DH and I did a Haunted Trail Adv. Saturday night that was a cross between a trail run 5k and an Adventure Race. The race took place at nightfall in the woods on the lighted ski trails. Although, "lighted" trails is a little deceptiive, without snow on the ground to reflect the light, it was much darker than I anticipated--flashlights were not allowed.

There were over 300 participants for this first time event, just about everyone had on costumes. Mostly everyone was in teams of 2 people. And about half of the participants were under 17! Yay!

Everyone got a map of the ski trails. There were 6 checkpoints on the map that you had to find and then have your "pass card" punched (to prove you were actually there). You chose your own route and you could get the checkpoints in any order.

The trails were haunted along the way with werewolves, a guy with a chainsaw, people hiding in the dark that would crawl out and your legs. They did a good job. The checkpoints were "haunted destinations." One was a graveyard with dead people crawling out of open graves, a witches lair, a butcher house . . . it sounds creepy and it was in a way just b/c you're in the woods in the dark, but the even twas a fundraiser for a junior high program--so it wasn't over-the-top.

DH and I did really awesome, we took an uncoventional route and, DH knowing some shortcuts, was able to save us a chunk of time. Although, the shortcut was not part of the lighted trails so it was slow going. We were by ourselves for the first 5 minutes or so and it was really quiet running through the woods. Then suddenly a guy, dressed all in black with red glowing eyes jumped out of a tree and grabbed DH. That was the scariest part. We knew SOMETHING was coming, but we did not expect that at all!

We got to the last checkpoint and I double-checked our pass card and realized that one of the punches did not go all the way through our pass card!!!! And it was the station that was on top of the highest ski hill!!!! We took off in a sprint . . . but DH got turned around and didn't check the map. We ended up going in the opposite direction.

After all of that, we ran the course twice. If we hadn't of made that silly mistake, we would have won the race. I don't think either one of us was "out-to-win," we were just there to have fun. And it was a blast!

The after party was great too. For $25 we got a long sleeve t-shirt, water bottle, glow sticks/necklaces, Pizza, brownies, and Oktoberfest beer from a local brewery. There were bonfires and scary movies playing outside.

It was a lot of fun. I think Zoom-Zoom should do this race next year with her DH You could wear a zombie costume!

Here's little video from the race on youtube.