By Mary Foster, Adventure Enablers Race Team

Almost Heaven Adventure Race

Location: Canaan Valley, WV

Task: Complete 24 hours trekking, biking, paddling

Goal: To not get hypothermia

Team: Mary Foster (Nav), Eric Goetz (Captain), Brent Russell (Punch Monkey), Maria Eckrich (Mood Booster)

 While Brent and I typically race together, this would be the first team we have raced with Eric and Maria. Eric and Maria completed and podiumed together with other Adventure Enabler teammates at Shenandoah Epic 24 hour earlier this year.

Canaan Valley is a bathtub-shaped, upland valley with extensive wetlands and plants that have adapted to chilly, wet areas. I probably should have Wikipedia-ed that before testing my adaptability in an October race.

Race day started like any other, except later than most due to a kind RD who also likes to sleep in. We had about 3 hours with maps before the race kicked off at 10am with slightly windy conditions and 43 degrees. The prologue split up teams to get tokens at 3 CP locations before heading out on the course.

Leg 1 “Moist”

Fairly start forward trek section with trails, gravel roads and pavement with a little bushwhack to 5 mandatory CPs. We occupied our time on this section coming up with various terms for the moist, sludgy environment our feet were quickly becoming accustomed to. Those terms should probably not be repeated for print, I’ll let you use your imagination….

Leg 2 “Swamped”

With the high for the day barely reaching 50 degrees and an overcast sky, the paddle could have been a make-or-break leg for me if I got too wet and cold. Fortunately, my drysuit turned out to be a major part of me completing the race.

We knew going into this 23km leg that it may be slower than typical due to the water level. We left the TA with the waterproof speaker jamming some Temptations “My Girl,” eager to get the stage over with. It didn’t take Brent and I long to realize Eric is a river reading guru, and we tried our best to follow in his boat path. But within the first hour of being on the water, Brent and I hit a smaller rapid the wrong way and got stuck sideways on a rock.

With the boat starting to fill with water, we immediately started to remedy the situation. We were able to upright the boat, but it was almost completely filled with water. Only about 2” inches remained between the water level in the boat and the top edge. As we got the boat upright, the swift water swept me off my feet. I was wedged between the boat and the rocks in the rapid. (Did I mention how much I love a drysuit. If you don’t own one, get one.)

After a few agonizing minutes, I was successfully able to maneuver myself to a standing position while Brent held the boat. (Side note, this was a shallow rapid. Please never try to stand in rapids because of foot entrapment risks.)

We briefly considered our options with the knowledge that any more water in the boat would surely sink it in the deep pool below the rapids. Brent tried to move the canoe further out of the rapid but quickly found himself in water up to his chest. I suggested trying to get it over to the shore to our left and found myself also chest deep within minutes.

We made it to shore without taking on any more water and we were able to salvage the rest of the paddle. Thankfully, besides some hike-a-boat, the rest of the paddle was uneventful. We punched the 3 mandatory CPs while paddling to the various melodies pouring out of the speaker.

Leg 3 “Snow?”

 After a mini TA singing and dance party to warm up, we quickly got dry clothes on and headed off on bikes for a 44km pavement and gravel road ride. This section was also fairly straightforward with 2 mandatory CPs along the way. We completed a long climb to the top of a ridge to get the second CP only to be greeted by snow flurries! Fortunately, we quickly dropped off the mountain to “warmer” temperatures.

 Leg 4 “Rhodo Gauntlet”

 This was coined the “queen’s stage” of the race; teams could bike and trek to optional CPs spread along a linear route. In our map planning, our goal was to try and get 9 or 10 here.

 Oh! our eager pre-race minds and how they play tricks on us. We quickly adjusted to getting 4 based on time. We also chose not to get some of the close CPs across the creek to avoid soaking our feet since we had all changed shoes before biking.

We nabbed the first 2 CPs and opted to continue riding out to CPs 4-06 and 4-07. The trail conditions deteriorated the further out we got, so we decided to drop bikes and continue on foot. Upon reaching the reentrant to CP 4-07, we confidently headed up, thinking it would be a brief out-and-back. Oh! how wrong we were.

