HARDWICK, CRAFTSBURY – Adventure Racing World Series (ARWS) teams from the U.S. and Canada made stops on the Hardwick Trails last Wednesday and Thursday as part of the seven-day, 475 mile 2025 Endless Mountain Adventure Race: Les Verd Mont.
photo by Helen Beattie
The race made a full circuit of Vermont with 290 miles of biking and 90 miles each of trekking and paddling. It began with 35 teams, June 21, near MIddlebury, heading south to Rutland, then east across the state to Fairlee for a Lake Morey kayaking stage, then to Barre, Cabot, Hardwick and Craftsbury before heading to the Canadian Border near Richford, with a finish in Burlington.
The orienteering style-race is all about navigation to checkpoints without GPS. At each orange flagged checkpoint the teams of two to four people punched race passports to mark their passing, said one of the race organizers, Abby Perkiss.
A four-person team from the premier division, Canadian Team 4 Hour Fuel, was the first team to pass through Hardwick, reaching the fourth and last Hardwick Trails checkpoint on their bikes just before 2 p.m. Wednesday.
photo by Kirsten Oliver.
One of the final two-person teams, NYARA-Ubuntu, didn’t reach the next stop, at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center, until just after 8:30 a.m. Friday, more than a day and a half later.
Now in its third edition, organizers Perkiss and Brent Freedland with Rootstock Racing, based in Philadelphia, set the Endless Mountain course to explore “Vermont’s rolling mountains, lush forests, majestic waterways, iconic gravel, and twisty single track,” they wrote. “This year’s race provides the perfect setting to challenge veteran adventure racers, and it offers an accessible entry point to those eager to take on their first expedition race.” Teams “will be called upon to work together to meet the challenges that only expedition racing can bring – challenging overland navigation, wild terrain, sleepmonsters, and weather that can tame even the most hardened outdoor enthusiasts,” said the organizers. “It is in those moments where the best stories are written.”
Weather offered a challenge for the race’s first two full days, featuring record temperatures in the high 90s, with a heat index over 100 in most of Vermont.
Teams were required to carry all their required emergency supplies, food and equipment, which could be exchanged at predetermined transition areas, following a leave-no-trace ethos. Teams who might not have the expertise to navigate Class III whitewater in a packraft were able to portage around those sections, but were scored behind other teams that navigated those sections.
A shortened course allowed those teams with less experience, or fewer members, to skip optional sections.
Team 4 Hour Fuel, a mixed team with two men and two women, finished first, in 147 hours, 43 minutes and 28 seconds, almost 10 hours ahead of the next competitor, earning them $3,000 plus free entry into the ARWS World Championship to be hosted in British Columbia, by Expedition Canada, Sept. 22 to Oct. 6.
Most teams completed the course, with the last, WildStyle, finishing seven days, one hour, seven minutes and eight seconds after they started..
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
