One of highlights of the Primal Quest Expedition Adventure Race is its ropes course; big, exposed, airy and difficult.  In the 2006 Utah race, the course consisted of 6 miles of rope at 5 separate locations, involving ascending, rappelling and traversing thousands of feet of vertical rock walls, canyons and desert towers.  This was without a doubt, the world’s largest ropes course ever constructed.  Only 24 teams completed the entire ropes section.  Many called it the best part of the race while others called it the scariest thing they had ever done!

The 2008 ropes course in Montana presented new challenges with 5.7 free climbing and wild, via ferrata type ridge ascents up slender spires in a wild setting.  Top teams proclaimed this was the most varied and awesome ropes course ever constructed, thus with this encouragement future races will take these trends to new heights, demanding greater skill levels and including more free climbing.  The folks at Primal Quest want to help prepare you for these challenges.

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Dear Team Captains,

We’re excited to be sending the first Competitor Newsletter to teams competing in Primal Quest Badlands Presented by SPOT! Included in this first of three Newsletters is information about payments, the course, certifications, mandatory gear, and other questions that you may have been curious about. Also included are messages from our generous Partners without whom putting on a race of this magnitude would not be possible.

Click here to download Newsletter #1. The Newsletter is in Adobe PDF format. Click here to download the latest Adobe Reader.

The Newsletter can also be found in the Team Resources section of the Primal Quest website along with other helpful resources as you prepare for the 6th Edition of the Primal Quest Expedition Adventure Race.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Dawn Taylor Mann
Director of Competitor Relations
Dawn.Mann@ecoprimalquest.com

Australian magazine Bare Essentials, an online publication designed for the active, adventurous woman, has published several articles focused on Primal Quest in their November/December 2008 edition. You’ll find all three articles on pages 43-45.

The first story is a brief overview on the history of Primal Quest and adventure racing in general, while the second article gives a preview of Primal Quest Badlands and what teams can expect in South Dakota next August. The final story is an interview with mother-daughter racing team of Kathy Roche-Wallace and Melissa Hughes who competed in Montana in 2008.

The Bare Essentials web interface is a slick and easy to use, with plenty of content to read. It’s easy to page through the virtual edition, or jump directly to any article you like by typing it in at the top of the page. Thee are also tools for zooming in on the page or printing the stories that you like. 

Thank you to Bare Essentials for this outstanding coverage for Primal Quest fans down under.

Photo by Andres Vargas

Adventure racer David Boyd, the captain of Team MOAT/Peak.com has passed away after falling more than 150 feet while hiking last week. The 47-year old was trekking the Blanca Massif in Colorado when the accident occurred. You can read more on this story here.

David was a well known member of the adventure racing community and his presence will be missed. An online photo gallery dedicated to his memory can be found here, and it contains a number of images from Primal Quest Montana, where Team MOAT finished in fifth place.

The thoughts and prayers of the entire Primal Quest team are with David’s friends and family. Our condolences at your loss.

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, from Rochester, New York, published a nice introduction to the sport of adventure racing, and to Primal Quest, today. Here’s a bit of what they wrote:

Adventure races are nonstop, non-motorized, multi-sport team events that take place in the wilderness.

Contestants navigate to checkpoints using only maps and compasses. Mountaineering, hiking, kayaking, rafting, river boarding, orienteering and mountain biking are required skills. But endurance, strength, commitment, selflessness and sheer will are also tested.

To read the article in it’s entirety, click here.  

Photo by Andres Vargas

A new adventure racing website launched today, and it’s kicked things off with some great articles on Primal Quest. The Compass Adventure Racing site, can be found at ARYouReady.com, where you’ll also find a Primal Quest 2008 Recap, as well as an article on the Past, Present, and Future of PQ. Both articles are written by Craig Stein, whose writing and photos I posted about last week.

Compass Adventure Racing joins the growing list of AR focused websites. The site offers articles with advice for new and experienced racers alike, a nice introduction to the sport, a gear guide, and interactive forums. They are just starting to build content on the site, but it already shows a lot of promise. Be sure to drop on by and say hello and welcome them to the adventure racing online community. 

Photo by Will Ramos