The Boghoppers first race of the 2003 season was set to be an awesome challenge.

The Salomon X-Adventure Raid Series is a world class event taking place in several locations around the world that attracted teams to the Scotland stage  from 14 nationalities.

With teams as far as Brazil and Canada entering along with the stars of the Adventure racing circuit, Eco-Challenge competitors and fully sponsored teams such as Team Nokia, the level of competition was far higher than the team had ever faced before, it was akin to Stirling Albion competing in the World Cup. 

A minor team name change to The Hoppers was made to recognize the amalgamation in this event of sister teams The Boghoppers and Rockhoppers.

The team would consist of Boghopper regulars John, Sarah and I (Alan) and we would be joined by Vince from the Rockhoppers.

The format of the race would be teams of 4, with three racing at the one time.

The route for Stage 1 was to be a mountain run which  would cross the shoulder of Ben Nevis to take teams to transition one at the foot of the Aanoch Mor Gondola.

The photo below, taken just before the start, shows how much we realise what we’ve let ourselves in for…

The foul weather for the 6.00am start of the race freezing cold, driving rain and low cloud that gave no possibility of catching sight of the snow-capped Ben Nevis, forced the organisers to resort to plan C. – the really bad weather! course, cutting out the summit ridge of Ben Nevis, and the Carn Mor Dearg arete, with competitors instead heading up the normal track to the Charkes Inglis Clark (CIC) Memorial Hut, before heading back down to the transition at Aanoch Mor car park .

One of my memories of that stage was whilst running down the hill, a helicopter with a film crew hanging out the door dropped into the valley, it was an amazing sight and spurred us on to “look good for TV”.

The support crews for Stage 2 were waiting and had been trying to set up tarps, awnings and umbrellas to keep out the heavy rain as they prepared the bikes for the next stage. 

The next biking stage was to take teams through the Leanach Forest and then up the whole length of Loch Laggan on the west side.

It was a good track above the loch, though it was still raining heavily so there were no expansive views and it took teams to the start of the canoe stage, at the southern end of Loch Oich. The teams inflated their bright red 3 man jumbo canoes before setting off up the loch.

The narrow loch led the teams into the river Oich which has it’s exciting moments, especially some rapids near the end of the stage.

At least one team went over in these, and another lost a paddle and had trouble getting it back. The river exits into Loch Ness at Fort Augustus.

Teams now switched paddles from single to double bladed, and changed to kayaks for a jounrney along Loch Ness.

After the long kayak on Loch Ness came the ropes section at Foyers Waterfall, and it was probably the most spectacular ever seen at a race in Britain.

After a short trek teams arrived at the edge of a cliff top overlooking the falls. There are two tiers, the falls which tumble into a deep basin, and then another set of cliffs overlooking the falls..It was the top of these where the stage began.

After clipping on the first part was a high wire traverse right above the falls to cross the gorge.

Then came a flying fox between the top cliffs but the racers didn’t go all the way across, they stopped half way and abseiled directly down into the waterfall pool below. A spectacular drop.

Then, after a short swim, they had to climb back up the cliff to where they had started from.

John, Sarah & Vince did this stage and they said it was one of the most amazing experiences in an Adventure Race they had done.

The next stage was mountain biking up over the Monadhliath hills to a transition in a broad flat valley full of thousands of grazing deer. John, Sarah & I would take this stage on.

This section was mostly carried out in darkness and involved a strength sapping bike carry over 4km of boggy moorland with undulating surfaces.

Just as we started the trek over the peat bog, Sarah fell, straight into a water filled peat pool…it certainly looked unpleasant, but she carried on.

Credit to John for navigating us across this moorland in the dark, but eventually we saw a light in the distance, the race organisers had brought a 4×4 up the track to help guide us to the trail head.

It was like a scene from Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, as adventure racers came from all directions towards the light..

Finally we got back on the bikes for the bone jarring, adrenalin pumping night mountain bike ride down to the transition point.

At this point the teams were to head on a mountain run, however with only 3 minutes left until the close of that stage the decision was made to get some well deserved rest and restart in the morning.

Day two began at 5.30am when the leaders left the campsite to paddle down the river Spey under clear skies.

The weather looked set fair for a good day and there were clear views of the Cairngorm ridges and corries. They were covered in fresh snow and looked impressive and a bit intimidating in the early morning light. That is where the teams would be heading later in the day for a mountainous finish to the race, but Sunday morning was low level and almost flat. First came the paddle, then a 10km in-line skate along a quiet valley road.

This was a new discipline for us, and we had to have a practice sessions around our home town of Dunfermline, much to the amusement of the teenagers in the park. The road surface wasn’t great for skating and the car drivers going passed looked confused, however it was great fun.

The skate finished with a very fast transition to the mountain bikes. The route lead from Coylumbridge, round Rothiemurcus forest via Loch Morlich then the steep ascent to the Cairngorm ski centre car park.

The next stage was a run round into the Lairig ghru and back over to the ski centre then finishing the race with a sprint down into Glenmore lodge through some  braken and peat bogs.

The finish came into view quicker than expected and the team grouped together for a sprint through the line.

Missing a few of the stages was to cost the team in terms of time penalties, however the team was pleased that we were not last placed as we had feared given the extremely high level of teams that had entered.

There had been many lessons learnt during the race, particularly about keeping up with the race and not getting out of transition quickly.

The team’s next race was the Ace Race in the North of England at the start of June 2003.