Outdoor News and Events
Team Hooked Races to Victory in NC
By Matt Schaltenbrand
Apr 7, 2005, 11:30

The winning team (l to r): Matt Schaltenbrand, Shannon Greenhill, and Chris Brown

The race started at 8 a.m. at the Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC) just outside of Bryson City, NC.  The conditions were ideal for racing, sunny and 70 degrees.  Teams gathered in the parking lot at 7:30 to prepare and wait for the maps to be handed out at 8. Our challenge was to locate a series of checkpoints as fast as possible over varied terrain. We chatted with the other teams, including team Ridgerunners (who had never lost this race) and team Litespeed, who was expected to be very fast and was racing for the win.  We heard rumors that the Ridgerunners would take off quickly as soon as they received their maps. They were locals and knew all the trails. Team Litespeed said they would take off after the Ridgerunners to stay with them, even if they didn't have the checkpoints marked on their maps yet.  We debated as to what to do when the maps were handed out--take the ten minutes to plot the checkpoints, or take off after Ridgerunners?

When the maps were handed out and the race began, we stayed and plotted all the points as rapidly as possible. We got on our bikes 10 minutes behind the Ridgerunners and Litespeed, both now at the front of the pack.

The race is designed to be finished in less than 8 hours. It starts with a 20-mile mountain bike ride up a winding road. This would soon turn into a trail after climbing over a pass. After that, it is mostly fast forest roads back to the Nantahala River, 8 miles up from our starting point.   

As we rode up to the paddle put-in, we caught sight of the lead teams. We had made up a good bit of time, but to our disappointment, we had missed a checkpoint on the fast downhill switchbacks coming down the “winding stairs” to the river. We quickly began to backtrack uphill to find the omitted checkpoint, hit it, then dashed back down to the paddle put-in.

By missing that checkpoint, we were now 26 minutes behind the leaders as we began our paddle. We were not willing to give up. We raced our raft down the Nantahala as fast as a raft can go. Lots of whitewater made for an exciting 8-mile trip down the beautiful river. It flew by in what felt like an hour. Coming out of the river, not much had changed. We were now 21 minutes off the lead.

We then entered the final leg of the race, a run/trek/bushwack. It began by snaking up paved roads that soon turned to trail. The trail faded away and the foliage got thick. After several navigational decisions, we found ourselves crawling under dense rhododendrons and scrambling uphill in creek beds looking for checkpoint 18. We found it in the creek, under the cover of heavy rhododendrons. We quickly began heading up the drainage and towards the pass above us to find checkpoint 19. From there, we ran down the other side of the mountain, collecting checkpoints 20 and 21. 

The bridge of death?

The final test of the race was to travel down a rushing creek bed back and return to the river below. We needed to record 7 letters that were hidden in the rocks in the creekbed. The only way to be sure to get all 7 was to stay in the creek. This proved slow and quite slippery, but we managed to get all 7 letters, which would be needed later to continue. As we arrived at the river, there were several rafts tied together to serve as a makeshift bridge. We crossed and headed for the finish. 

Somewhere, as we plodded through the thick rhododendrons, we had passed both Litespeed and Ridgerunners (much to our surprise). We ran to the finish and placed first. Victory was ours!

As always, the Nantahala Outdoor Center put on a great race. It is always a treat to race there. Big climbs, beautiful whitewater river, and thick terrain make for a highly adventurous course/  

Many thanks to Hooked on the Outdoors magazine for their continued support. Race on!  

-Matt Schaltenbrand

Team Hooked on the Outdoors