 The stream running down the reentrant flowed over multiple cascades, so we found ourselves in the Rhododendron gauntlet. Thick, over-the-head height Rhodo, combined with tons of downed trees and steep hillsides, made for a longer than we wanted journey to the CP. When we finally got back to the trail, we had a brief conversation about still getting cp 4-06 knowing it was going to be steep and now with the knowledge there could be unavoidable thick Rhodo to get through.

We decided on a let’s wait and see when we get to that spot on the trail. Within a few minutes of the hike back towards CP 6 and the TA, we came across another team that informed us they had tried it and not found it along with another team who also bailed. Straight to TA it is then!

Once in TA, we were asked by volunteers if we would be okay with a racer from another team joining us. Angela was the remaining member of a 3 person co-ed team. She wanted to carry on but was afraid of slowing us down. We were happy to include her in our group and carried on as a party of 5 for the duration. She was a great addition to the team, and I’m pretty sure we slowed her down!

Leg 5 “Ford”

After a quick transition back at TA (including Eric finally changing into dry shoes), we started the steep climb out of the TA. All CPs on this leg were optional, but heading to CP 5-01 was the most logical to get to where we needed to go. After a fast downhill ride, we found ourselves at the river.

Now here’s where yours truly should have paid more attention to alert her fellow teammates to the approaching situation. As we stood staring dumbfounded at the river, groaning at the thought of having to cross it, I realized it says in fairly big letters FORD on the map right where we stood. The other thing I’d like to point out is the clue for the CP was island/ford and I had written this in black sharpie on the map next to the CP location.

One would think I would have been properly prepared for this situation. At this point, I was also realizing why on the ride to the TA we just left, I never saw the “road and bridge” I was looking for to see where we would be coming out of later on. Again, some no-fit-for-print words were exchanged before hoisting our bikes on our shoulders for the thigh deep river crossing at 2:15 in the morning.

Luckily, we had an extended climb to get back up to the top of the mountain to warm us up, grabbing another CP along the way. Once at the top, we had to take a black diamond mountain bike trail off the mountain to drop down to TA 4. We knew there was going to be very little riding, which became even more apparent the further we progressed. The trail was a mix of rocks, roots, and ankle deep sludge. We opted to grab one CP that was close by on our way down. We also attempted to grab a second one but between the thick wall of Rhodo and the quickly passing time, we bailed on it. At this point we knew we would have to check into the TA and promptly check back out to make it to the finish in time.

Leg 6 “Non-existent”

We reached TA at 6:45am and stayed for 15 mins warming up after a short fast road decent. The TA jams and quick dance party helped boost morale and ready us for what was to come.

Leg 7 “Again”

Leaving TA at 7am we felt a little time pressure. We had to back track on the pavement to the 4K black diamond trail we just came down and hike our bikes back up.

Maria asked me “do you think we will make it back on time?”

I said, “I’m slightly concerned.”

She proceeded to ride like a bolt of lightning up the hill yelling “I will help do whatever it takes to get us back on time!” That’s exactly what you need in a teammate in that type of situation. Luckily the hike-a-bike back up went much quicker than anticipated, and we were back on top in no time. We just had to make it down the gravel road to another single-track section that would drop us at the finish.

We made the finish with 28 minutes left on the clock and opted to not go out on the last trek. I’m pretty sure I told Brent to punch the finish without giving a single thought to the trek.

To our surprise, we got 3rd place in the 3/4 co-ed team division. With the level of competition, we were not expecting a podium finish. But, like with any other adventure race, you just never know what’s going to happen.

I personally went into this race battling some nagging physical issues and was letting them and the cold get into my head more than I would like. I cannot thank my team enough for the support they provided even when they didn’t know they were providing what I needed. A massive THANK YOU to Mike, Travis, and our very own team boss, Mark Harris for putting this course together.

Adventure Enablers continues to provide amazing events with high quality tracking so friends and family can watch from their warm houses.