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Welcome to Adventure Chronicles! The place to post your own Adventure or read someone else's. Because in an Adventure, everyone has a story to tell!.

The files are in .pdf format. The McKinley climb is a large file and may take a couple minutes to download. The wait is well worth it, as his adventure is inspiring.

Please click Chronicles Page 2 as we have filled up the available space on this page. Keep your stories coming!

Holly, Craig, Tanya and John, originally Team Fox, which later became Team "'S#%t' for Short" with triple ironman Francois endured the East coast's greatest AR challenge. Follow the story of how one team of 4 brought it all together so that 2 could finish this 40 hour Odyssey.
After 4 months of planning and training, the Endorphin Fix was less than one week away. I spent many hours that last week sleeping, packing and re-packing my pack - hoping to find the best way to keep all the gear firmly attached to the outside of the pack and trying to decide just how much food I would need to carry for 48 hrs of racing. It turned out, I packed only as much food as I could fit in the two side pouches of the pack, thinking with three other teammates there would be plenty to go around. The plan was to assemble Team Fox on Friday afternoon at the race site, with race start at midnight. Craig Irwin was flying in to Raleigh on a red-eye from his new home in San Jose, CA on Thursday morning and we would drive up to the race together. Tanya Nestvogel would leave her home in Morganton, NC on Friday morning and meet at John Budd's home in Winston-Salem, NC and they would drive up to the race together. John was to arrive back home late Thursday night after a ten day hunting trip in Alaska. [More]

Derek Kozlowski summited Mt. McKinley in Alaska. Here is his story of the climb.
Most routes on Denali are done expedition style, which is to say that you move higher on the mountain by moving all of your gear to successively higher camps. A carry is when you move all nonessential gear to a higher camp, bury it in a cache, and return to the lower camp. Then you either stay one more night at the lower camp, or pack it up and continue up the mountain. The amount of gear needed to withstand a -40*F night is astonishingly heavy. Then pile on all of the gear that is needed to spend three weeks on the mountain, and you have a load that would break the back of a pack horse! Most parties choose to pull sleds, in addition to backpacks, up the Kahiltna glacier. On this morning we were matched up with our fully loaded sleds, ready to take on the lower glacier. [More with Pics] [More No Pics (Faster)]

Derek Kozlowski, Katie Malone, and Renee Johnson competed in the 2000 Hi-Tec Adventure Race in Atlanta, GA. Here is their wild story of competition
Most sprint races are short enough (3-6 hours in length) that there is rarely time for any serious orienteering during the race as is required in most of the longer races. We received our map of the park and our race packets on Saturday afternoon when we officially checked our team in. Along with the map we received a compass and a set of written instructions laying out the basic rules of the race and special tasks. The actual trails that we would be on were not on the map, but the reservoir, roads, and existing trails were well marked. Each of us took our time reading the instructions and committing the map to memory. We were as well prepared as we could get. [More]

The Great Smokey Mountains Triathlon Club - Scott Hanna, race director, has an excellent setup in "God's Country" Read about a swimmer's tale of persistance and solitude in this 4.5 mile mountain lake swim.
Well, it was Sunday morning (July 23) & all the good people of Hiawassee Ga. were at church, the lake was deserted, it WAS overcast & rainy and we were swimming in a lake in the smoky mountains on the border of Georgia & north Carolina..[More]

06 -07 October: Wild Onion Urban Adventure Race - Team NOC - 2nd Overall
Urban Adventure Racing?! Who would think of it? Well, our 1999 teammate and friend, Will Burkhart, along with his brother-in-law and another Chicago resident, brewed up quite the race! We must admit, being more rural folks, we were a bit skeptical, but also a bit nervous about navigating in the city - one can't just bush (building)-whack to the desired destination. We drove an NOC van to Chicago (an adventure in itself!) to arrive at the race organization provided accommodations in downtown Chicago, a place called the Hotel Burnham (which, we would find out later, cost up to \\$365/night!). Being right downtown had it's drawbacks, however. It cost us $30 per day just to park the van, AT the hotel! (perhaps another reason we like the rural living!). But, after settling in, we drove around the city for a while, 'orienting' ourselves and making wild guesses about the course. We caught up with Will, and he told us we were the favorites. I told him not to jinx us and he filled us in on the registration process. [More]

