The Nevada Passage Adventure Competition

DESERT RUN AND SCRAMBLE

LOCATION: Valley of Fire State Park in the Southern Nevada city of Overton – roughly 60 miles and an hour’s drive from Las Vegas.

WINNING TEAM:  ACCOUNTANTS

Tim Menoher, Erlanger, KY
Linda Lindsay, Petaluma, CA

RECAP:  The first day of competition in the third annual Nevada Passage adventure competition took participants to one of the most geologically interesting and scenic areas in Nevada for a desert run and scramble.

The Valley of Fire is Nevada’s first state park – designated as such in 1935.  It’s rocks date back to the Paleozoic Era some 300 million years ago and the landscape is jaw-dropping beautiful with Aztec Sandstone - brilliant red remnants of ancient sand dunes jutting out of the earth at 45 degree angles.

“If you like red rocks, you’ll love the Valley of Fire,” marveled Dave Nicholas, the race director for Nevada Passage.  “They’re simply too close, too high, and too magnificent to be believed.”

Amidst the splendor that nature provided, the 10 teams were tasked with running four miles on a winding road then one mile through a maze of slot canyons on soft sand and ankle-biting rocks.  Towards the end of the scramble the racers were challenged to throw the atlatl – a prehistoric weapon used for hunting – at a target some 40-feet away.  Hit the target and teams could deduct a minute from their run time.

Today’s stage came down to which team could run the fastest together, as teams were mandated to finish no further than 10-feet apart. 

When the gun went off so did the physicians – Peter Hanson and Caroline Colonna. The “Docs” took a strong pace off the front, followed by the accountants (Tim Menoher/Linda Lindsay) and engineers (John Madden/Lauren Kemp). 

Roughly two miles into the race the accountants passed the physicians using an unusual tactic where Menoher (perhaps the strongest runner in the group) was literally pushing Lindsay, with his hand on her back, along with him at a frenetic pace.

“There’s no way I could have gone that fast without him,” said Lindsay. “It was awesome.”

Once in the lead the accountants never looked back and when they got to the Atlatl throw Menoher drilled the target to take another minute off their time. The pair finished the race in 39:47, and took another minute off by virtue of Menoher’s hit for a total time of 38:47. 

The physicians were in the No. 2 position when they reached the Atlatl and trailed the leaders by just over a minute, so both Hanson and Colonna would have had to hit the target to remain in contention…but neither did.  In fact, Menoher finished the afternoon as the only contestant to hit the target.  Thus, the rest of the spots were determined by pure running times with the physicians in 2nd (41:22), the engineers in 3rd (44:36), the wild cards Phil Glenn and Lisa Bommer in 4th (45:22) and the journalists – Brian Metzler and Lisa Jhung – in 5th(46:49).

So the stage recognized nationally for its outstanding scenic, geological, and archeological features was dominated by the calculating speed of accountants and the defending champs are on top once again (The accountants won the 2006 Nevada Passage – albeit this year Menoher replaced Nate Simonson who’s off on an adventure of his own trying out for the military's special operations teams).

After the contest athletes jumped on the Nevada Passage bus to Beatty, a two-hour ride to the site of the base camp for Stage two – a sand buggy challenge at Amargosa Dunes.   More tomorrow, from the Nevada Passage.

The Nevada Commission on Tourism is sponsoring The Nevada Passage along with Paul Mitchell, XTERRA Gear, Travelocity, Zorrel, Numa Tactical, Pacifico and Precor

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