Thursday, September 20, 2007

Gold Nugget Adventure Race

The 2007 Gold Nugget Adventure Race is scheduled for October 6th in Uwharrie National Forest, near Troy, NC. Mike heard about the race because it has ties to the Charlotte Orienteering Klub where Mike has done a lot of orienteering. Mike, Adam, Tim and I are registered for the race as of Tues. You can see our team on the homepage under "Teams". Tim is another Aerial Robotics Club guy who is into mountain biking and also took over my previously held position of president of the Aerial Robotics Club at NC State. We are registered as "TEAM NORSA". NORSA was formed by Adam in the early days of his adventuring and stand for "National Outdoor Recreational Society of America", want to join NORSA? contact Adam at amdomans@ncsu.edu he would love to hear from you. You may recall that the Pamlico Swirly Whirly bike ride was also a NORSA event and the Video was produced by NORSA as well.



The Gold Nugget Adventure Race has three duration levels (4hr, 8hr, and 12hr) and naturally we signed up for the longest one, the 12 hr "dirty dozen". You can register with between 2 and 4 people, coed or all male/female. Its not late to register!!! Here is what the race consists of as per the website, and this is pretty much all they tell you. You can see some "sneak peaks" of the course on the website but they are not very helpful. Some rocks, some water, some grass no kidding.

Dirty Dozen - 12hr

Mountain biking and pushing a bike - 4 hours

Paddling and portaging - 5 hours

Orienteering - 2 hours

Special challenges - 30 minutes

Asking yourself why you’re doing this - 30 minutes

The course and distances are not revealed until the start of the race. There Will be portages and you Will be canoing WITH your bikes in the canoe with you...interesting. The site mentions that you may want to have some kind of float for your bike in case you flip your boat. It also suggests bringing rolly wheels for the boats. Perhaps some bike towing might be involved if there is a long portage. We really just will not know what to expect until the gun goes off. We are planning to rent 2 canoes from the school for the weekend to use in the race (12 bucks for a canoe for the weekend, what a deal)

First place is awarded a half refund of their entry fee as well as 50% off registration on their next "Bushwack Adventure Race". It's not too late to sign up and remember there are 4hr and 8hr courses as well. Fun fun fun.
(http://gnar07.wordpress.com/), registration on the right side link bar.

Another great trip in the making.

Views of the course "sneak peak: