This years edition of the Endless Mountains Expedition Race route book opened with a quote from Bilbo Baggins “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. You step into the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” Oh what an adventure we had in front of us!

We made our way to North Adams for the start of the race, which all racers know is the most stressful part. Ensuring the gear is there, all in the correct spaces, teammates safe and sound, plans laid; once all of this is done the actual race is almost easy! We enjoyed a couple of pre-race meals at some local places, made one last Walmart run to snag the LAST gardening pad to use a canoe seat pad, and surrendered our gear to Jim.

Prologue + Stage A: Monday morning found us on a bus for about 2 hrs as we made our way north to Mount Defiance for the race start. The busses unloaded at the base of the mill and we made our way up, off the clock. Once assembled at the top, we got map 1 for the prologue and were sent on our way with 2 gun salute! Back down the mountain to a quick romp around the town that ended at the Paper and Pencil Restaurant where we got the rest of the maps and breakfast! There were 22 maps (x2) and we quickly sorted them and started to digest this enormous course! The paddle was straight forward but long, thankfully broken up with a couple of treks. Kristy took time to look at the next stage of biking while Karen worked on the big trek stage. We didn’t want to sit there for too long and work out the whole course but just enough to get us underway. 

Plan in hand, we bagged the maps and headed for the boat. It was here that I realized my first major goof of the race, I’d forgotten to put my Stage A food bag into the paddle bag… luckily I was carrying the pizza from the trek leg and a few goo packs in my pfd. As a 3 person team we had one canoe which was great, especially with the addition of my fancy new seat pad. Karen on the other hand had our crappy 3rd seat option and it was less than ideal as the paddle went on. I know Karen and Kristy say they don’t care for the paddling legs but we killed it! As a team, we just flow well together! This first paddle was listed as 30 miles with a time of 7.5 – 12 hrs and we did it in just over 8 hours.  I credit some of our speed to the fact that the weather turned pretty gross pretty quickly and we upped our speed to generate more heat. I also busted out the party speaker for the first time and it was great, right up until I realized it only had like 18 songs, so we got to hear them on repeat! The team has requested the deletion of Barbie Girl as it creates an earmark that just won’t leave! Seriously though, having a play list of high tempo and medium tempo songs really would be helpful for paddling.

A short jaunt down the river brought us to Fort Ticonderoga where we set out for a short trek O-course. This was really cool, wandering the grounds of the historic fort. It was closed to the public that day so we didn’t have to dodge muggles. All of the points here were optional but there were 13 of them densely packed so I’m sure all teams collected all of them! Back to the boats, we had the bulk of the paddle ahead of us. Tunes on, paddle going, we made our way down the river. We passed the take out for TA 1 and Brent let us know that Paul and Steve were in the front of the pack for the paddle, which is pretty cool! We landed our boat near CP 11 and began the rugged trek section. We gathered 5 mandatory checkpoints and picked up one optional. Our goal, as usual, was to get all of the mandatory points and any optional ones that made sense for us to get. Karen guided us on a clockwise loop to get the points we needed. I’m struggling to remember much about this trek other than it was wet, fairly treacherous, I was glad to be done with it! We learned later that several teams had injuries ranging from minor to race ending during this trek, so making it through unscathed was a bonus! We landed at TA 1 around 3:30 am on Tuesday morning and started building the bikes for the first time. As the sun was rising we were headed out of the transition area and off on the longest bike leg!

Stage B – Bike: We knew this stage was a big one, listed between 58 – 75 miles depending on route and CP choice. Our time plan was to take about 12 hours to get all of the mandatory points, which we did, plus 2 optional ones! One of the checkpoints early on this leg was the Old School Bagel shop who had graciously opened early for the lead teams. We stopped there around 8:30 am, a perfect time for a bagel and coffee. Abby was there doing short 2 minute team interviews as she continued the take over of The Dark Zone podcast. Having listened to the first two episodes now, I think Abby did an amazing job and has a voice for podcasts!

