After trail running, bushwhacking, navigating, and -- finally, hours later -- stumbling up a stretch of road to the finish line, Team GearJunkie.com won the annual MNOC Rogaine Orienteering race!

Photo: (c) Stephen Regenold
Orienteering map in hand

The event, held this year on August 14th in the Chequamegon National Forest of Wisconsin, included 25 flags hidden in a remote plot of forest land. About a dozen teams ran the race, which had a six-hour time cutoff and would entail up to 20 miles of on- and off-trail running.

Despite its name, the sport of Rogaine has no connection to the anti-baldness drug made by Pfizer Inc. The name comes from a combination of "Rod, Gail and Neil," the first names of three Australian athletes credited with popularizing the sport in the 1970s.

Photo: (c) Stephen Regenold
The author, self portrait, during race

The sport, an offshoot of orienteering, puts teams of two to four people on a choose-your-own-adventure course in a wilderness dotted with flags. Race organizers hand out topographical maps at the start pre-marked with control flag locations. From there, teams scan the shotgun pattern of flag placements and pick a route through the woods.

In a rogaine race, a compass serves as your sole navigational tool, no GPS allowed. You chart a course and tag the control flags in any order, imprinting a punch card at each flag to prove you were there. The team with the most punched points in the end wins.

Photo: SPOT Inc.
GPS-tracked route

For the event last month, my teammate Andrei Karpov and I finished the course in about 5 hours and 20 minutes, netting a narrow victory. In an unexpected sprint finish, we edged out second-place "Rainbow Unicorns" by only 10 seconds and stumbled into the finish area exhausted but smiling -- happy to win, and happy to be out of the woods.

To see our route, tracked with a SPOT satellite device, go to: http://www.spotadventures.com/trip/view?trip_id=220123

--Stephen Regenold is founder and editor of www.gearjunkie.com.