The North Face Adventure Trophy 2006 - Team Snowcard.co.uk

		Trekking through the Tatras Zakopane, gateway town to the High Tatra mountains in Southern Poland. April 29th, 09:55 and over 220 competitors wait nervously in the town park to start the 2006 North Face Adventure Trophy. I had persuaded my work colleague Hamish to enter at fairly short notice. He had experience of a few ACE races, but we had only raced once together in an informal mountain marathon organised by a few friends, 3 years ago. This would be something quite different. Entry fees were only £45 each but of course it would take another £200 apiece to transport our bikes and equipment to and from the race. An incident just before our departure cancelled all trains to the airport, followed by an airline that initially denied all knowledge of a bike booking. But then it's always said that getting to the start line is the hardest part.
There are two categories: Masters: 350km continuous race for mixed teams of 4 and Amateur: 230km for pairs planned to have timeouts between the stages. The two courses are similar with the Masters branching off for extra sections and the Amateur class being held back at transitions to keep the two classes roughly together and allow them to see the Masters teams in action. 10am comes and we are finally off around the 5km town orienteering course at a pace that doesn't betray that these competitors are in 200-300 km races. However this pace doesn't last long as the next stage is a 30 km mountain trek starting with a brisk 1000m climb to the first checkpoint (CP) on the border ridge.

We are pleased to have a few teams and pairs in front of us consolidating the soft, wet snow into good steps to plod upwards into the cloud. Not unlike UK winter conditions. With this stage being mostly within the National Park the route between CPs is fixed for everyone but for nearly the whole of the rest of the course we will have free route choice between CPs. The next leg begins with a tricky 3 km traverse of the border ridge to our high point just below 2000m. The gaps in the cloud give hints that as we are forced around sections of the ridge we are traversing exposed slopes but we focus on the glimpses of teams on the ridge ahead rather than what lies below. At the summit we join the few skiers that are out today for a quick descent. My standing glissade soon becomes a sitting one, but we both arrive at the bottom in one piece to continue to the mountain hut that is the checkpoint. We arrive 7th of the 57 pairs starting. Here the Masters route splits over another high ridge for which they are carrying crampons and we follow a path through the forest to join their route further on.

Navigation through the forest is tricky and we lose the trail several times. The softer conditions are tiring as well. Although we make use of our snowshoes, progress is not much faster and does not justify carrying them this far. We break away after the next control as we head back to Zakopane and stop ourselves just in time before heading down the wrong trail. A marshal tells us the final CP is cancelled due to the slow conditions and we head direct back to the campsite transition. 7 hours 22 for the first 2 stages, 9th place and an enforced stop.

Don't forget to cycle on the right

A basic meal is provided here which is available to the Masters teams as well, although the leaders won't come through for another 2 hours. By the time we restart, half the Masters teams will have caught us up and nearly all the pairs will be down from the mountains. In the meantime, a high ropes course has been set up through the trees of the campsite for the Amateur course once it's dark. It's not clear if this is a timed activity although the way some people tackle it we assume it must be. We take it steady and
enjoy - it's an excellent media opportunity and it revitalises everyone for the night MTB stage. We manage some more food and a half hour sleep, happily hanging back from the mass restart (ok, so we overslept really...) Despite the tardy start, our brains are awake and we slowly move up the field. There is thick fog in places and although the majority of the early CPs are on small asphalt roads with a lot of descent as we head North away from the Tatras, we are alarmed at the speed one team pass us descending a rocky
track and disappear into the fog ahead. We can only assume they are local and know the track. I am relieved to see that I am managing to remember to keep to the right unlike the day before the race though...

Towards the end there is a killer ascent pushing bikes up through wet and muddy forest tracks with occasional patches of snow and trees and branches across the track and demanding navigation. It seems to go on for ever and we don't see that many people. The reward is a steep, sometimes rocky descent which even I manage to mostly ride to bring us to a quarry stage where I climb and Hamish tyrolean traverses between the walls as daylight comes and we continue to the lakeside transition. We are surprised to learn that somewhere in the night we have passed a lot of teams and are 4th to complete the stage.

Maybe sit on tops arn't so bad...

We have 10 minutes to prepare before the clock starts on the kayak stage so we continue straight through. The kayaks are two person fibreglass boats which could be fairly quick. Unfortunately the paddles have a very large blade area, the shafts are about half a metre too long and the blades are not feathered (i.e. no hand twist in the stroke). I curse not bringing our own paddles on the basis that it was 'only' a 20km paddle. What was promising to be a welcome change of activity becomes an agonising proposition. For the
first couple of kilometres we only manage to paddle alternatively taking rests in between but we manage to settle into a better rhythm after this. The marshals at every checkpoint, who are mostly scouts, are all very jolly and come to the waters edge to save us getting out. There is another meal provided after the kayaking, time for a relaxed transition and another half hour sleep before once again, just missing the mass midday start for the 15 teams managing to stay ahead of the clock.

Meanwhile on the Masters course, two polish teams Salomon Adventure Team and Speleo Salomon were neck and neck with the Czech Salomon Nutrend, all finishing their 30 km kayaking just before we started out on the second hike with 16 of the 26 masters teams still on the course at this stage. They however have a rollerblade section before starting the trek.