Anyway, back to the race. After consumption of bagels and coffee, we continued on our way to the Slate Valley Trail system. Mad props to Kristy for her excellent bike nav during this section! Trail systems always present as a spaghetti bowl to me and if I were doing the nav, there would be stops at ALL intersections, ending in a giant time loss. We only had one small parallel trail error in the trail section but then had a section of road we visited more than once on our way out! As for how ridable the trails were, it was a mixed bag for me. I know from previous races out here that East coast mountain biking is just built different from the lovely flow trails of the Midwest! So many more rocks to navigate, made all the more challenging by being sleepy. We made our way through the trails with no major crashes or bike issues though, so I’ll call it a win! 

Exiting the trails we headed back to the road and onward to the TA. The weather had changed from the drizzle of Monday to a warm sunny day Tuesday afternoon. I’m grateful for the lack of record setting heat that we dealt with last year on the same race and for finding Crossman’s General Store open and serving ice cream! We made a quick pit stop along with a couple of other teams. Photographer Nick was driving by and snagged a pic of the porch crew (Karen and I were behind him). This was around 3:15 pm on Tuesday and the sound of bike tires on pavement began to lull me into a very sleepy state. After jerking awake more than once, I called for our first ditch nap. We pulled over into a grassy area along the road and had a 10 minute nap. It really is surprising how just a short break can clear the cobwebs from your brain! Slightly refreshed we made the final push to TA #2 up Ice Bed road. We had a mix of local interactions on this seemingly middle of nowhere road that was surprisingly busy! One guy stopped to check we were good as we did a map flip. Another jerk in a diesel decided to “roll coal” right as he passed us, glad to know 3 ladies on bikes are sooo intimidating! As we finished the climb a lady tending her garden congratulated us on the climb, even though we did push part of it. All in all, the Vermont locals are still nicer than most!

Stage C – The Keystone Trek – “Out of the frying pan, into the fire”. These words are from the route book and Brent and Abby made no bones about how remote this section was! As we packed our bikes away and divvied up the tent, we made a plan to continue collecting the mandatory points in a strategic way. Leaving the TA with the setting sun, we began climbing, and climbing, and climbing some more! Just look at this beautiful slope line!

Eventually we reached a more agreeable section and as the trail turned away, Karen directed us up through the shiggy (technical term for the undergrowth encountered during off trail travel). Luckily it wasn’t that thick and made for fairly easy travel. We switched on our headlamps and I saw something HUGE and reflective in the distance. I was convinced it was the shelter of a AT hiker (we’d seen one guy lower down) so I called out “heelloooo” but received no answer. Turns out it was the CP flag! I don’t know why the reflective stripe looked so large but was happy to find a CP and not a camper! Finding CP 25 was soon to be the high point (literally) of this night trek. Considering the ease of off trail travel that got us to CP 25, we aimed off towards CP 26, focus is on the word OFF here folks… As we made our way down we kept moving steadily to the left, which is the opposite of what we do in the canoe. If left uncorrected, our boat would eventually make a full circle clockwise I think! Foot travel though, we tend to head left instead. You can see where at some point we head due north and might be asking why. Turns out there are clear cut sections of the forest that made travel impossible! We skirted one but knew we were just steadily going in the wrong direction so tried to correct. We hit another clear cut and this time just said screw it and busted our way through the shiggy. Once clear of the major cut, we still had a battle to make our way to the road, chanting our mantra of just go EAST! We found the road around 1 am on Wednesday and decided that attacking CP 26 tonight was just not in our bag so instead opted to find a decent place to camp. Just a bit up the road, we had a known location and found a nice flat spot to set up the tent. This was our first big sleep of the race and we set the alarm for 3 hours, it was glorious! 

