Raid the Rock AR 2001

We were looking to run one more race before the end of the year and found a good one in Little Rock; a 3-person 50-mile urban adventure race with 20 miles of mountain biking, 15 miles of paddling in a canoe, and 15 miles of trail running. Jon, Kristin, and Zach would do the race and Cathy and Di would support.

 After finding some cheap flights to Memphis, arranging a hotel, a mini-van, and bike rentals we were set to go. Not quite. We had never raced in a canoe or even paddle together in one, so, the two weekends before the race we spent several hours paddling around Stone Mountain Park Lake. After some practice, it was obvious that paddling was not going to be our strong event.

The day before the race we went to team check-in at the River Market and found we were team #13. Not a problem.


Apparently the local people were impressed that we came all the way from Atlanta to participate in their race benefiting the Arthritis Foundation and arranged a television interview with us. At the start of the interview, the reporter asked the race director, Greg Eason of Team Traveler, one of America's premier adventure racing teams and two time national champions, some questions about the race. Then he said, "And here's Zach Doppel and his team from Atlanta. Oh my gosh, a tornado's coming." The sirens sounded and that was the end of the interview. We never saw the tornado or completed the interview. Our 15 seconds of fame was blown away.

After the pre-race briefing we returned to our hotel and carefully plotting the UTM coordinates on our maps, which gave us the route the course would follow. We did not have the home town advantage most teams did.


The race started at five the next morning, so we were up pretty early to get to the start with all our equipment. The bike leg was first. It was mostly in the dark and took us about two and a half hours to complete. There was a check point on top of a parking deck, some single-track trail riding in the dark, a long, long steep hill up and a muddy steep hill down. The hardest part though was adjusting to the borrowed bikes especially the disc brakes.


We quickly transitioned to the hike/paddle leg which started off with a trail run that transitioned into a climb up Pinnacle Mountain. The mountain is very steep and rocky and looks out of place geologically. It was a tough but fun climb as we scrambled up and over large boulders to reach the top. Once we hit the checkpoint at the top we ran down as fast as possible to get to start of the paddling section. We were in 10th place as we entered the water.


We were to paddle down Maumelle River which empties into the Arkansas River. The Maumelle River only looks like a river on a map. It's actually a swamp that's full of cypress and other trees and many hidden stumps. Shortly after we started paddling, we hit a rush of water that pushed us into the bank of the river. It was going to be a long paddle.

The worst part of the paddle was that it was difficult for us to determine where the river was going and eventually we went down a dead end. We realized it when we pulled up next to a railroad bridge that was supposed to be a car bridge. Examining the map, we determined that it was less than a half mile to the car bridge if we went overland and a lot farther if we paddled. So, we pulled the canoe out of the water and carried it along the railroad track to the highway and from the highway to the bridge and back into the water. There was a reporter from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette at the bridge. He took our photo, got our names, and a picture of us carrying the canoe down the highway was in Sunday's paper.


Finally, we arrived at the next check point having gone from 10th to 23rd place. This checkpoint was right where the Maumelle River flowed into the Arkansas River. There was one task to complete before moving on; climb the giant's ladder. It's a series of eight 4x4's suspended on two cables that swings freely. The 4x4's are about five feet apart. All we had to do was to climb to the top. Not easy. Zach was in the middle. He would climb up using Jon's quad as a support and then help Kristin and Jon up to the next level. The higher we climbed the bigger Kristin's eyes got. We made it handily though and returned to our canoe for the mile plus paddle across the very choppy Arkansas River to our next transition point where we finally got rid of the canoes after five hours.

Then there was only the 10 plus mile run to the finish with a couple stops along the way. One check point was at the top of a cliff in a quarry. As we were looking for a way up Zach and Kristin started to scale the cliff. Jon was saying something about dangerous, the team stuck on the ledge, and I don't think we should do that as Zach neared the top with Kristin shortly behind him. Jon then reluctantly followed. It turned out to be a great choice. The time we saved put us ahead of five other teams.

On the remainder of the run back we passed two more teams and went to our last checkpoint, the rappel. It was off the top of the old abandoned YMCA. Before we could rappel we had to find our way to the top of the empty building in the dark. Once we finished it was a sprint to the finish dodging cars on the streets. We passed one more team before reaching the finish line.

We finished in about 10 hours and 45 minutes, 14th place overall. Our mistake cost us a top five finish and was another lesson learned. It was a great race, great course, and great support. One of the best we ever participated in thanks to Greg and the Arthritis Foundation staff. We look forward to next year.