When we pulled up to the White Mountain Ranch summer retreat at the northern end of Stinson Lake in Rumney, N.H., it was closed for the season but we didn’t mind.
A dozen of my friends, looking more like rodeo clowns than anything else, clambered out and squeezed into wet suits. This was the perfect staging ground for what we had in mind: our own D.I.Y. Backcountry Triathlon.
For active travelers, contrived “adventure” races have become part of the journey, combining scenic locations with heart-thumping exercise. Triathlons, Tough Mudders and other endurance races, though popular, have at least two drawbacks: They’re often overcrowded and the entrance fees are steep.
Nobody really wants to pay a couple hundred dollars to get shoved underwater by the flailing hordes during the swim portion of the race, or knocked to the pavement during the bike leg. So, equipped with wet suits, bikes, sturdy trail shoes and a few energy bars, my rugby pals and I decided to head into a secluded part of the White Mountains for the D.I.Y. Tri, free of charge.
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I had discovered this area, in and around Rumney, the previous winter while snowshoeing with my son, Liam. With a population of 1,480, Rumney is a quaint, unassuming town in a quiet corner of the White Mountains, far from major tourist draws like the Presidential Range and the Kancamagus Highway. It’s the sort of remote, pine-scented hamlet where Henry David Thoreau might have staged a transcendental triathlon: paddling, gardening and ruminating.
Arriving lakeside, we were greeted by Scott Hatfield, 52, the guest services director for the New England Fellowship of Evangelicals, which owns the ranch. “This is great,” Scott said, looking over our motley crew. To his credit, he didn’t take it back.
As originally conceived, the D.I.Y. Tri was an excuse to get together with a few friends for an outdoor workout and some laughs. But the news spread fast, and by late September, seven men and three women would undertake all three legs: a bracing lake swim, 11-mile bike ride and a 2.5-mile hike up and down Rattlesnake Mountain. Several young daredevils — children ranging in age from 5 to 16 — would tackle the bike ride and hike.
What appealed to everyone about the D.I.Y. Tri was the freewheeling spirit of adventure that’s lacking at most organized events.
Our group, representing a variety of age and weight classes — with a mangled pinkie here, a flattened nose there — stomped onto the beach like a family of polar bears. “What are people wearing under their wet suits?” shouted Chris Pierce, 41, a former all-state wrestler at Ithaca College. Having forgotten his cold water gear, he was wearing baggy shorts and a smile.
“God’s underwear,” said Ken MacIntosh, 37, contorting himself like Houdini to get his bulky arm into the sleeve of his wet suit.
“Same thing I wear under my kilt, “ Joe McCain said. With his abundant tattoos and white goatee, Joe, 51, resembled a lifeguard at a Hell’s Angel’s pool party, although he’s a decorated Somerville, Mass., police lieutenant.
Rumney, N.H., is on the southwestern edge of the 796,000-acre White Mountain National Forest (47,000 of those acres are in Maine), an hour north of Concord, the state capital. The air temperature was 55 degrees and the sky was overcast, with a beard of fog trailing down the slope of Downing Mountain, looming over the lake’s eastern shore. After a brief talk about water safety, and with Joe’s girlfriend, Stefanie Guerriero, 45, in a kayak about 100 yards off shore, the D.I.Y. triathletes waded into Stinson Lake.
With a light splash, Tanya Pierce, 41, an accomplished triathlete and former Division III first-team all-American in soccer at Ithaca, knifed into the water and zoomed out from the beach like a blond torpedo. Sheepishly, most of the others followed in her wake, planning to shuttle back and forth to a buoy 200 yards off shore.
Brad Hayman, Jackson Spellman and I took our own tack, swimming parallel to the bank as we headed for a sandy point a little more than 500 yards away. The 342-acre lake was deserted, silver and flat as a mirror, reflecting the fir trees lining the shore. Even after my warm up, the water was so cold my arms went numb and my ears were ringing as if there was a fire alarm going off.
Finally I entered into a rhythm, gasping for air between strokes. A sunbeam broke through the clouds and, as I tilted my head out, each glimpse of the illuminated birch trees on the embankment froze in my mind.
Finishing my long, cold swim to the halfway point, I staggered to my feet in the shallows, and there was Brad grinning at me. “How’s that, mate?” he asked.
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Jackson glided up, and we lingered for a moment, gazing over at the 3,453-foot bulk of Carr Mountain. With a sweep of his arm, Brad indicated that we had the entire landscape to ourselves. “The view makes it all worthwhile,” said Brad, 36, a rugby player and former elite swimmer from Gunnedah, Australia.
Heading back, we swam down the middle channel, both shorelines equidistant, with Brad forging ahead. The water was 30 feet deep, but so clear my goggles magnified every rounded stone and petrified log on the bottom. It was as if I was reading the history of the lake between each breath. At length, I hauled myself out of the shallows and joined the others getting ready for the bike leg.
“I haven’t been on a bicycle since I had a paper route,” said Susan Viscosi, a 52-year-old distance runner, adjusting the seat of her mountain bike.
Tanya borrowed my first aid kit to patch a little cut on her 5-year-old son Willem’s elbow — he had already tumbled off his bike. Then the Pierces set out, with Lenny the dog trotting out front, Tanya and 9-year-old Kaya on a tandem bike, Will pedaling furiously to keep up, and Chris bringing up the rear.
On we went, the steady grind of a typical endurance race leavened with moments of camaraderie, awe at our surroundings and laughter.
Soon I was pedaling onto Stinson Lake Road, which twists along the eastern shore for a mile or so. The sun poured over the flank of Stinson Mountain, shattering the mirror of the lake into diamond-shaped facets. The ride began with a lengthy flat stretch, past the buttoned up cottages and empty docks, not a soul in sight; then I climbed a short steep hill and plunged into a mile-long descent, going so fast the wind zipped past my ears, blocking out every other sound.
Careering downhill, I arrived at the town common and turned right onto Buffalo Road, which follows the contour of the Baker River, the woods eventually giving way to farmland, a sun-drenched barn and a fenced pasture with a few sheep. The day was growing warmer and I could hear my friends chattering around the bend.
The real attraction of the D.I.Y. Tri was its cast of characters, including my old pal Jason Massa, 47, who showed up the day after participating in a 50-mile mountain bike race in Vermont. “We’re not strong on agility and balance,” Jason said, surveying the assembly. “Leaning more toward feats of strength.”
I’ve known Jason since the mid-1990s, when he would appear at rugby tournaments wearing a flat-brimmed hat and a serape, looking like a demented extra from a movie title like, say, “A Fistful of Parking Tickets.” Now whippet thin, he has qualified as a USA Triathlon amateur all-American the last two years, ranking among the top 5 percent in his age group, 45 to 49, nationwide.
The appealing thing about the rugby crowd, Jason said, “is their willingness to try anything new and challenging, with just the stuff they have in their garage.”
Ditching our bikes, we started up the trail to Rattlesnake Mountain. Although the mountain is a modest 1,594 feet, its 450-foot rise in elevation is so abrupt that my heart was hammering in my ears. Originally an old logging road, the path narrowed, rising sharply through a red pine forest. It veered off to the west for a short ways and then angled upward over huge boulders spotted with ground juniper and bearberry.
Sweating freely, we emerged onto the jagged ledges of the summit. After threatening rain, the sky had hardened into blue enamel, curved over the pointed tips of a million fir trees. The shiny ribbon of the Baker River wound through the valley below, the occasional farm divided into quadrangles by tiny dirt roads.
There we were atop Rattlesnake Mountain, grinning at the million-dollar view and our solid gold friendships, both free.
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