Team Rookie Rampage
adventure racing newbies powered by MPGear.com

Great news! Little old me, Mike Bitton, life-long photographer of all things adventurous, may finally make the pages of National Geographic magazine! But it's not my photos they're after. It's my stressed-out mug.

What?

Pittsburgh-based documentary photographer Lynn Johnson is working on a story about stress. She's already picked some families to follow through stress-filled days. As a sidebar, she wants to do a story about people who choose to do stressful things ON PURPOSE. She wants to explore the concept of people engaging in things that are tough to do as some twisted sort of relaxation. She found the right sport to tell her story!

She got the number of Gordon Wright of Outside PR in San Francisco (and former Primal Quest Media director), and he gave her my number. Gordon told Lynn to ask me about Rookie Rampage, the Portland-based, all-newbie adventure racing team. Doing stressful things when you're likely lousy at them has got to be DOUBLY stressful, right?

Lynn and I talked for about 10 minutes. As our conversation progressed, she was more and more sure she wanted to meet the team, and maybe even tag along on a training session. We even set a date during an upcoming West Coast trip she already had planned. So on Sunday, Nov. 11, Lynn Johnson is going to be here, in Portland, to hang with Rookie Rampage!

Obviously there's no guarantee we'll make the book, but how cool would that be? Adventure racers in National Geographic! And one of them would be ME! Yippee!

Photo by Ivan Arredondo

Report by Scott Markham

Any adventure racer who's gone a long time without competing can tell you, it is tough when you finally return to the field. However, once you are back in action, all those days spent at work daydreaming of doing something fun seem so short.

Although each team members' vacation schedule wreaked havoc on Rookie Rampage's race plans for the summer/fall of 2007, we still managed to find time to get together Sunday, September 22, for an orienteering event hosted by Columbia River Orienteering Club at Catherine Creek State Park in Washington. It was nice to see everyone again who could make it.

Cristina Fillis, Kim Rienholdt, Ivan Arredondo, and a new Rookie â?? Jeff. True to Rookie Rampage form, we took our main sponsor Checkpoint Zero a little too seriously and found exactly that many checkpoints in the first 30 minutes!

Racing is a lot like riding a bike, though. Once you get your form back, you are off and running. While not the fastest team at the event, we were impressed that we were able to navigate to the remaining 13 checkpoints with relative ease.

The views from the course were awesome, as is any course in the Columbia River Gorge. Next up for us is a night time orienteering event and will be fun. One day we will field a team for an upcoming adventure race and when we do we will be bigger, better and stronger! And of course,we'll have fun!

Photo by Mike Bitton
Ain't they purrrdy? In the mini-world that is Outdoor Retailer Summer Market, a business card is everything. Thanks to Boo at Footloose, now I have one!

A funny thing happened on the way to the Salt Palace Convention Center. My cell phone rings, and it's Jake Bennett, founder and CEO of Numa Tactical, the eyewear company I'm doing PR for this week at Outdoor Retailer Summer Market. Jake's like, "Hey, where are you?" and I'm like, "At the intersection of South Temple and West Temple. Where are you?" And he's like, "I'm at Two-hundred South by the convention center. Let me pull around the block and pick you up, then we can carry the booth stuff in together." And I didn't know the stuff was heavy, so I'm like, "OK, see you in a few." Around he comes. In I hop. We've never actually met, so this is in fact an occasion of joy. We shake. We drive. We park. We carry a few boxes of what I thought were brochures, but might have been those really big lead sinkers for deep-sea fishing. Felt like that. Had to trade off carrying it, but Jake did most the work. We search for and eventually find our booth, and sitting right there is the sweetest sight for mildly sore, or at least somewhat frustrated, eyes, THE Boo Turner of Footloose Communications! So now Jake and Boo meet in person for the first time, just like he and I did about 15 minutes earlier. Boo tells me she has something for me and pushes a small cardboard box my way. Uh, what's this, I think. Oh! Could it be?! Oh, I hope it is...It IS! BUSINESS CARDS! I did the happy dance right there in the booth! On the front, it's got my contact information, and declares me part of the Footloose Communications family. On the back, it tells the holder we currently represent five clients: Numa Tactical (eyewear); OBoZ (shoes); Bridgedale (socks); nuun (electrolyte replacement); and the Reel Rock Film Tour (the climbing world's answer to those Warren Miller snow movies). Off the top of my head, looks like there's still room to add an outdoor adventure/travel clothing line, some stylin' backpacks, a reliable knife and tool company, brilliant flashlights, and a world-class kayak brand. Boo would really like a kayak brand. Anywhoo, I have new business cards. I'm gonna go fall asleep now with a big ol' smile on my face.

Photo by Mike Bitton
At the heart of Salt Lake City lies Temple Square. I shot this pic of the LDS Temple fom First Avenue, directly East of the historic building.

A year ago, I was here in Salt Lake City to cover the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market trade show for the readers of Checkpoint Zero. I scoured the show for gear that would make adventure racers happy. This year, I'm on the payroll of Footloose Communications, a PR firm based in Seattle and led by Boo Turner (hi boo!). The client she's got me working with the most is Numa Tactical, a new eyewear company out of New York City. Did you hear about Numa's sponsorship deals with Checkpoint Zero and with Primal Quest? Uh huh, I'm a little matchmaker!