Waking up and getting moving as the sun was rising lifted all of our spirits and we set out to tackle CP 26 in the light of day. If you look at the map, the dashed line that appears to be a trail is in actuality a very old forest/logging road. We had camped on the start of it for our sleep and then started walking up it. We reached the first small rise and the road sort of petered out into another clear cut section. We could see the saddle and the next rise but opted to head back to the road and attack from another direction. We met a couple of teams in the area who were also looking for CP 26. After 26, we just had a lovely hike in the woods! Spirits were good, legs felt fresh, and Karen’s nav was on point! We did make a small circle and visited CP 27 twice in our excitement but it was not a very costly loop time wise. CP 29 gave us a bit of trouble since it was marked NE of trail but was actually on the west side and we’d walked right past it more than once! The next checkpoint (32) was clued as Wilder Mountain, Ledges, S/SE. We headed up the mountain and kept finding ledges. Each time we thought we were on top, we’d find yet another ledge higher up!

After clearing the ledges, we popped down and found the giant boulder at end of beaver pond checkpoint. Kristy 100% did not swim to the point but did have to get wet to the waist! I later learned that there was an intact dam we could have used but it was a warm sunny day so no need to travel out of the way!

We met up with the Cherubini brothers team at Little Rock pond and did some foot care and water filtering. The enthusiasm of their team is infectious and always a delight to find on course! From here we made our way west and south on the Green Mountain Trail. I think this was my favorite section of the trek, it was absolutely beautiful!

Stage D: Bike – Jump – Trek – MTB – Bike We came into TA 3 a little after 6 pm on Wednesday, which was a little ahead of our schedule surprisingly! The first three stages of the race had been straight forward, do a thing, TA, do another thing, TA, etc. Now with stage 4, things were going to get interesting! This stage started with a gentle road bike for about 11 miles before we started climbing up on much rougher roads to access the Freedley Quarry. During this section, we bike pushed with the Chaos Required team who regaled us with how they’d lost a teammate and decided to carry on as a 2 person team. As we reached the gate on the road to mine we saw some bikes off to the side and made the decision to drop ours and hike up. In hindsight I still can’t decide if it was the right decision. The climb up was steep and rocky and we would have been pushing, the ride down would have been faster but with the sleepiness setting in, it could have ended with some crashes. Either way, the time was probably about the same. We hiked up the abandoned marble quarry and holy crap, it was really cool!! The map for this section was a hand drawn one and we were looking for mini O flags. Collecting all of them would equal the one mandatory CP! I wish our timing had allowed us to be there in the daylight because it would have made some great pictures!

After clearing the mine points, we hiked back to the bikes and rode on to the Dorset Marble quarry for the next embedded fun. Here was where we had three options: 1 – head right out to the trek/mtb section, 2 – complete the jumps into the quarry, 3 – take a sleep and evaluate in the morning. We opted to take our second sleep of the race and tucked in under the marble table formation. Waking up and getting moving as the sun rose we hit the trek and MTB embedded section, saving the jumping for later. This trek and MTB section was just plain FUN! When we arrived back at the quarry we were awake and warm, ready to tackle the jumps! Originally the jumps were mandatory with a 45 min penalty for uncompleted jumps. Sometime in the night, they changed them to optional and I was glad to hear it! We did the first 3 jumps and it was fine. Looking at the 4th, I’m sure it was also fine but none of us were super stoked about it. This was a really neat stop for the race and I love how it’s open the public! Indiana could learn a thing or 10 from Vermont about how to use their local resources for recreation! After changing into clean and dry clothes, we did a short out and back to get an optional CP that was also at a general store. I was in the craving veggies stage of food so I got a tub of gazpacho and a tub of edamame beans from the deli cooler. Both tasted amazing, along with the breakfast bagel! Ooh, I almost forgot, I bought a baguette again and it was perfection!

