GMARA is pleased to announce the Bolton Valley Wintry Wander, a kids’ event presented by MVP Health Care!

We’re able to offer this navigation challenge at only $5 per participant thanks to generous support from Bolton Valley and long-time sponsors MVP Health Care.

We’re excited that this is finally coming together. Many of the GMARA directors have small family members, and while they often get to scout course, set points, or serve lemonade, there’s never been an opportunity for them to join a team and hunt for flags in the woods.

We know a lot of racers have kids too, here’s your excuse to bring them along and let them share in the excitement of the not-quite-backcountry. Teams can be any size, but you’ll need an adult as the team captain to lead the group and make sure that nobody spends too long in the snow.

Many more details on the race page, but if you have questions, please drop us a line at info@gmara.org and we’ll clear things up!

One final note – while we expect this to co-exist nicely with the Frigid from a spectator’s point of view, we do need to point out that post-Frigid dinner at the Ponds isn’t included for Wintry Wanderers. If you’d like to join the racers for dinner, though, just let us know and we’ll work out the cost details.

Enter a $100 raffle for the cost of a color printout! Help spread the word about the 2014 MVP Health Care Frigid Infliction and give yourself a chance to win a $100 OGE/GearX.com gift card. Here’s the deal:

1. Download and print this 8×11 poster, in color: frigid 2014 8×11.pdf
2. Hang it somewhere potential racers might see it:
   • The gym where you’re training for your next ultra
   • Your favorite outdoor gear emporium
   • That coffee shop where the orienteering club meets every week
   • Your office… if you work with a lot of outdoorsy people
   • The warming hut near your local nordic ski trails
   • College student centers
   • Anywhere you actually believe potential racers might see it
3. Take a picture of the poster in its new home (maybe with your smiling face) and share with us using one or more of these:
   • Facebook at facebook.com/gmara.org
   • Twitter @gmara_org
   • Instagram @gmara_org
4. When you share it, let us know where it’s hanging, and use the hashtags #advrace #FI14 #VT so we can keep track.




5. Get your posters up (and shared) by the time early registration ends – Jan 5th 2014. Each decent location counts as a raffle entry.




6. Mid-January, we’ll draw a winner and send them a $100 gift card to Burlington’s Outdoor Gear Exchange / GearX.com.

Of course, we need some fine print:

• You don’t have to race to win the raffle (but you will, right?)
• Only the first poster shared from a certain location will count – get out there early!
• It’s great if you want to share the same photo on multiple internet sites – in fact, we encourage it – but it’s still just one entry.
• GMARA will be the final decider of what constitutes a valid location. If it’s borderline and you know it, feel free to convince us how great it is via email.
• Like all GMARA events, please enter this raffle with a cheerful heart.
• GMARA board members, race directors and the like aren’t eligible. You know who you are.

Let us know if you have questions!

The 10th anniversary MVP Health Care Bitter Pill began like many others: in the dark with no sense of direction.

Racers arrived at the Catamount Outdoor Family Center at 4 a.m., prepared to learn what their first discipline would be. They discovered that they needed to scramble to gather their gear and board busses, while bikes were prepped for transport by a crew of enthusiastic volunteers.

Racers were dropped off on the north side of Camels’s Hump State Forest. Maps were passed out, busses turned around, and at 5:10 racers started up the back side of Camel’s Hump.

Racers were expecting a navigational challenge, but a thick blanket of fog made it even more difficult to get their bearings. A field full of thorny blackberries greeted racers searching for CP1, then it was goodbye to trails and time to start climbing.

From the small peak at CP3, racers had a long hard bushwhack up to CP4, and a gorgeous view once they arrived. We have been wanting to use this point for five years now, after discovering it on a random training day.

Those who made it there at the right time of morning were able to see the fog filling the valleys and gaze upon the sun rising in the east before deciding whether to attempt a couple challenging bonus points further south.

Whether they hit the bonus points or not, everyone headed down the cliffs of insanity and eventually followed Gleason Brook back towards the river.

