It’s high time I conclude this series of posts looking into the 2010 Untamed New England.  There’s tons of other stuff going on in the world of the Adventure Racing World Series and I need to make room for that material — Costa Rica, France, and the UK recently wrapped up their World Championship qualifying events, too.

You can pick up the previous items in this series via the previous post at http://www.adventureworldmagazineonline.com/adventure-racing/untamed-new-england-leg-4/.

Leg 4 of Untamed New England put teams in extreme northwest Maine, much closer to Canada than the race finish line at the Balsams Resort in New Hampshire.  Leg 5, therefore, would be the great connector from this remote Maine outpost to the Balsams ski lodge.

We considered several creative ways of handling this Leg 5, but ultimately settled on abike leg broken into two parts with a conservation project right in the middle.  Untamed Adventure races incorporate “green work projects” where racers complete hands-on tasks that give back to the community we’re racing through; previous projects in the 2010 Untamed New England included bog bridge building and trail marking (both during the Leg 1 paddle).

This final project would be clearing a new trail for the State of New Hampshire.  New Hampshire has a beautiful waterfall hidden a 1/2 mile deep in the wilderness, and our racers would help cut the new trail to the falls.  The trick for the racers, however, was that they would build the trail from the waterfall out to the road, instead of from the road in to the waterfall.  This meant racers had to get to the waterfall somehow, and we developed our “Team Waterfall Climb” activity to be a fun break for teams and a creative solution to getting teams to the falls to start their trail clearing.

The “Team Waterfall Climb” had all teammates roped together via their climbing harnesses (in the style of a glacier traverse), and we placed a set of orienteering flags along the cascades going all the way into the dramatic waterfall.  This was a beautiful location, cool water with the occasional o-flag sticking out of the bank of the river, and lots of verdant greenery.  Teams seemed to enjoy this climb (more a scramble up, over, and around the series of small falls), although this was yet another way for racers to get very wet and I know many who did this stretch in bike shoes spent a lot of time slipping and falling.

After the Waterfall Climb, teams had a short bike-and-tie section (which we also had to rework due to the Leg 4 course changes) before moving in to the final stretch of mountain biking to the finish line.
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