Primal Quest 2009

Primal Quest 2009 started on Friday in the Badlands of South Dakota. Throughout this infamous race, 32 teams will be challenged to cover 600 miles via trail running, mountain biking, caving, swimming, kayaking and ropes courses. Teams will rely on their orienteering skills to get them from check point to check point within the 10-day timeframe. You can follow their progress here.


NEMO has been a long-time supporter of adventure racing, designing ultralight tents for the competitors (Hypno PQ, Nano Elite) and sponsoring the 2006 Primal Quest, held in Utah. Team Nike, the most winning team in Adventure Racing, long-time friend and gear testers for NEMO, withdrew before this year's race started due to a mountain bike accident that team leader Mike Kloser was involved in a few weeks back. I spoke to Mike recently and he said "...I am back on the bike and feeling much better. Still got a ways to get back to top form, but am now shooting for the race in China in Sept."

PQ organizers do a fantastic job of keeping interested followers up-to-date with Tweets, SPOT tracking and video coverage. While the future of Adventure Racing is unknown, one thing is for certain - this race pushes competitors to depths very few of us have experienced.

Photo courtesy Team Nike

~Kate