Projects
The Greening of Adventure Racing
ARFE is currently working with the CheckPointTracker series on a ground-breaking new program to green up adventure racing. This year, seven of the ten races in the Checkpoint Tracker National Points Series will utilise organic- or recycled-cotton swag bags in place of traditional plastic bags. WeCeFAR's Swamp Stomp (http://www.wecefar.com) and Planet Adventure's 24 Hour Challenge sported merino wool and bamboo fibre T-shirts, respectively. All races are currently following USARA's Ethics for Environmentally Sound Racing. For more information or queries, write to yishun (at) arfe (dot) org.
Leave No Trace Education
Six members of Team ARFE-SmartWool and ARFE staff are Leave No Trace Master Educators. We join a select group of only 1700 Master Educators nationwide (2500 worldwide). We are qualified to teach Leave No Trace (http://www.lnt.org) Awareness and Trainer clinics. We travel to select partnered races to educate racers, spectators, volunteers and race directors on Leave No Trace principles. Each race director who holds an ARFE Leave No Trace Awareness clinic at their race can proudly say that their races are Leave No Trace Aware. To date, ARFE has made nearly 1000 racers, volunteers, and staff Leave No Trace Aware. In May most Team ARFE-SmartWool members will be Leave No Trace Master Educators. Write to us if you'd like us to conduct Leave No Trace clincs with your racing club!
Giving Thanks Where Thanks is Due
ARFE knows that land managers bear enormous responsibility when it comes to allowing events like adventure races to be run on the lands they oversee—so we’ve made it a point to ask every racer to thank them for their work. We provide big thank-you posters that racers sign as part of check-in.
Carbon Neutrality
A generous donation from LEKI (http://www.leki.com) made it possible for our adventure racing team and staff to be entirely carbon neutral for 2007. For more information on carbon neutrality, check out our carbon offset supplier, Atmosclear (http://www.atmosclear.org). To see how much carbon YOU produce, check out our Carbon Calculator here.
Treats for Trash
Adventure racing is a self-supported sport, but we think racers who pick up after themselves and others should get a little something extra. At select partnered races, ARFE and our sponsors provide incredible edible goodies that are earned by racers to bring in any piece of garbage.
Best Garbage
At partnered races, racers compete with each other to see who can bring in the best garbage. Previous winners have dragged in toilets, car fenders, a car door. Prizes are generously donated by CW-X (www.cw-x.com) and our title sponsor, SmartWool (www.smartwool.com).
Environmentally Sound Racing
Working with the United States Adventure Racing Association (http://www.usara.com), ARFE, Leave No Trace, Tread Lightly, the American Hiking Society, and several land management agencies, ARFE created the Ecological Standards for Adventure Racing. We ask every racing outfit that we partner with to follow standards. You can view or download them here.
