Planet Adventure

April 8, 2005
photos by Michelle Craig

I've known about Planet Adventure for quite some time. It's one of the older races in the Midwest and has a fine reputation. Scheduling conflicts have always kept me from entering, so this year I made a special effort to make it. We enter a team of Brad Baum, Doug Nishimura, Vicki Vojak, and myself in the 4-person open division (we're eligible for masters, but prefer to go against the top teams).

On the drive from St. Louis to Corydon, Indiana, I notice a really scary looking front in my rear-view mirror. Shortly after checking in at the race site, we are hit with a truly ferocious storm including large hail and winds high enough to knock down the Shell sign at the gas station we're taking shelter in. With a tornado watch in effect until midnight, the race organizers decide to scrap the 10PM prologue and tack it on the front of the race in the morning.

That gives us all night to mark our maps for the first part of the course and stew over routes. Most of it is pretty straightforward, but I am stuck with one decision that appears to be of some consequence. The race organizers announced that the high river levels from the rain all week, plus today's storm, have made an intended ford impassable and advise riding north to another bridge. I notice that there is a significantly shorter route that uses a jeep track. I have to assume that if the track was any good, they'd have told us to go that way, but it's so much shorter, it's tempting even if it's bad. We decide to sleep on it.

Right before the 6AM start, the race director announces that two state highways that we had planned on using are off limits for the bike section. I already have the maps sealed for the first paddle section, so I figure I'll work out the new route when we get there.

Eric leads the team into the third prologue control.

As usual, the field charges off at a ridiculous pace towards the first control. The prologue route is very simple navigation, so there isn't much merit in trying to get clear. We settle into an easy jog which quickly turns to a walk as we hit the first of many steep climbs. Aside from nearly getting run over at the first control by a support vehicle, the prologue goes without incident. We're a bit further back than usual, but confident that our pace is good. The sun rises near the end of the loop and we see that yesterday's gloom has been replaced by a bright spring sky.

We spend more time than we should at the transition to the first section of the main course. What should have been a "grab the packs and go" takes about 10 minutes. Definitely something we need to practice a bit more. Still, no real damage done and when we arrive by bike at the remote exchange half an hour later, we can see from small collection of bikes already there that we're in pretty good shape. After a quick shoe change, we're out on the first trekking section in a little pack consisting of us, Lab Rats, Bonk Hard Racing, and Citgo's "B" squad.

Eric and Doug at the exit of the woods.

The first two trekking controls are in the woods and I'd rather not be in a pack. After a few minutes, the dilemma is solved as we have to stop to fix a plugged drinking hose on Vicki's pack. On our own, we manage to pass Citgo and pop out of the woods just in front of Bonk Hard Racing and the Lab Rats.

The rules specify staying on roads for the remainder of the trek. We jog a bit pulling slightly ahead of Bonk Hard while the Lab Rats drop back. Near the end, Bonk Hard cuts a corner (saving maybe 30 seconds) to catch back up and we don't miss the opportunity to heap abuse on them. Having sufficiently called their family honor into question, we grab our boats for the paddle leg, take them to the put-in, and then have a quick bite to eat while Bonk Hard has to watch and wait for us to get out of the way. That'll teach 'em.

At the BillyPig, I asked Dave Kauffman if there would be any whitewater paddling in the race. I was concerned because my skills are marginal and Brad has almost no experience with it at all. He laughed and said there wasn't much of that in Indiana. Well, there is the day after a big thunderstorm. The river we're on is now running Class I-II. Nothing particularly dangerous, but plenty of opportunities to roll the boats. After giving Brad the sum total of my wisdom on negotiating rapids ("stay near the middle and paddle really hard") we push off.

Doug is in the front of my boat, blissfully unaware of how under qualified his pilot is. Vicki makes the mistake of asking Brad about his experience and he's smart enough to lie to her. The boats are the same Mad River recreational models we used at Nationals in 2004. When we rather solidly hit a submerged log in one of the rapids I remember how easily a similar impact rolled us in that race. We stay upright this time.

Brad has his own adventure as he leads into one of the rapids and waits too long to commit to his line. He ends up ramming head on into an island. Convinced they're done for, he and Vicki quickly make sure that their packs are securely fastened to the boat before backing out. They end up going down the chute backwards, but stay upright.

Blue lips at the transition.

Between the snack break and the mishap with the island, we're only 19^th fastest through the paddle (by far our worst split of the race), but the times are all pretty close; we only drop 13 minutes to the fastest team and don't lose any places. At the exchange (the same spot we dropped our bikes earlier) we're all very cold, so we try to not to dawdle. Vicki, in particular, looks like she could go hypothermic at any moment. In an odd blessing, the prohibition against using the state highway means we have a pretty stiff climb right out of the transition, and that gets everybody warmed up again.

We settle into the longest section of the race; a long bike ride on roads. The navigation is trivial, so it's really just a test of horsepower versus a steady wind and a LOT of hills. Some of the hills are really steep. Did I mention there were a lot of them? We don't spend much time in the valleys, so when we're not climbing, we're getting blasted by the steady wind, which was quite steady except that it seemed to change direction every time we did so we were always riding into it. Mountain bikes are clearly the wrong tool for this job, but everybody has to use them, so we soldier on.