To our own surprise we manage a slow jog along the flat tracks around the lakes for the first 5 km of the 40 km stage before ascending a popular tourist path along a wooded ridge and descend to the Dunajec river having overtaken most pairs enroute. The crossing here is by two long tyrolean traverses via a small island in the middle of the river. Suddenly I have no strength left at all. Hamish speeds past on the adjacent ropes and I
struggle on, often only moving a couple of metres before having to rest. The far bank is a busy road lined with people watching and encouraging (or at least shouting a lot in Polish!) We continue through a town full of Sunday afternoon tourists which feels pretty bizarre before heading up into the forest again for a cross country route to a summit where the marshal appears to be only just putting the control into position. The map itself had been specially prepared for the event with a section for each stage and
overprinted with both the Amateur and Masters courses and CP cut-off times. For the next checkpoint we have great trouble deciding between the up and over verses long valley route. We go up and over but lose the path in descent and drop an hour and several places on our rivals arriving at the next river crossing in the dark.

The good news and the bad

Here we are told there is a problem with the ropes and we are unable to cross. We have to navigate via bridges. We double check that the rest of the course is still valid. Yes, continue. It takes an hour to fight a way to our small bridge to the North. Soon after I have to have a short nap as I'm falling asleep on my feet before we continue the ascent. The CP is a small knoll requiring intricate navigation. We have to explore several tracks to
convince ourselves that we are at the correct place and join a Russian pair to criss-cross the block of forest searching for our small knoll. Finally in the middle of a dense bunch of trees we stumble on the marshal and wake him up. It has taken 6 hours and is now 3am. The marshal tells us that we shouldn't be here - the control has been removed from the
course! It's a hard control to find so he did have a fire going until he was told no one was coming... We should now make our way back to transition.

The later part of this hike is on roads and the sleepmonsters kick in, the best of which are some exquisite, intricately carved statues that turn into a pile of rubble by the side of the road as I attempt to touch them. We take another nap for fear of wandering asleep along the roads into morning traffic. Eleven and a half hours after the clocks stopped at the second river crossing, we walk into transition to find it a busy place and looking
forward to another provided meal.

It turns out had we taken the larger southern bridge across the river, we would have been met by a marshal, informed of the course change, been BUSSED to transition and had a night's sleep!!!! But there was "good" news. Because the timing stopped at the river, we were still only 3 hours behind the leaders. We were told they started the final MTB stage at 6am, which meant we still had 20 minutes spare before we could start after them as a chasing start. We both had to sit down at this news. It took some time to absorb everything and get into action. Almost 48 hours since race start we had accumulated about 3 hours sleep and the thought of having missed out on a night's sleep wasn't a good one!

Once out on the bikes it was a warm sunny morning and a fast 55km stage with some great downhill farm tracks thrown into the gradual overall climb back to Zakopane with views to the Tatras beyond before a final hairy descent into Zakopane amongst the Bank Holiday traffic.

Pleased with 6th place

We held onto 6th place overall behind 5 Polish pairs and by then could reflect positively on having probably covered more of the original course and been going longer than most
other pairs making it into much more of a continuous race for us.

The Masters race podium positions were also taken by Polish teams later that evening, Speleo Salomon in 58:00, Salomon Adventure Team and Poldim Salomon Navigator, pushing the Czech Salomon-Nutrend into 4th place.

Course changes aside, the event was well organised and everyone was both helpful and friendly, including arranging airport transfers for us. English information before the event was sometimes confusing but I liked the idea of timeouts and meals at transition. This is probably reflected in 34 pairs completing the course and only two pairs dropping out in the last two stages.

Race Director, Roman is passionate about his courses and is already planning next year's event close to Zakopane with more trekking in the Tatras to try and tempt the foreign teams. It would be good to give the locals some competition.

Race Results

Sleepmonsters Race Report

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Current Training

Cambridge Adventure Race Group

2007
Bimbache Extrem, Spain

2006
The Full Monty
Bergson Winter Challenge
Spring Polaris Challenge
North Face Adventure Trophy Wilderness ARC
2-day ACE Race Lakes
Open 24 Yorkshire Dales
2-day ACE Race Wales
Nev-Dama Czech Race
2-day ACE Galloway
Autumn Polaris Challenge
Dynamic, South Downs
Rodings Rally

2005
Dynamic, North Downs
Karrimor (KIMM)
Open 5, N Pennines
2-day ACE Race Exmoor
Wilderness ARC, Scotland
Open 24, Lake District
Hebridean Challenge
2-day ACE Race, Lake District
Open 5, South Lakes
1-day ACE Race, Ashdown
2-day ACE Race, Wales
Spring Polaris Challenge
Open 5, Swaledale

2004
Karrimor (KIMM)

2003
Karrimor (KIMM)
Mountain Navigation Challange
Lowe Alpine MM
Wicklow Rogaine

2002
Scottish Island Peaks Race
Karrimor (KIMM)

2001
Open Country MM
Karrimor (KIMM)