A few months ago Ryan Atkins and decided we were going to sign up for the Snowshoe Raid at Blue Mountain. It was roughly a 2.5hr cross country snowshoe orienteering race. You had a 3hr time limit to attack as many checkpoints as you possibly can. I believe that it was their 5th or 6th year running the event and it was something that I have wanted to do for the past few years. Given the lack of snow situation I was only fortunate to be on snowshoes for a grand total of 4hrs leading up to the event... I am currently not on any specific training program and I am just fitting in what training I can manage here and there. I know Ryan and I work and race very well together and with some residual fitness from last the fall I was sure we would be one of the top teams to finish. We both had a brand new pair of shiny Atlas racing snowshoes for the event courtesy of Muskoka Outfitters in Bracebridge to help us through the roughly 20km course.
After being bused to the starting point,strapping the snowshoes on and making some finishing touches, we were off at just after 11am. From what I had heard there were 117 teams competing in the event! Some of the teams were more serious then others and would be going after most or all of the checkpoints, while some of the teams including a few family's and youths were after as many checkpoints as they thought they could collect while still making the 3hr time limit. It was really cool to see some little kids lined up with their parents partaking in the event. I had hoped that the way Ryan and I laid out the course would be the fastest and easiest way through the rugged Niagara Escarpment terrain. We did the course in a mostly clockwise fashion, which was a bit different then some of the other teams had in mind. 30 min into the event there were snowshoe tracks in every direction! Every team had their own path laid out and with it being a orienteering race you had to be savvy with your maps and compass. We hit almost all the 24 checkpoints precisely, all except 3 of them. We messed up a few of the checkpoints and probably lost only 7 or 8 mins in total as once we realized we were off course we were quick to get back on track. Because allot of the top teams took their own planned route we were racing people that we couldn't see, which can be quite nerve racking as you have no idea how you are doing in the race.
We came into the last section of the course before the finish line at the base of Blue Mountain and nailed the last 5 checkpoints! We crossed the finish line to be greeted and congratulated by the race organizer and race volunteers. We had been beaten by one team. Nick Duca and his teammate bested us yet again by only 10-20secs (unofficial just what I had been told). We had been racing these two guys for almost three hours and didn't see them the entire race! How cool is that!
It was a stellar event and I would recommend the snowshoe raid to anyone who would be keen to try their map and compass skills navigating through some of the most beautiful terrain that southern Ontario has to offer.