The riding wasn't technical, but at least it was pretty.

After a while we hook up with the Lab Rats again. We ride together for a few controls but then split on a route choice leg. Our route was a bit longer, but had significantly less climb, so I'm pretty sure we gain on the split. Soon after that comes the big decision we stewed about last night. We all agree that we're not exactly cruising through the field, so if we're going to move up, we need to take some chances. We cross the bridge and head to the jeep track.

I suppose you could get a Jeep Wranger through there, but Kate's Grand Cherokee certainly wouldn't fit. It's closer to what one would think of as singletrack. Without the rain, the route would have been great. As it is, we have no traction and have to walk the big climb and a good portion of the top section as well. Still, it is much shorter, so I'm thinking that we probably haven't lost much. We get to the next control, which is manned, and get a suspicious look for approaching from the south. Nobody asks for an explanation. We take a couple minutes to eat and then a few more to fix my light, which has come loose on my handlebars. As we're heading out we see the Lab Rats coming in, still a good five minutes behind us. Looks like the jeep thing paid off after all.

By the time we get back to the main TA, Vicki is getting a bit fried. She apologizes, but really, who could have expected anything else when she's riding with three male bike racers? We've only been given points through this section, so I don't know how much racing is left. Doug returns from HQ with a new set of points (they quizzed him on the forbidden ford, but accepted his explanation of the jeep road). We plot them quickly and realize that we have a good chance of getting the second paddle done during the day. Vicki doesn't want to mess with that river at night anymore than the rest of us, so she puts on a brave face and says she'll do what it takes to trek back to where we left the boats in 90 minutes.

We actually do it in 89. The staff at the transition doesn't seem to feel we're in any danger of losing daylight because they don't make us put our glow sticks on the boat. Leaving the transition as we get in is AGS/Infiterra. They're looking a bit haggard but they scoot on down the river at a good clip. Perhaps the water has receded, or maybe this section of river drops less, but the rapids on the second paddle are much easier to negotiate than the first. The main challenge is seeing anything since much of the time we're paddling directly into the setting sun. We get to the takeout with a much more respectable 6^th fastest paddle; only four minutes behind the best split. We're told that AGS is about five minutes ahead. We then have to haul all our gear back to the main TA, which isn't far but is on the far side of a pretty substantial ridge.

Happy to be back in camp with some daylight remaining, we take a bit of time to refuel and change into dry shoes and socks. Doug comes back from HQ with the last set of points - already plotted on an "orienteering" map (actually just part of the USGS quad with a few extra trails drawn in). "This is it?" I ask. "That's it," he responds. It sure doesn't look like much and we'll be able to get some of it prior to turning on our lights. I stuff Vicki's gear in my pack so she can move quicker and we head out.

We get to the first of six controls without lights, but have to turn them on heading to the next. At that control we catch AGS. The next control is a depression at the top of a ridge; the most technical of the bunch (they're all pretty easy, but at least this one's a point feature). We pick up the pace a bit to get some separation and AGS doesn't make any attempt to match us. We spike the control and are off down the other side of the ridge, before they arrive.

The next two are also taken at a reasonable pace with no errors. The route to the final control involves taking a trail along the ridge top for a few kilometers and then dropping down into a reentrant. It appears to be pretty easy. Unfortunately, I'm getting a bit fuzzy and lose track of how far we've gone on the trail. The trail makes a few bends that aren't mapped right (we were warned not to trust the trail mapping) and I decide we'd better get off the trail and navigate by contour features. Everything seems right until we get to the stream junction where the control should be. It's not there and the streams don't seem to be at the right angle either. I looks like we're one reentrant system off, but it's a pretty big miss in distance. I don't want to correct by that much without being reasonably sure of our position, so we spend some time finding some features to confirm or location. Having done that, we find the control without difficulty. We finish at just after 11PM.

I have a terrible feeling that we let AGS back ahead of us, and that feeling gets a whole lot worse when we finish and are told we're in fourth. If a boom on the final control cost us a podium place, I'll never live it down. Turns out that wasn't the case and even a clean run would not likely have caught Citgo's A team, who finished half an hour ahead of us. Turns out it really wasn't such a bad section. The only teams with better times had a lot more daylight to work with and we smoked everybody behind us except for Albatross (only seven minutes slower and completely in the dark). Still, I usually like to think of night nav as our turn to do some damage, so gaining just one spot was the sole disappointment of the race.

At the top of the 4-person leader board were the two other powerhouses from Missouri, Dynamic Earth and ThoughProcess. Looks like we'll have our hands full just being one of the better Missouri teams this year. It's great to see the local competition getting so good. That should make us all stronger for nationals.

If it isn't already obvious from the preceding report, I'll state in no ambiguous terms that this race gets the Carol's Team Seal of Approval for not being screwed up. Everything was in the right spot, the directions were clear and free of stupid gimmicks, the race staff was outstanding, and the course (while a bit heavy on the pavement to woods ratio) was challenging and fun. This one has earned a permanent spot on our calendar.