22-24 September: Endorphin Fix - Team NOC - 2nd Overall
With the Southern Traverse just around the corner in November, and another smaller Adventure Race (with the Urban Twist!), the Wild Onion, on the horizon, we ventured to West Virginia and the Endorphin Fix with training and practice on our minds. We really enjoy racing as a two-some, as we are very in-tune with each others strengths and weaknesses, and generally speaking are very well matched ability-wise. The race started at the strike of midnight with a 48 mile mountain bike ride over mountains, through the woods, and the maze of logging roads of the New River Gorge National Forest. We made one slight navigation error which put us .75 miles (round trip) out of our way, and about 15-20 minutes off course. [More]

June 24-25, 2000: Odyssey One-Day AR- Team NOC - 1st 4-peron, 1st Co-Ed, 3rd overall
"Go" and almost 200 competitors making up 70 teams (Solos, 2-person, and 4-person - all-male and some co-ed teams) headed off into the woods by foot for the initial 12-mile hike/run. Our strategy was to run for a mile or two and establish ourselves near the front. After that time we knew the general pace of the race would slow a bit. At a crucial intersection, most teams near us turned right. Norm cautiously checked the map and we slinked to the left and took the lead. Not long after cresting onto a gap, we ran into Dan Barger, the lead solo who had turned the wrong way, but had recovered. [More]

22-27 November: Southern Traverse - Team NOC/Perception - 16th overall
21 November, as we sat at the race briefing, we quietly scanned the room of over 200 competitors,assessing the teams that had come to compete, placing our bets, and trying to ease our nerves. We knew, the Kiwis had the home court advantage, and an amazing tolerance for abuse, so we secretly set our sights on racing for the top American team slot. Trusting the team's skills, we believed our new team's result, barring no significant injuries or major navigational mistakes, could shine. [More]

10-12 September: Cal-Eco Adventure Race - Team Explorer - 1st 3-person, 2nd team overall
As all teams received their maps at 5am on Friday, we plotted and planned via headlamps on the hood of our support vehicle. The upper 40's/lower 50's temperatures of the morning at about 4000' in the Trinity/Shasta National Forest left us a bit chilly in our minimal clothing - though we knew we'd soon be shedding and had decided to suck it up. 30-40 minutes later we left the start about mid-way through the 25 team pack. It wasn't long before we climbed to the first checkpoint and veered off-trail for the first bushwhack. Still in the dark, we busted through neck high alder-like bushes (I have the bruises to prove it!). Once through the brush, we found our trail and began the 30+ mile 'jog', running all downhills, flats and slight uphills, varying in elevation from 4000'-9000'. Slowly we began reeling in teams, arriving at CP2 in 4th place. [More]

30 July - 01 Aug: The Endorphin Fix - Team NOC/Explorer - 3rd overall, 1st (and only) 2-person
At the shout of Don Mann's "GO" we took off on our mountain bikes with the rest of the 100 competitors assembled for the E-Fix at Midnight on Friday night. Starting the unsupported 30+ hour race with all of the gear we would need for the entire race, including the sea kayak paddles we elected to carry to give us that additional edge during the paddling section. Within moments we had begun to climb and from that moment on, we never ceased to sweat. We interpreted the instructions in a way that seemed to pretty clearly spell out how to search for a checkpoint along the river as it claimed things like "follow a road that will become a single track path through the creek and the woods and is no longer marked on your map." Other instructions included to go "downriver" "south of the rapid at Sewell", we spent hours searching, even finding a sign that said "Sewell". After basically giving up, we continued on with the instructions and headed toward CP2. Soon after we located CP1, 700' or so vertically above the river. We were bummed, and had checked into CP1 in 30th place (out of 32). [More]

