab, Utah, last summer, I heard rumors of a notorious underground 24-hour adventure race in San Francisco. Word was that the courses were always so difficult, no one had completed one. The winners -- if you could call them that -- were the ones who bagged the most checkpoints before the cruelty of the course simply shattered their spirit.

Initially, I believed the race was called the Bar Brawl. Now that I've competed in it, I know it's actually the BAAR Brawl, not the violent watering hole fist fight I'd imagined. The acronym stands for Bay Area Adventure Racers, a San Francisco area adventure racing club. I also found out that the Brawl is not really a race, but a world-class training session.

Having a few adventure racing friends in the Bay Area, I got myself invited to the 2007 edition of the BAAR Brawl. The notice was so short that my Rookie Rampage teammates in Portland, Ore., couldn't make it. So I teamed up with Morry Angell, a friend from college days who now works as the creative director at Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael, Calif. She'd never been in an adventure race before, so clearly, Mo qualified as a Rookie. A long-time paddler and climber, she already owned a copy of the map we were told to bring to the event. We were good to go!

The starting line was a kayak rental establishment on Tomales Bay, which is part of the Point Reyes National Seashore. In a depressing drizzle, the course was revealed to competitors as a series of numbers, or UTM's, that represented checkpoints. Mo and I got a quick lesson on how to plot the points onto her map, then went back to her car to transfer them. Because we were new at plotting, and because we didnâ??t want to foul up our destinations, we took our time. We got on the water a half hour later than the other teams.

"We just can't tip over," Mo said in a serious tone as we began the kayak leg of the non-race. The sky was dark, the wind gentle, the water extremely cold. We had wetsuits on, but going into the drink would be a horrible way to start the day. I tried to amuse Mo with stories of the many ways I'd managed to dump my own kayak in the past: Getting in or out; turning around to look at something; leaving my paddle in the water too long on a stroke; slipping off the top of a wave. She was not impressed.

Our goal for the day was humble enough. Put in eight to 12 hours on the course, then head home. The initial paddle took us a full hour. Then we engaged in what the race organizers called "coasteering," or hiking along a rugged coastline, for about seven miles. After that, the checkpoints took us to higher ground, and we trekked about seven sandy trail miles back to our boat. The blue Necky tandem looked pretty lonely, being the last boat on the shore. All the other teams were well ahead of us, some by hours.

We hopped back in the boat, aimed for the put-in, and suddenly the sky went black. A fierce headwind blew stinging rain horizontally into our faces. "Do you think it will take us more than an hour to get back?!" I shouted to Mo. "Yes," she answered.

Waves continually broke over the bow of the boat, making me grateful for the spray skirt Iâ??d borrowed from the kayak rental place. Mo skippered us across Tomales Bay in white capped waves that were easily two feet tall.

At one point, out in the middle of the bay, I was so overwhelmed by a complete sense of hopelessness that I just quit paddling. It seemed that in every direction, the sea was rising up to take us. Morry kept paddling, and I snapped out of it and began to paddle again.

Finally, we reached the other side. The wind may have actually been worse on that shore, but at least we were now along Highway 1. We could beach the boat and hike back to the rental place if we had to.

After an hour and 45 minutes of seemingly futile paddling, a gigantic flat-bottomed boat motored up to us. It was the rental shop people. "Want a ride back?" they asked. Oh yeah, we wanted a ride back. Bouncing around inside the big boat as it sped over the waves, I realized we'd come through some truly dangerous conditions. Mo's my new hero.

Needless to say, once back on dry land and within walking distance of our cars, we were done. Mo had me tip the rescuers with a wad of her cash, and we headed to a nearby campground which served as the transition area to the bike leg. We had to let organizers know we would not continue with the simulated race. We'd been out about eight hours, just like we planned.

"I don't blame you for calling it a day," one of the organizers at the campground transition area said. "A team that got here three hours ahead of you just came back in off the bike. They gave up. Said it was just too cold, too windy and too dark to continue."

Almost gleefully, Mo and I headed back to her house in Napa for some hot pizza near the fireplace. We recounted the day to her husband, Rand, a top-notch adventurer in his own right. I got the feeling he would have done very well out there.

Thanks, BAAR Brawlers, for inviting me to your gnarly non-race. And thanks, Mo, for plotting the checkpoints, steering the boat, navigating us to all our checkpoints and keeping me laughing. I predict you have a bright future in adventure racing!

Results of the event have been posted. It surprised no one that for the third year in a row, nobody was tough enough to hit all the checkpoints. Long live the legend of the BAAR Brawl! The simulated race is so tough, not even the course designers can finish it in 24 hours!

Photo by Mike Bitton
Rookie Rampage members Ivan Arredondo and Scott Markham consult maps during an orienteering meet at Teacup Lake near Mt. Hood, Ore.

In our ongoing quest to become expert navigators, members of the Rookie Rampage adventure racing team competed in the Teacup Lake Ski-O orienteering event on Mt. Hood, Ore. Because we're aspiring endurance athletes, we opted for the longest course offered, which was 9K.

We've attended quite a few orienteering events here in the Pacific Northwest. Most of them were put on by the newbie-friendly Columbia River Orienteering Club. Teacup Lake Ski-O was the only one on the club's schedule this year that included skis, so we figured we'd better be there. It's our only chance to try ski orienteering! None of us were very experienced at cross-country skiing, but hey, we're adventure racers. We may suffer a little, but how bad could it be?

When you engage in winter sports on Mt. Hood, you may spend more time getting to and from your destination than you actually spend enjoying the snow. Such was the case for us. We'd just topped 4,000 feet of elevation on our way up Highway 26 when Scott's Nissan XTerra started to find its own path, and it was not in our lane of traffic. We stopped, pretty much in the road, and chained up. Ivan took the left side, Scott the right. Mike, whose inability to put on snow chains has been well documented over several years of failure, watched.

