Yeti Adventure Challenge Silkeborg
Racing Around The Adventure Capital
Rob Howard / 02.09.2017
With the Yeti Adventure Challenge taking place in Silkeborg today the ‘adventure capital of Denmark’ was a hive of outdoor activity. With teams racing on two different courses (Challenge and Fighter) there were challenges in both the city centre and in the forests and lakes around the town for the teams to tackle on a warm, sunny September day.
Both courses visited an area called Lunden a few kilometres out of town, which was a hub for both canoeing and a bike n’run stage which visited the a military museum built around an area full of subterranean World War Two bunkers built by the German army. The area is also now an outdoor sculpture park and the teams ran past the artwork as they searched for the bunkers they needed to visit to find the checkpoints inside.
CP6 was inside one accessed by a hatch and a steep ladder, and once inside it was pitch black so the teams had only the candle and matches they’d been given to help find their way through the maze of dank rooms to find the CP flag. In total there were 5 bunker checkpoints so they couldn’t take too long on each or they might run out of candle!
The canoeing took teams out onto Silkeborg Lake to collect checkpoints around the shore, and also one which was set at the base of the big fountains in front of the city hall. These spray water many meters into the air and are illuminated in different colours at night – and today they were a checkpoint, one which made sure the teams once again got soaked!
This was a common occurrence – teams were wet from start to finish of the races today. The river sluice they’d waded into at the very start of the day was used again later for a ‘rafting’ challenge, which was a quick paddle down the rocky, white water drop to the river. In the basin above this there was a swimming challenge too where they had to swim across from one shore to the other, climbing over and ducking under pontoons.
The other water based test was a rope traverse across the river, and it wasn’t necessary to get wet there ... not unless you fell off!
Combined with the running and mountain biking stages on the forest trails, and also a big wall climbing challenge which required a good head for heights), it was a varied and fun day of racing, and there were spectators from the town all around the course, many cheering on friends and family. The racers were well looked after too with lots of marshals, good maps, water stations and hot food and changing areas supplied at the finish.
For those teams with a competitive edge there were prizes of down equipment from race sponsors Yeti to be won, as well as the all important bragging rights of course! The main prizes were presented by the finish line during the day and the full results will be on the race website shortly, but the courses will remain open until it is dark at 9pm.
For more information and full results see www.yacs.dk/en/
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