16-21 May: The Beast of the East - Team Explorer - 1st 4-person, 2nd overall
Last year we won as a 3-person team, Team NOC/Perception, this year we returned as four, thinking we'd be chasing the potentially rocket-speeding 2-person category. We were in for a pleasant surprise. Registration for the Beast of the East began on the 19th with ascend/rappel testing, whitewater canoe testing, as well as mandatory gear and first aid kit checks. The 20th (Saturday) had continued checks and for us, general gathering and organizing of gear. Mike Sears and his film crew were there, and much of the hype revolved around the better-known names in adventure racing - Robert Nagle, Steve Gurney and Cathy Sassin. No one else seemed to get much attention. We went about our business and were pretty psyched (although also a bit puzzled) that the "reigning" champions were allowed to fall through the pre-race hype 'cracks'. [More]

17-18 April: Mountain Quest Race-Uh on the Mesa - Team Red Wolf - DNF
The Mountain Quest adventure race brought about some good lessons for us as a team. It also forced us to reflect, wondering why we did not take our own #1 rule of navigating advice. 7 AM - We received the maps, and plotted the first leg of the race, to include 20+ miles of running, 30 miles of paddling, and 26 miles of mountain biking. We left the start in 3rd place. I'm thinking to myself "we won't run too much, it's over 20 miles" - I don't like to run. Four hours later, running, we arrived to the canoeing section in first place. We were a little surprised Team Dapple, which was in 1st at CP3 (only 15 minutes from the put in), hadn't made it to the paddle. We, however, were very psyched to take off in our Old Town Discovery, our 240+ cm Werner Sea Kayak paddles in perfect sync. Holding our own in the 'run' put us in great position traveling to CP4, wondering still where Team Dapple, the reigning champions had gone off to. From CP4's riverside location, we had to hike across land to CP5, then return to our boats. [More]

20-21 March: 4 Winds Mountain Rage Series - Team Red Wolf earns 2nd Place
The Mtn Rage brought the first encounter of all 4 of us racing as a team. With much laughter and a fair amount of suffering, we managed to capture 2nd Place, or as Jacques puts it "the first loser position". Of course we were out to win, but our major competition came from a triathlete team called Team Qualcomm out of San Diego. We held our own during the opening leg of paddling (tandem Perception Jocasses) - after a 1+ mile portage to the lake, to enter TA1 in a close second. We quickly transitioned to our bikes, leaving about the same time as Qualcomm. After going back and forth on the bike, they arrived first at TA2 and took off from the TA as we settled into the TA as we got off our bikes. [More]

The ELF Authentic Adventure, a truly amazing story you don't want to miss. Team Arzone's Tracyn & Norm got more Adventure than they bargained for during one of the world's toughest Adventure Races in Brazil.
Part 1 Part 2

The Carolina Adventure Racers, team captain Reuben Dedmondt, are from the Charlotte, NC area. Read their awesome stories of competition and survival during their 2000 race schedule. By clicking the link, you will open into a new frame at Reuben's website www.CarolinaAdventureRacer.com.

(Once you click to Reuben's site, scroll down the page for each story in the order it appears on our page)

Endorphin Fix Adventure Race
This is the race that got it all started back in 1998. After a very respectable finish in 98, and coming close to winning in 99, the third time was the charm. The race covered approximately 140 miles of hiking/trail running, mountain bike riding, white water paddling, and a 200ft rappel thrown in as a twist. This year I (Reuben) finished in 34 hours and 39 minutes, winning 1st place solo, and tying for 5th place over all with Team RAD. The next solo competitor crossed the finish line 1 hour 39 minutes later. The race started at the stroke of midnight on Friday night with a 56 mile mountain bike leg that would take the remainder of the night to finish. The bike section up to checkpoint 2 was straight forward with a prescribed route to follow. Before the race Dave Degenhart, captain of Team RAD, had discussed racing together as a group since we were friends, frequent teammates and training partners. This sounded like a good option since solo racing can get a bit lonesome as well as dangerous on long courses. Riding and navigating together, we were ecstatic to find ourselves in 4th and 5th place at checkpoint 2.[More]