Ivan was done first, but he'd made a little error. He put the chains on the front tire instead of the back! Scott was still wrestling his chains on the right rear. Ivan got his left chain on the rear tire, then helped Scott get the other chain on. Just as we were pulling back in to traffic, a distraught-looking man who'd been trying to put chains on his mini van in front of us waved us down. "I ran over my hand!" he declared. "Could you help me put on my chains?" Of course!

Once again, Ivan and Scott went to work on the chains while Mike did other things. Like talk to the family in the van. They were headed to the Cooper Spur Snow Park. They were from Vancouver, Wash., just like Mike. Woah! Chains are on! Ivan and Scott were much faster with these chains than the ones on the XTerra! As we wished the family well, the woman said, "You have to let us buy your lunch," and shoved cash into Mike's hand. None of us really wanted the money, but we took it, because she was insistant. Turned out it was $40! We used it for our entry fees at the O-meet, and to buy a great pizza pie when we got back to Portland.

Once at the O-meet, we checked in, paid up, got our maps and set out. Not 5 minutes into the trip to checkpoint 1, we came to a trail junction. Our route of choice -- straight ahead -- had a unique sign next to it that read "Screamer Downhill."

"What the heck's a screamer downhill," Mike asked. "Go find out," Scott answered, so Mike took off. Half a dozen gnarly crashes later, Mike arrived at the bottom of the so-called Screamer Downhill, truly surprised he hadn't broken a leg. Scott and Ivan didn't have nearly the problems Mike did. They only crashed when they decided it was time to stop at the bottom, and couldn't think of any other way.

After the drama of the downhill drama, the rest of the course was serene. Snow flurries came and went, and we saw other competitors at or near just about every checkpoint. Scott and Ivan handled most of the navigation chores, taking us directly to every CP with no promlems at all.

When the results were posted, Rookie Rampage had placed 7th out of 11 teams. That's by far our best showing ever! It's a great way to end our winter racing and training schedule, too. We don't have any snow disciplines in our 2007 schedule for 10 more months! From now on, our training and racing should only involve bikes, hikes, runs and paddles.

Adventure racing team Checkpoint Zero-Rookie Rampage kicked off the 2007 season over the weekend when its members completed the 4th Dimension Winter Adventure race.

As the team name implies, we are sponsored by Checkpoint Zero, the leading website for news and commentary about North American adventure racing. Our team name also hints that we're new at this game, which is absolutely true.

Rookies in for the 4th Dimension race included Mike Bitton, Scott Markham, Cristina Fillis and Ivan Arredondo, all of whom live in or near Portland, Ore. It was Bitton's third adventure race; Markham and Arredondo's second; and Fillis' first. Headquarters for the event was the Hyak Lodge at Snoqualmie Pass, Wash.

Fills, who is married to Markham and trains regularly with Rookie Rampage, hadn't planned to race with the team so soon. About a week before the event, she agreed to fill in for teammate Cindy Chastain, whose knees and hips weren't yet ready to spend seven hours straight on snowshoes.

"Leading up to the race," Fillis said, "I was really second guessing my decision to participate." Fears of slowing the team down filled her thoughts. But a few days after the event, Fillis was glad she went.

"It was an amazing experience," Fillis said. "At my lowest point -- hiking up a mountain from checkpoint 6 to checkpoint 7 -- I thought I couldn't take one more step. I was afraid I was about to let my team down. I'm so glad I toughed it out and finished.

"You actually do go through a lot of emotional highs and lows as the day wears on," Fillis said. "Having great team members who stick together makes all the difference when you're sure you can't go on."

While all of the Rookies can read a map, Markham has a natural instinct for leadership. When navigation doubts arise, the map quickly finds its way to his competent hands. But the snowy terrain made route choices tricky.

"Topo maps don't exactly represent reality when there's six feet of snow on top of all the terrain features," Markham admitted. He estimated that a pair of navigation missteps -- one between checkpoints 2 and 3, and another between checkpoint 15 and the finish line -- likely added two hours to the team's 7-hour finish time.

Markham said the most important lesson the team learned in the face of such disappointments was to keep a positive attitude. "Each teammate hit their low point at a different time," Markham said. "It was crucial to keep each other motivated through those times so we could finish the race.

Arredondo said he experienced his highpoint of the race milliseconds after his lowest point of the race, when the team finally found Checkpoint 3 after more than an hour of searching.

"I was starting to feel frustrated, and having doubts about my navigation skills and the navigation skills of the group," Arredondo said. "But the real benefit of all this navigation experience is that we are definitely learning, because at no point where we completely lost. We knew where we were, we just couldn't find the darn thing! The moment we found it, I felt much better and great relief."

Arredondo said he learned during the race that it's startlingly easy to become disoriented in the woods. He plans to take extra care while navigating between tricky checkpoints in the future.

Bitton, who has covered dozens of adventure races as a reporter and photographer over the past three years, was excited to see many familiar faces at the 4th Dimension race.

"It was strange to be on the other side of the camera," Bitton said. "In the past, I would have been hanging around near checkpoints, waiting for teams to come and go so I could cheer them on and photogrpah them in action. Competing in the race instead of covering it was fulfilling in a completely different kind of way."

Bitton said he felt great satisfaction when Rookie Rampage crossed the finish line.

"This team has taken our passion for the outdoors and crafted it into something that lets us explore and enjoy the world in more detail than we ever imagined," Bitton said. "This was an incredible day, and we couldn't have had it without each other's help. I can only imagine how many more days like this I'll get to have in 2007, and in the years to come."