The first leg of the race finished with a bit of swimming back and forth across the Winooski. Water levels were low but racers still got wet reaching points on brook, island, and riverbank.

At TA2 it was back into boats for the first time in three years – huge thanks to Umiak for finding enough canoes and kayaks!

Teams got a chance to pause during the paddle and have one member run up the Huntington river to get a point, while the other made sure the boat didn’t float away downstream. Everyone loved running on slippery wet rocks.

Some teams forgot the pre-race briefing and skipped the race instructions, so they actually portaged their boat up the river.

After the paddle, a short portage brought teams to Cochran’s ski area.

Some walked right up the driveway, others found new and creative ways to reach the lodge and TA2. We saw teams coming down the ski slope with their boats, just to add a little extra challenge to the portage. We’ll keep that in mind for next year, you know.

At Cochran’s, racers were greeted by children shouting instructions and demanding cash… at the first ever GMARA lemonade and cookie stand. Future race directors made sure that every team had their required $1 bill available and provided a little welcome refreshment.

A huge thanks to the Cochran family for access to the property, no strings attached. Not even the local racers knew how many fabulous trails were hidden in those woods.

The kids also let teams know where to find the next point, which wasn’t on their maps:

“See that really big hill?” “Yes.” “See that tree way up at the top?” “Yes.” “That’s CP14!”

I don’t know why nobody just rode up the hill, it doesn’t look all that steep from where I’m sitting. Unofficial bonus points to “Lily’s Blueberry Bacon”, the team that made it furthest up the hill before starting the bike portage.

Originally, the course design had every team routed through the section with bonus points C & D. Our testers indicated that people might be somewhat unhappy with us if we did that. Since we’re all about pleasant race experiences, we opted to mix things up.

After some highly technical riding at Cochrans, teams followed a short stretch of the cross-VT trail back towards Catamount.

Teams arriving at Catamount (TA3) before 4:40 had the option to head out on foot to go after seven bonus points, using Catamount’s orienteering map. These were a mix of fairly easy points and a few made tricky by the complex trail system.

The best part of the bonus section was definitely the two pond “swims”, complete with a few leeches to keep everyone moving quickly.

After the final stretch, teams headed back to the finish to enjoy the gorgeous afternoon and views of the green mountains.

“We wanted to thank everyone involved for putting on an awesome race this past weekend. …this was the first time that any of us had done anything like this. Right after we stumbled across the finish, we unanimously agreed it would also be the last. Five minutes later we were talking strategy and making plans for next year.” — Bear Minimum

2-person mens winners, and overall fastest time:
Adrian Owens and Jon Owens
Team “Snot Rockets”

3-person coed winners:
Dave Lamb, Meghan Smith and Jeff Woods
Team “Untamed New England”

For details on the rest of the teams, click over to the full results table or the simple results.

Another big thanks to the lemonade stand staff —
Sam, Jack, Ember, Eleanor & Adele.

Quote of the day:

“I think it’s a human femur”

Blogs and writeups – send yours in!
Dumpy little middle aged ladies: 1 2 3

As always, our photos are up at SmugMug. See a photo you love? Mouse over it and click the green thumbs up – the most popular go to the Best-Of Gallery

If you’d like a little local news coverage, check out this segment from WCAX!

If you have stories to share. blog posts about the race, or photos of your own please get in touch and we’ll add them to the galleries or share them here!

Thanks for racing and see you next year!

— Chris, Shawn, and the GMARA crew

We had two teams get out in the woods over the weekend to test this year’s MVP Health Care Bitter Pill race course. Special thanks to Scott, Pascale, Ross, and Abby for hunting for the checkpoints without the benefit of orienteering flags to let them know they were in the right place.

Some interesting feedback from the testers that we thought we’d pass along:

“Might be good to let folks know that the riding is technical (few roads and ATV) and to ensure they have healthy brakes.” (You’ll ride just about every type of terrain before you’re done.)