Fueled up, we hit the road again for what would become a critical point in the race for us. Quoting the route book again “returning to the roads and what will undoubtedly feel like an endless climb back into the mountains”. Yeah, it felt like that! We left the smooth roads and came to a decision point. Kristy had a plan, I’d looked at the plan and agreed, we got to the execution of the plan and both decided to throw it out the window and go the other direction. Oh friends, never abandon the plan that a fresh brain made for one a tired brain convinces you will be easier, it never works out! We turned left and started the shorter but steeper climb up to CP 49. We leap frogged with the Over the Mountain team as we made our way up. As they passed on during one stop, Len remarked that they were confused as to a team that popped out of the woods by the cabin we had seen, when no trails showed that as an option. We remarked that it was a mystery and continued on! Well, the mystery soon revealed itself. We made our turn and our decent became waaaay more than what Kristy expected on the maps. I had a slow speed over the bars crash, where my primary concern was if I spilled my gazpacho in my pack! Luckily no major blood or soup was lost on trail! As we rounded a corner, we saw looming in the distance the CABIN! NOOOOO!!! We had somehow gotten on a sucker trail that created a loop and we were right back were we had been an hour before! This was probably the lowest moral point in the race for all of us since we knew our timeline was actively blown. Our plan of getting all the mandatory points was shaky now. We had to decide whether to repeat what we had just pushed up and try to find the correct path, or descend back to the bottom and take the original route. After some discussion, we opted repeat what we knew (it wasn’t that bad the second time) and eventually made our way out of Bermuda Triangle of trails!

Back on course we bopped down to get 49 since there was the potential for the course to change in later stages and some mando points to become optional. This was a great decision in the end! Rolling into TA 5, with the sun setting and the weather moving in, we relished on last yard sale and got moving!

Stage E – Packrafting – Well, we left the TA loaded with the gear necessary for packrafting, me carrying the barracuda double, Kristy with her single, and Karen with pfd’s and other stuff I couldn’t fit. Pro tip, if you have the Hyperlite pack, the baracuda raft, and a green voile strap, if the raft is rolled so that one strap secures is, it will fit nicely into the pack! We enjoyed a showcase of fireflies as we hiked into the camping area of Somerset Reservoir. Our plan of getting all the mandatories was still in effect, along with a primary goal of making sure our team finished together as we’d heard of more teams losing members along the course! Endless is a big race and I think it has gotten bigger and more challenging each year! About an hour out of the TA the skies opened and we soon found ourselves facing yet another clear cut area where there should have been a trail. This was our attack point for CP 50 before we could make our way down to the lake shore. Maybe in the daytime we could have navigated the trail but we opted to backtrack and head in another direction. As the weather worsened, the trail disintegrated into soup, with zero chance of staying dry. We’d donned our rain gear but it was not up to the task of keeping us dry. On our way back from CP 50, we ran into NerdQuest and I was envious of Val’s trash bag outer layer! They asked us what our plan was and this was when we admitted to ourselves and them that getting all the mando points was no longer an option and we were going to hike our happy little rafts to TA 5. We made this decision based on the fact that we were already soaked and shivery and paddling doesn’t use as big of muscles as trekking does, so we’d stay warmer and move quicker if we just hiked the shoreline. This kept us in the game as we could still collect a couple of CP’s. We hiked from 11:30 pm to around 2:30 am with intermittent downpours and drizzle. At some point I got really sleepy and dysfunctional, to the point when Kristy offered me some cashews on her palm, I just went in mouth first like a damn horse! Not sure why except my hands had trekking poles in them and were thus rendered unusable?? Thanks for not making it weird Kristy and for offering me another mouthful!  We came into the TA and it was a carnage of racers! Most teams were trying to hunker down for the night, either in tents, or the box truck. We had put Karen’s bivy and Kristy’s 2 person tent in the paddle bags so we had shelter, thankfully! A quick strip out of the wet clothes and into the bivy sacks soon had us warm and slumbering. This was a longer sleep and longer TA for us, partially weather driven and also because we just needed to regroup. We woke up to a clearing sky and started trying to dry all of the mandatory gear we’d need to carry with us. It was at this TA that I learned Steve had continued on with the Chaos Required team, as Paul had a hand injury that meant he couldn’t grip anything! We also were given a short cut from TA 5 to TA 6 via bike so that we could stay in the game!

