Southern Crush Adventure Race 2003

We had planned to do this race as a 3-person team with our new teammate Mike Vaughn, who, of course, is over 50. The closer race day came the more concerned Cathy became about Jenn having her baby during the race and not being there for the birth. I did not have such concerns thinking the baby would not come that weekend. As it turned out my guess was correct but we never know about these things, so it was best for Cathy to stay home. Also, she would not have been able to stay focused on the race wondering about Jenn and the baby. The night before the race she opted out and Mike and Zach became a 2-person team. Mike’s wife Tammy was our support person.

 The race was in the Pigeon Mt/LaFayette area of the northwest GA Mountains. There were almost 40 teams in the race spread among four categories: 4- person, 3-person, 2-person, and solo. The race was an overnighter approximately 60 miles long with lots of navigation required. It started at 6pm on Saturday. There was going to be two rappels and one ascent during the race. We spent a lot of time getting our climbing certifications and practicing and were looking forward to the climbing.


Instead of starting at the check-in area (Estelle Campground) we had to drive to a lake, the Lafayette City Reservoir, also know as “Snake Lake,” to start the race with the paddling section. We were using the kayak and were the only team with wheels. When the race started all the other teams traveled the quarter mile cross-country to the lake. We scurried down the road which was longer but allowed us to travel faster with the wheels. We arrived at the lake ahead of most teams. The paddling section was about five miles long with two checkpoints. Both checkpoints required boats to pass under roads through narrow culverts. There was major congestion with canoes and kayaks trying to go both ways through the narrow culverts.

After the paddling we transitioned to our bikes and had about a 15-mile ride on streets back to Estelle Campground where we had initially checked-in. We learned later, Estelle would also be the finish line. The ride has two tough hill climbs. On the second hill by far the toughest we passed six teams that were walking their bikes. Not bad for a couple guys over 50. Fortunately, once we reached the top of the hill it was mostly downhill to Estelle.


After a quick transition we went into our first, and what we didn’t know at the time our last, navigational trekking section. There was a midnight cutoff to the next Transition TP3. We left TP2 a little before 9pm with about 15 miles of navigation ahead of us. We wonder how we would ever make the cutoff. It took us almost two hours of hard uphill trekking and a little time searching to find CP5. It was almost 11pm and we had four more checkpoints to the midnight cutoff. We ran most of the way to CP4 and came upon it fairly quickly at about the same time as three other teams. Not wasting any time we took off on the run to the next checkpoint. We ran on the trails and knew we had to go down the side of the mountain to reach the CP. We consulted with two other teams in the area and all of us went down a very steep part of the mountain. We were sliding more than walking. We had to descend to 400 meters (using our altimeters). When we got to that altitude we found a trail but no checkpoint. We had teams looking everywhere in the area and couldn’t find it.

Since it was already after midnight we decided to continue on. After two miles of trekking toward CP8 we ran into an ATV we some safety people with a GPS. They had reports that CP7 had been moved and they were going to find it. We received instructions that the cutoff had bee extended to 2am and we should go back to CP7 to check-in. There were four teams traveling together at this time and one person from each team went back to check-in or so we thought. Zach basically ran back up the mountain to the area we were in before. When he arrived there were three other teams looking for the checkpoint in addition to the safety people and the other people who ran back with him. No one could find the checkpoint so Zach ran back down the two miles with Jenn from Team Flew the Coop, a team we had raced with before. We wasted over an hour on that and still had to get to CP8 and the transition. It was already past 2am, so we decided to skip CP8, head to the road and hit the transition with the intention of finishing even though we were probably disqualified.

When we arrived at the transition we found that all the teams except the first three couldn’t find CP7. Since only four teams made it to the transition by 2am, the cutoff was dropped, the course shortened to one more bike leg and a final trek, all the rope work was cancelled and any team that wanted to continue were encouraged to do so. After a short break we got on our bikes for the ride. The main problem was that we were at the bottom of the mountain and the checkpoint was on top of the mountain. We had practiced the ride up the mountain two weeks before and it was one of the hardest rides ever. After racing over nine hours it was going to be a lot tougher. It was, but we made good time and Tammy was waiting for us at the transition at the top of the mountain.


All we had left was a seven mile trek which required little navigation to the finish. The trails were pretty messy but it was mostly downhill and we ran most of the way arriving at the finish in less than two hours. We finished the race a little before 8am, 14 hours after we started. We finished 8th overall and 3rd in the 2-person team category. Pretty good for the 50-Somethings!