“Are you sure you want them going down that way? Fifty foot cliffs may present a challenge.” (Yes, they will. Perhaps there’s a better route off to the side?)

“That trek was awesome.” (Yes, it is. Enjoy the view!)

Here’s some additional information to give you a better sense of how the day may go:

• Less than one kilometer of the trekking is on any sort of trail.
• This is a fairly nettle-free course. Those that know, are thankful. You’re welcome! (Fairly, of course, is relative.)
• The biking will involve several trails that aren’t on the map. Or have moved. Or have they? Curious…
• Some of the riding is pretty technical; it’s safe to assume that there will be a bike portage section or two for every team.
• The paddle is on the shorter side. It’s likely not worth bringing your own paddle this year, if you typically consider it.

Please make sure you review the mandatory gear lists as well as the schedule (we’re announcing the starting discipline at 4:15!) You’ll be carrying all your gear with you all day, except for bike, boat, and paddles.

If you have spectators coming, send their contact info to shawn@gmara.org – we’ll try to get them location details in the morning. Guests can join us for dinner for $20.

The course has come together beautifully and maps have been ordered. We’re looking forward to seeing all of you next weekend!

Chris, Shawn, and the GMARA Crew

This is the last week to sign up for the MVP Health Care Bitter Pill – our boat supplier needs two weeks notice, which means even if you bring us baked goods, we probably can’t add a team at the last minute – unless you’re up for packrafting…

A quick news roundup for anyone who’s not on the mailing list yet:

• If you can’t race on the 17th but you’re free this week for course testing, please let us know. We could use a few more data points, and you could use an excuse to get in the woods, right? As a bonus, if you’re in town on the 3rd/4th you can check out the USA Cycling Pro Mountain Bike XCT finals. This should be an amazing event, olympic caliber racers and national competition in our backyard. We’re thrilled that it’s coming to Catamount and I know a lot of GMARA regulars will be enjoying the festival.
• Big news on the sponsor front: our friends at the Outdoor Gear Exchange in Burlington have hooked us up with Salomon – our prize pool now includes vouchers for high-end adventure-ready shoes. Salomon was one of the first to design shoes specifically for adventure racers, and more than one GMARA race director can vouch for their quality.
• In other sponsorship news, the Tick Twister is now GMARA’s official tick removal device! If you’ve ever tried to remove a tick, you know how much fun it can be – these make it easier, help avoid infection and disease transmission, and every Bitter Pill racer will get a set.

Everything’s coming together for a fabulous 10th anniversary Bitter Pill – see you out there!

Good news, everyone! Mountain Hardwear will be sponsoring our race shirts this year – we’re still finalizing details, but it looks like racers will end up with one of our nicest shirts ever. We’ll see what we can do to make the artwork equally memorable.

As a special new sponsor bonus, we’re going to extend early registration rates through the weekend. Three more days to get your teams signed up at a discount – head over to registration now and lock in your chance to get lost in the hills, valleys, streams and fields of Vermont!

We’re also pleased to note that Catamount will offer discounted rates for bike rental – $20 instead of $30 for the day. Get in touch with them directly if you’re interested. They’re also offering camping on their property if you want to stay right where the action is and make it a full weekend of adventure. No showers, but they will have running water… details on camping rates will be posted on the race directions page as soon as we have them.

Sign up now or get in touch if you’ve got questions!

We have a few deals from our sponsors that we want to share with you soon, so you don’t miss out.

We also want to invite you to some upcoming outings – not GMARA events, just things that our members are doing in their free time. As you know, event awesomeness increases in direct proportion to the number of GMARA members attending.

