- by Bill Trapman
From 5-star hotel to minus 5-star tent
31 March 2003: If Sunday, and the first day of the Land Rover G4 Challenge on Broadway was all show, Monday’s activities brought the 16 competitors in the world’s newest and most taxing adventure challenge down to earth with a bump.
“We’ve gone from five star hotel to five star tent and from the glitz of 5th Avenue to minus 5 degree temperatures in the space of … well about 5 hours,” chuckled South Africa’s Chester Foster. “But, hey, anyone can rough it in a hotel!”
In spectacular convoy, with whooping sirens and flashing lights from a squad of NYPD patrol cars, the 49-strong convoy of Land Rover Freelanders and their Discovery, Defender and Range Rover support vehicles were led from Manhattan, over the Hudson River and north into the Catskill Mountains of New York State for the first remote section of Stage One.
“This has been one of the hardest winters on record up here,” said Event Director, Nick Horne. “Yet last week the temperatures were up in the seventies. But typically, come the start of this Challenge, we get snow. Fantastic.”
Half a foot of crisp white powdery snow coated the aptly named Frost Valley camp site as the teams arrived late in the evening, tired and in a state of culture shock.
“Just working out where the tents are and how to work our volcano kettle is a test on the first night, in the dark and in freezing temperatures,” said Italy’s Alberta Chiappa, one of two women in the event. “I am glad I brought my thermals.”
Dawn rose shortly after five on Monday, a cloudless sky lighting up the snowscape in spring sunshine. By six o’clock, the campsite resounded with the noises of this army of adventurers awaking from its slumber. The air filled with the smell of coffee, boil-in-the-bag breakfasts and coughs and splutters of bodies bursting into life.
This will be the routine of this event for the next month, regardless of destination or time zone. On the beaches of Western Australia or in the canyons of Utah, seven o’clock is the deadline when camp must be stowed and the teams ready for action.
“Welcome to the Strategy Pit,” bellowed Nick Horne, welcoming the teams to the daily moment of truth and decision. The Land Rover G4 Challenge is as much strategy as speed, strength and stamina. Each day, eight pairs of competitors must decide, in The Strategy Pit, in which order they will complete up to six ‘Hunters’ or physical tasks between one night’s campsite and the next.
Finishing each Hunter fast wins points but accurately predicting whether they will be first, third, sixth…or whatever number team to complete the Hunter wins far more points….20 for being completely accurate and 10 for being one place out. Fastest is not always best, and strategic thinking is key to success on this Challenge.
“We have targeted the Hunter we want to start at first, then the ones we will reach last, if at all. The rest we have predicted we will complete in third or fourth spot, so we should be about right,” explains Ireland’s Paul McCarthy (above), who, with Tim Pickering formed the second team to leave the ‘Strat Pit’ behind Jim Kuhn of Canada and fighter pilot, Rudi Thoelen, of Belgium.
These pairings battled it out yesterday on the iconic streets of New York, but now the battlefield is the snowy Catskill Mountains and an awesome selection of tests, from running and snowshoeing, to mountain biking, climbing icy river beds and kayaking the barely-thawed waters of the mighty Hudson’s raging tributaries.
Navigation proved to be a major stumbling block for many of the teams. Pickering and McCarthy instantly made a wrong turn from Frost Valley, to get to their nominated first Hunter – running and showshoeing on the Sprucetown Trail. McCarthy, navigating, cursed under his breath at his mistake. Pickering might have raised an eyebrow, but these relationships are new, fragile and not yet fiery enough to warrant a tirade of temper. The moment passed with no incident.
In the Freelander of American Marine Nancy Olson and Russia’s Sergey Polyansky, there too were teething troubles. Sergey had trouble concentrating on the road and so Nancy took over driving. But when Sergey tried to rely on his satellite-tracking GPS navigator, without the backup of a local map, they also got disorientated.
Unlike the Anglo/Irish pair, Nancy and Sergey opted to wait and see what the rest of the teams had chosen as a strategy. Last out of the camp they were initially relaxed.
“We decided to take it easy, but maybe it was a little too easy,” said Nancy. Their relaxed attitude cost them an opportunity to usurp Chris Perry and Franck Salgues, representing Arabia and France respectively, from their predicted fourth place finishing position on the mountain biking Hunter at Bonticou.
With eight pairs criss-crossing almost two hundred miles-worth of New York State, it was unusual to meet another team. But the sight of the opposition ramped up the rivalry.
“It is one thing competing against the clock and against other people’s mind games but when you see them, that gets things hotted up,” said Guy Andrews from Australia.
Another twist to this game of chess – played out in cars, on foot, on bikes and in kayaks - is that no results were revealed tonight. Instead, Monday’s Hunters will be added to six more on Tuesday and again on Wednesday before the end of Stage results are announced on Thursday, prior to the teams jetting off to warmer climes in South Africa.
“You make a mistake and you can’t dwell on it…you have to keep going because the odds are good that next time someone else will make a mistake and then it’s game on,” said Chester Foster, victim of one of the day’s harshest problems. He and Guy Andrews got a GPS co-ordinate wrong by one crucial degree. That sent them on a wild goose chase over a mountain rather than on a short cut down a river bed, ironically near a town called Hunter.
History has already been made in this part of America. The town of Troy lays claim to creating Uncle Sam. And Saratoga was the scene of one of the Americans first major victories for the Americans in the War of Independence. This week, history of a different kind is being made in New England.
©2003 irishcar.com