Outdoor Retailer starts Thursday, but I'm here a bit early. I went to college in Utah, so still have ties here. For the duration of the Outdoor Retailer Show, for example, I'm staying with Nelson Wadsworth, a former photojournalism professor I knew 15 years ago at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. He and his wife live in Salt Lake City now. Perfect opportunity to catch up!

Long-time amigo Jeff Hunter still lives in Logan, where he toils as the editor of a magazine put out by the daily newspaper, the Herald Journal. I tease. He's got a sweet gig at that mag, writing features, shooting his own photos, and darn near setting his own hours. Sweeeet. Jeff's coming down from Logan on Thursday night for some drop-dead delish Mexican food at the Red Iguana restaurant on the East side of Salt Lake City.

I'm also looking forward to meeting Mrs. Yak, AKA Alexa Angell, who's coming to town with His Yakness (Paul Angell, founder of Checkpoint Zero). Yak I like. Spent many an hour motoring around the Primal Quest Utah course with him last summer. But I'm eager to meet Alexa. I suspect she's the real brains behind the Checkpoint Zero enterprise. More tomorrow.

Photo by Trailside Volunteer
Rookie Rampage members (from left) Cris Fillis, Scott Markham, Lyle Kopnicky and Mike Bitton, pose in front of Wahkeena Falls in the Columbia River Gorge, Oregon.

It's been about a month since members of Rookie Rampage have trained together, so on Sunday, we took a hike in our neighborhood playground, the Columbia River Gorge.

Scott Markham, who plans all such outings for our group, chose Wahkeena Falls. The hike is a few miles long, and intersects several other trails, which provides some great loop hike opportunities.

We did about 5 miles in all, and had a great time catching up. It was nice to spend part of a day just enjoying the outdoors, with no thought of actually "training" or "racing."

Summer schedules are playing havoc with our team's intended race schedule!

Scott Markham (our strategist and planner) has begun a new quarter of grad school at Portland State University, and his Saturdays are now kaput. Best case scenario, we get him back in September. Worst case...I don't even want to get into the worst case. It literally could be years before Scott races again!

Scott can still organize team trainings on Sundays, but losing his Saturday availability puts us in a bit of a bind, since our next few events have Saturday starts.

There's a domino effect to the evaporation of Scott's participation. Cris Fillis, our original female Rookie, is Scott's wife. It makes sense that if Scott ain't racin,' Cris ain't either. So instead of being down one Rookie, we're actually down two.

Another early member of Rookie Rampage, Ivan Arredondo, will be visiting family in Europe during our next two races, so he's out. Jan Newport will be in the South Pacific.

So who's left? Kim Reinholdt, Lyle Kopnicky and me, Mikey B.

Three is enough for the TRIOBA 12-hour race coming up on July 14 at Snoqualmie Pass, Wash. But it's not enough for the Big Blue 24-hour race July 21-22 in Oakridge, Ore. We may end up just volunteering for that one.

Hopefully, more of us will be available by September. There's a possible 24-hour race in Washington state, and one final MOMAR sprint in B.C., Canada, we'd like to do. Those events would basically wrap up our season. We'll see what happens!

Photo by Cristina Fillis
Rookie Rampage team members (from left) Lyle Kopnicky, Scott Markham, Mike Bitton, Kim Reinholdt and Ivan Arredondo, pose on one of many hilltops during their third and final loop at the Big Muddy Ranch Rogaine near Antelope, Ore.

Are you kidding me? We actually WON something?! That's so totally against the grain of what Rookie Rampage -- an all-newbie adventure racing team -- is supposed to be about! But it's true. When the Big Muddy Ranch Rogaine results were announced for the 12-in-24-hour "mixed" (read co-ed) division, team Checkpoint Zero-Rookie Rampage was called to the front of the room to receive its prize!

Scott Markham, Cristina Fillis, Kim Reinholdt and Mike Bitton, accepted their ribbon-clad Columbia River Orienteering Club (CROC) patches, smiled for the cameras, and still could not believe what had just happened. We won something!

Since we've got more than four folks who normally train with us, we also had more than four Rookie Rampagers at the Big Muddy. Ivan Arredondo and Lyle Kopnicky raced as a two-man team called Rookie Rampage Lite. For the most part, we all stayed together throughout the event, racing as one oversize team.

Strategies for nabbing as many control points as possible during the 24-hour event staged near Antelope, Ore., were as varied as the 80 participating teams. Some in the 8-hour division plotted mini-loops of an hour or two that brought them frequently back to headquarters, or the Hash House, as organizers called it. Others, in the 12-hour and 24-hour divisions, stayed our for six, eight or 10 hours at a time. Because we could be out for a total of 12 hours during the 24-hour race, we planned three loops.

First was a three-hour loop to the northeast of the Hash House. It featured some sketchy rock scaling, a nifty cave, and hundreds of painful grass seeds embedded in our shoes and socks. Next came a 7-hour loop to the northwest of the Hash House. It included what felt like several hours of uphill hiking, Lyle's first control point "kill," and the only missed control point of our entire race. On our final "morning after" loop, we grabbed two more checkpoints to the southwest of the Hash House before declaring ourselves done. That loop included lots of limping on sore ankles, knees and hips, as well as continuous bow-legged sauntering by my chafe-laden self.

We love the Big Muddy. Scott, Cris and I did the 8-hour event in 2006, and had a super fun time. This year, we were back with twice as many participants. Obviously, we'll be back in 2008. But how many friends will we bring? Will we double again, and make it 12? Tune in next spring to find out!