Okay all you Tough Mudders, Spartan Sprinters and Go-Ruckers, the bar has  been raised in adventure races. A lot. 

This sniper team is from Trinidad and Tobago. Who knew?

This is the Competition Dynamics Sniper Adventure Challenge. It combines orienteering,  long rifle, carbine, pistol, problem solving, cryptology (breath…) marksmanship, escape and evasion, chainsaw dueling, meteor rodeoing, dragon wrestling, and  everything else that anyone who has ever read an Army brochure will think is stooopid cool. 

All of this takes place on a course that is 25 square miles of New Mexico desert. Camel spiders were airlifted in, just to provide nourishment for the hard as steel two man teams (no they weren’t).

40 percent of the competitors won’t finish the race. They will probably die of spider bites and head shots from other teams. (Again. They won’t.)

There will be very few Dwight Schrutes in the mix. The cost of admission, about $700, combined with the cost of equipment; about $4000 for the firearms alone, place this well beyond the reach of the casual weekend warrior. Think SWAT team dudes who want to stay sharp, or ex military snipers who want to test their skills, and you will be closer to the truth. These guys aren’t your typical weekend warrior types.

Needless to say, I will never compete in the Competition Dynamics Sniper Adventure Challenge. Not even in my imagination. I haven’t seen anything to make me think that it is closed to the public, but the commitment that it would take to become competitive would require me to leave my family and train with Rae Sha Gu in the Tibetan mountains.

Still, the overall coolness is kind of undeniable.