	EMS Club Days are May 3rd & 4th this year. Show your membership card to get 25% off EMS brand gear and 20% off all other in-store purchases.
	A couple former racers from Middlebury have formed a new company, employing veterans to make high-end bags from military surplus fabrics. The results are awesome, and the goal of making products in America is one that GMARA wholeheartedly supports. Check out their kickstarter campaign, and look for one of these bags to be a prize at the Bitter Pill!
	If you need new adventure-ready shades, Julbo has given us 20% off on purchases at julbousa.com using code julbobitterpill1888 – valid until July 1 2013. (If you’re racing, Julbo’s in the prize pool again this year too!)
	This Sunday morning (4/28) join us to Cycle The City of Burlington with Vermont’s Local Motion, one of our favorite non-profits. It’s the perfect way to ease into adventure – biking, reading a map, chatting with good people… just like most GMARA events, right?
	Our friends at Petra Cliffs just finished a huge expansion, adding a massive top-out boulder. They’re celebrating with a bouldering competition on Friday May 3rd that looks like a great party!
	Our host location for the Bitter Pill doesn’t just wait around for adventure to happen, they’re busy all summer with events, camps, races, and fun reasons to get outside. Kick off the season and get your bike muscles tuned up with the Flower Power mountain bike race, May 11th.

In the future, we’ll try sharing small events like these through our Facebook group – we don’t want to mail the entire northeast if we’re just going climbing or grabbing a beer. If you’re interested, join the group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2387676669/.

Registration is open for the 2013 MVP Health Care Bitter Pill!

It's hard to believe, but we've been hosting the Bitter Pill Adventure Race for ten years now. Thankfully, losing you in the woods just doesn't get old. Read on for details, or go directly to the registration page to sign up.

To celebrate this tenth anniversary milestone, we're happy to announce some goodness for this year's race:

• Lower costs! Entry fees are lower than last year, especially for early registrants.
• Teams of two or three! Top prizes still go to three-person teams, but if you only have one awesome friend, you should still sign up.
• Paddling is back! Tandem kayaks for two, and canoes for three.
• Multiple new (and old) sponsors lined up! Details coming next week, including some good discounts.
• We're moving the race north again, basing it out of the Catamount Outdoor Family Center in Williston.

Boats are limited in both divisions, and early registration rates are definitely cheaper, so sign up soon to reserve a properly-sized boat and lock in your spot. More details, as always, on the site: gmara.org/bitter

From all of us at GMARA, we're looking forward to an amazing race and hearing about all your trials, successes, perseverance, and how you've grown as a result of what your team overcomes in the 2013 Bitter Pill.

Special thanks to MVP Health Care for being our title sponsor for more than half of our ten years. Some tremendous things have come together with their support, and we're thrilled to have them back.

Cheers,
The GMARA crew

The 2013 MVP Health Care Frigid Infliction wrapped up nicely on Saturday, March 2nd. Everyone had a great day in the snow, competing against the gorgeous Bolton Valley backcountry.


The full writeup is here with stories, pictures, results, and thanks to everyone who made it happen.

Registration is open for the MVP Health Care Frigid Infliction 2013!

What: 10 hours of winter adventure racing. Navigate, XC ski, snowshoe, post-hole, maybe a little rope work. Some racers even got to “swim” through the deep stuff last year.

When: Saturday, March 2nd. Race starts at 5 a.m.

Where: Bolton Valley Resort, the best place in Vermont to get three feet of new snow in late February every year.

Who: You and your friends, in teams of two or three.

Why: You love the challenge of skiing uphill, in the dark, in the cold, not quite knowing where you’re heading, and making new friends and great memories in the process.

Why, reason two: This will be one of the first USARA qualifying events for 2013, so if you’re trying to get to nationals, this could be your ticket. Top 3-person coed team gets a $400 sponsorship!

Why, reason three: This year’s Frigid Infliction is dedicated to helping raise awareness of and funds for the Bolton campaign by the Vermont Land Trust – they’re trying to purchase (and conserve) the backcountry land that we’ll be racing on. They need a final push to raise money, and we’re excited to be helping out. So excited, in fact, that we’ve cut costs compared to last year. With a few dollars back in your pocket, we’re hoping you’ll contribute to a good cause.

Sign up now for early registration pricing! Bring your friends, bring your family, bring that co-worker who needs a new challenge!

More information, as always, on the website.