Stage F – Bike – Shortcut for us! Choosing the short cut to get to TA 6 was the best decision we could have made since we had less than 24 hours left in the race and what felt like a crap load of race left to do! Kudos to those teams who continued on to the main F stage!! Our bike out was along a beautiful river that made me long for the packraft I’d carried the night before. We saw some gravel bikers along the way and they said there were big climbs coming which didn’t surprise any of us. This shorter route we knew would be along busy roads so we just tucked in and did the work necessary to get through as quick as possible. Kristy found a short side quest to pick up on optional point (they are all optional for us at this point)! Almost four hours later we rolled into TA 6 feeling revived, dry, and ready to tackle the rest of the course!

Stage G – Trek Brent had warned us, both at the briefing and in the route book, that this trek section was not to be underestimated due to the rugged terrain and rough off trail travel. We quickly encountered both just out of the TA as we climbed up to CP 66. The Hobblebush plant is a nightmare to traverse, maybe worse than Kentucky rhodo! After bagging 66 we headed back to the trail that was now open for us to use (previously marked out of bounds). This was pretty easy travel and we found the beginning of the faint trail that was marked on the map to take us to CP 67. Much like CP 26, this trail was not a real route, just the remnants of an old logging or forest road. By Kristy and I carefully following the ruts and Karen carefully following the topography, we made our way to the checkpoint with ease! We heard another team trying to follow the trail but they lost sight of us at some point and must have turned around. We started working our way back out of the woods but lost our own trail and then just aimed off to the road, working around yet another beaver pond marsh area. Leaving this area behind we started the climb to the Prospect Mtn ski area for the O-relay.

Stage H – O Relay – Having learned the hard lesson last year, this time we opted to look at the short easy course first instead of the long hard course. This was 4 checkpoints and I was the one headed out. Having not looked at the maps in much detail this week, it took me longer than I’d like to admit to get started. I knew if I could find one, I could find the others! I don’t have a map of what I was looking for now but my trace starts out rather frantic and then slowly becomes more clear as I dial in my brain. The thought of missing a point and letting the team down certainly kept me pushing! I told Karen I’d quit at the hour mark and come back and let her go out on the long easy or short hard course but at the 1:00 mark, I was close to finishing, just needed one more point! I think I took like 1:30 ish to complete what I would call neither short nor easy but at least I did it! Karen headed out but quickly realized that the time remaining wouldn’t allow her to clear another course so we opted to bag it and get ready for the final ride to the finish.

Stage I – Bike When the race schematic was released prior to the race we all wondered why a mere 20 mile bike ride would take us 5 hours to complete. We wondered if it was up and over a mountain (not really) or if the roads were more trails (yes but…) We left Prospect mountain and headed back to an area we had trekked near the night before. Tired brains, changing map scales, rushing to get back, it could have been a perfect storm of race ending decisions. Instead we chanced upon a happy accident of trail choice! The original plan was to keep to the “high” road to avoid what we assumed would be utter trail slop along the creek. We got a bit turned around early on and missed a junction. This meant we were looking for a trail that went northwest so when we found one we took it. While not the intended route it turned out way better that the other option we learned when we found other teams! Our way had baby head cobbles and mud holes to avoid, the other route had racers carrying their bikes over their heads while traversing chest deep marsh!  Once the routes rejoined at Lake Hancock, the trail was just ridiculous! While trending downhill the whole time, it was hardly rideable in most sections! Even now, looking at the maps with a rested brain from a comfy couch, I’m in awe of Kristy finding our way out of the woods! After the last CP, we cruised into town and to the finish line!

The finish!! Each finish of an Endless Mtns race is special in it’s own way. This one felt like coming home from a great adventure with plenty of stories to share, a heart full and happy, and a stomach ready for real food! While we had to let go of the goal for getting all the mandatory points, the race format did allow us to continue on as official finishers and choosing our own adventures. We did succeed in the primary goal of getting the team across the finish line together and smiling! Karen and Kristy deserve all the props for their navigation skills, racing with them is such a fun experience! Many thanks to Abby and Brent for once again delivering a top notch expedition race where the entire pack feels seen and taken care of, not just the pointy end! The volunteers deserve a standing ovation for the amount of work they do to make a race like this happen, all while smiling and being kind to racers who sometimes act more like hungry toddlers than adults! Can’t wait to do it again in 2028!