Nomad Overland Rally 2024

Nomad Overland Rally Highlights: Week Five

July 8, 2024 – USA: Week Five marked the “halfway” point of the 2024 Nomad Overland Rally competition and this week saw a bustle of activity as many of the teams were out adventuring around the country. We now have five teams with more than 3,000 points, eleven teams over 2,000 points and fifteen who’ve surpassed the 1,000 level.

There was some movement around the leaderboard this week, but Team 117 Lucas, with 4,350 points, is still holding on to first place for the third week in a row. This week saw Lisa and Jeff Lucas finishing up their final Overland Stages as they travelled from Cody, Wyoming north into Montana.

During Stage Nine, the team explored a lot of dirt roads and the McCullough Peaks Wild Horse Range, but they didn’t see any of the horses. At least the views were spectacular, and as a consolation they found a geocache in an area described as a “mini Grand Canyon” — itself a surprise in the middle of what appeared to be a prairie. Later that day they got caught in an intense thunder and lightening storm.

The following day on Stage Ten, the team visited Buffalo Bill Dam and Buffalo Bill State Park, where, according to Lisa, “We accidentally found a little mud.” For “trail fun” they stopped at the Museum of the West where a cook was handing out free samples from the period Chuckwagon display they got to taste the beans, sourdough biscuits and cowboy coffee–all prepared as it would have been on the trail.

In the morning, they picked up their route from Wyoming into Montana, and ended up camping in the middle of 144 forested acres off of Jeffrey Mine Road.

For their Twelfth and final Stage, Lisa and Jeff returned to the Nez Perce Trail and went through the Lewis & Clark National Forest and Helena National Forest eventually making their way to Missoula, where they could celebrate the completion of their Overland Stages for the 2024 rally.

Team 101 Mercer climbed into second place with 3,477 points, after a week spent focused on completing Activities and waiting for parts to be delivered to fix the “death wobble” Princess experienced at the end of their last Overland Stages. Tonya and Chris Mercer checked off all the Driving tasks, and all the Location activities, as well as several of the Backcountry tasks, and they are working their way through the PhotoQuests.

Tonya is hopeful that the local beaver will show itself before the end of this year’s competition. There is a beaver pond not far from the Mercer’s home, and last year she was able to get the “beaver” for the photoquest during the final weeks of the rally. “Fingers crossed” for this year.

Team 129 Astor (Team NC Old Man Overland) jumped into third place with 3,233 points as they continued their Overland Stages moving from Colorado into Wyoming this week. Max and Rhonda Astor checked out Greys River Road and Little Greys River Road which they had hoped would be moderately challenging, but it ended up being “a super easy dirt road,” according to Max.

For their Stage Seven the Astors went to Shadow Mountain in Bridger-Teton National Forest, just a few. miles east of Grand Teton, where they could set up camp with the Tetons in the background. For their next few Stages they explored around the Gros Ventre Wilderness where they really loved the possibilities they discovered. Max said, “The Gros Ventre road stretches around 40 miles into nothing, there are no people out there and the offshoot trails are endless.”

After leaving their Shadow Mountain camp, the Astors picked up the Wood River Trail for Stage Ten, stopping at Amelia Earhart’s cabin, getting in some hiking and visiting a ghosttown. The day was full of river crossings and cows, and they set up camp for the night at a brewery!

Team 111 Potter has been steadily building up points and working with some of the other Colorado-based teams to organize training opportunities and trail runs every week of the Rally. Lisa Potter has completed Seven of her Overland Stages so far, and has spent time helping Team 118 Macy and Team 119 Archer with some of their activities as well. During Week Five, Potter led the the group to the Red Feathers Lakes area where they set up camp for the night.

The next day the group practiced backing up skills, crossing creeks safely and Treading Lightly. Earlier in the Rally, Lisa organized several formal training opportunities for the group including a map and compass navigation class, survival skills, and driving and recovery training with I4WDTA-certified instructor Matt Balaz.

For her Stage Six Lisa led the group from Golden Gate Canyon to Apex Ghost Town to Dakota Hill to Gamble Gulch and beyond. The theme of this Stage was the region’s extensive mining history. “It was fun out exploring trails we had never been on to more mining history areas,” she said.

There was a little more mining history during Stage Seven, but the group also made a fun stop in Victor where they went to see the new Troll “Rita the Rock Planter” before heading into the old mining town and checking out the mining artifacts. After that the group took the Gold Camp Trail to a cool old railroad tunnel and went looking for big horn sheep and coyotes up on Guanella Pass. Lisa said, “It ended up being a 13 hour adventure day full of laughter, animals, mining history and fun!”

Team 103 Chasse is just beginning her epic multi-stage trip from the Mexican border to the Canadian border, and has already gotten in some Stewardship Activities. Jessica Chasse put together an adventurous route that will run along US-191 from South to North, and she checked off her first two Overland Stages this week.

Stage One took Jessica south, to Bisbee, Arizona where she arrived after dark and had to find a dispersed camping spot on BLM land south of town. Luckily she had “pre-run” her route on OnX Offroad and marked some potential campsites during her planning phase. “I was able to find the first campsite (aka the better campsite) in the dark. When scouting for campsites on OnX it was hard to tell if my second option was a stock tank or just a big puddle,” she explained.

In the morning she went to check out the old Lavender Pit mine, south of town, before continuing south to Douglas where she got as close to the US-Mexican border as possible, without actually crossing over. This was her “official” starting point for the US-191 exploration.

Jessica turned north, and began following US-191 making a detour to visit a ghosttown at the old Pearce townsite. Stage Two also included a segment on the Black Hills Back Country Byway with a side excursion to the rockhound area and the cinder pit area. As she reached the area where she had planned to camp, it started to rain. “The first campsite I selected looked good, until I looked around again and saw a pile of fur and two legs (guessing elk). I decided staying there, where I had n0 cell service was ill advised. The storm really rolled in as I was moving on to find a new campsite,” said Jessica. She found a more acceptable spot on a Forest Service Road and set up for the night, nice and dry in her truck, despite the storm outside.

With five more weeks of competition, most of the teams are out exploring. And they are also adding to their point-totals by doing the Weekly Challenges. The Week 5 Challenge, “Outdoor Skills,” took a look at their knowledge of the wilderness, emergency survival, weather and natural navigation.  The teams still have one more week to attempt it. Meanwhile Challenge #6 was released this morning and it involves paper maps and roadbooks.

The Weekly Challenges will take on more importance as Teams begin to exhaust the available points for Overland Stages and Activities. Check out the Leaderboard to see where all the Teams ranked at the end of Week 5.

More News

Check out these updates, or go to the main news page for more articles and information about what is happening around the 2024 edition of the Nomad Overland Virtual Adventure Rally.

with