2007 BERRYMAN ADVENTURE Big Spring Park Van Buren, Missouri Saturday, September 29, 2007
36-hour 2-Person Teams:
Mid Rivers Adventure (Tim Battles, Mike Cooper) Mid Rivers Adventure 2 (Jim Schmid, Bill Stevens)
The weather was great for this year's Berryman Adventure: not a drop of rain in sight, clear skies, temperatures ranging from about 50 to 85, and no wind to speak of. Even the bright moon was helpful, since it was just a few days past its full state.
All the maps and checkpoints were provided Friday night, which allowed us to completely plot our course. We figured it was 120 miles of combined travel, and a moderate pace could let us finish in 33 hours. We would be coming back to the start/TA only ONCE before the finish. There was another transition area miles away that would be visited three times, but this was an unsupported race and the only way to stock that TA was to fill a small "Clean Stream" mesh trash bag with as much stuff as you could (one bag per two people) so the race volunteers could drive it there. Food and a change of shirt/socks were high priority for the bags, and then we just put in as much water and Gatorade that would fit. It wouldn't be enough fluid, so we knew we'd be purifying water somewhere.
The start was at 5:00 am at Group Campground #1, so headlamps were in full force with sunrise a couple hours away. After a quick punch of checkpoint 1 along a trail (to keep us off the deserted road, I guess), we ran to Big Spring (CP2) in honor of the host park. Checkpoint 3 was directly above the spring on a hilltop, and most teams (including MRA/MRA2) elected to scramble up the steep incline instead of taking the round-about trail. Since there was a lot of waiting, the climb wasn't too stressful, but it did take quite a few minutes to get to the top and punch the passports. The trail might have been better.
The next part of the trek was a rogaine-style orienteering course. Checkpoints 4 through 10 could be punched in any order, and all were required. To ensure that teams didn't just send one runner to get CP's, each racer had a wristband passport to prove that he/she covered this whole section. Tsk, tsk, no cheating! Checkpoints 5 and 7 gave us a few minutes of head-scratching before finding, but then we were warmed up and found the rest quickly: gravel road to the peak south of 10, creek west to 9, road east to the saddle point south of 8, reentrant to creek west to 6, and then a straight bearing to 4. By then the sun was up, and on our way out of the woods Mike spotted a deer carcass. He promises next time to be louder when he says, "Dead deer," to warn us.
Checkpoint 11 and our first TA were waiting for us when we got back to the start area at 7:30. Tasks included restocking the backpacks, changing into bike shoes (and packing our trekking shoes for later), grabbing a bite to eat, and looking around to make sure we didn't forget anything. This would be the last time we see this "camp" until the finish. TA time was 25 minutes.
It was a long, steep climb out of the Current River valley to the appropriately-named Skyline Drive. I swear we were in the clouds after all that time in low gear! A few miles later we punched CP12 at the beginning of a long section of the Ozark Trail. All the bike checkpoints were along the trails/roads and didn't require bushwhacking. We kept close track of distances between CP's and were successful in counting side roads and crossings to avoid getting lost. Checkpoints 13, 14, and 15 were along the OT, and then we did a few miles of gravel road before reaching CP16 at the trailhead to Cupola Pond.
At this manned checkpoint we had to perform a mystery event before receiving the passport punch. It involved hiking a few hundred yards down to the pond and figuring out "what was unusual or unique about the tree in the middle of the pond." Well, the volunteer didn't mention that there were about a hundred trees in this dried-up pond, but one big tree did stand out in the middle. The four of us were coming up with some creative ways to describe this tree (some things that happen on the course stay on the course), but luckily an information board for hikers explained that these were simply Tupelo gum trees. That was the magic phrase the volunteer wanted, and we were on our way!
More roads took us to CP17 and CP18, and then another leg of the OT took us west to CP19. All this biking was taking a little longer than expected, and the heat of the day was drying us up fast. Before long there were only three of us with water, so sharing was the name of the game until we could get to the gear-drop TA at CP20. Nowhere during the hours of biking did we see running water for purifying.
We managed to get only one flat tire during the bike section, and Tim made quick work of repairing it. Quick, that is, until he reached for the axle skewer and realized that the nut and spring WERE MISSING. No problem, you say? Just look on the ground and find them? Late September in southern Missouri means that the leaves have started to fall, and of course we were on a dirt trail with lots of rocks and leaf debris. It took about fifteen minutes of hands-and-knees searching by all four of us before the elusive nut was discovered.
Finally at 4:45 pm we arrived at Turner's Mill where our gear bags were waiting, and we were ready to unsaddle. We gladly parked the bikes after agreeing that these trails were some of the hardest we'd ever been on. As Mike put it, they were less like trails and more like part of the forest that had been cleared with a leaf blower.
At this TA we had to focus on the water situation and how we could build a supply of drinking water for the next time we came here. As we started thinking about getting out the iodine tablets and purifying some water from the Eleven Point River, another team within earshot asked a volunteer if there was a spring nearby. The volunteer replied that there was, but he was not at liberty to give directions. WHERE'S THAT MAP? Sure enough, staring us right in the face was Turner Spring, and it was only a hundred yards from the TA. No one had caught this detail the night before when we were planning the course, but it sure was a big help now. We decided that this spring was running fast enough to eliminate the need for iodine, and in hindsight it was a good decision (no GI problems after the race).
At about 6:00 pm we departed on foot, and CP21 was located on a steep section above Turner Spring. Our plan was to follow this hill north to its peak, then turn west a little farther along and head downhill to find the OT. Bushwhacking wasn't too bad in the sparse underbrush up high, but as we descended into the creek area the sticker bushes got thicker. We found the trail and followed it north along the creek to where it eventually came to a T. Then it was just hairpin after hairpin, climbing up the hill and over to CP22 at a jeep road crossing. Darkness had set in.
What followed was more trail hiking. Several of us were getting heavy eyelids, and we couldn't muster the energy to jog the downhill sections. It was challenging enough to just keep track of which hillside or gully we were in, according to the map. After a while we came to a point on the trail that was the closest to CP23, which was at the hilltop above us. A team caught up to us as we started to bushwhack, and with their speed they were ahead of us soon after punching the passport.
A shorter length of Ozark Trail brought us thankfully into CP24 where the canoes were waiting. It was 11:05 pm, only 18 hours on the clock, but in our weary state the team decision was to drop from the race. We agreed that it had been a fun day of trekking and biking with no missed CP's.
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