Adventure racing is a sport predicated on the unknown: can we bushwhack through that valley? Will I fall into this crevasse and die? Is wading in bat guano with open wounds a good idea? The uncertainties of what will happen next draw many people away from the relatively pedestrian and known commodities of triathlons, marathons, and other structured multisport races. Adventure races abound in delicious ambiguity: will you find water? Will you run out of food? Will this bitch of a storm capsize your boat? Will you kill your teammate? Will you die of thirst?

Of late, there has been a rekindling of an old argument on the ARA (Adventure Racing Association) — the sometimes tedious but often informative listserv of the adventure racing community. The argument centers around whether or not adventure racing should be bridled (some would argue shackled), reined in and controlled by any number of possible governing bodies, sanctioning entities and organizations. There is even muttering about trying to qualify adventure racing as an Olympic sport.

The biggest question to answer is the most obvious: Why? What the hell for?

Since the beginning, the sport has been in the throes of constantly defining and redefining itself. It comes in many permutations: short course, one-day, three-day, sprints, expedition length, stage races, supported and unsupported. And that is the good news. There is room for everyone. Can't get into the Eco-Challenge? Do the Beast of the East, Raid Gauloises, or Elf Authentic Adventure. Not enough time or sponsorship money to fly to New Zealand for the Discovery Channel Adventure Race, formally Southern Traverse? Okay, try the Endorphin Fix or the Fogdog.

Why does adventure racing need to be ordered and trimmed like an English garden?

Those in favor of more organization say having a designated "Olympic" distance and course will translate to more exposure (TV) and thereby an easier sell to potential sponsors and advertisers. Maybe. But at what cost?

The soul of the sport, perhaps.

Once there are set distances and disciplines, then you really have what amounts to an off-road triathlon, not an adventure race.

Says Robyn Benincasa, member of the Eco-Challenge Sabah 2000 winning team and winner of the 1998 Raid Gauloises in Ecuador: "It would be really cool to win a medal, but not every sport needs to be in the Olympics to justify its existence or to make it 'a real sport.' Also, there is no way to standardize an adventure race to make it fair and equitable to everyone in the world. And if it were the same exact course every time, it would really ruin the adventure of it. It's kind of nice that each year a given race favors a different team in some way. That's why it is so hard to win twice."

Who wants equity, anyway? Who wants uniformity?

Part of the schism has to do with a rather interesting growing trend in the sport of adventure racing—the very popular short course series which are cropping up all over the nation (and all over the world, for that matter). There is the extremely well-attended Hi-Tec Series, The Cal Eco Series, The Mountain Rage Series, and too many others to name. Some are riddled with acronyms and real tongue twisters, like the USARA Sprint Adventure Racing US National Championships (try saying that three times), and its lengthier stepchild, the USARA Longcourse Adventure Racing US National Championship — isn't a long sprint a bit of an oxymoron?

Ironically, many sage and wizened racers have never heard of all these "Sprints," nor are they members of any affiliations or organizations (for which you apparently don't get very much—a silly plastic card in most cases). Ian Adamson, responding to a recent complaint on the ARA that Mike Epstein, race director of Hi-Tec and FogDog, intentionally made the FogDog date to sabotage the USARA Sprint Championships, signed out like this, with his tongue firmly lodged in his cheek: "Ian Adamson, Team Salomon/Eco-Internet — with no ties to FogDog, USARA, or any affiliation, association, organization, or disorganization in adventure racing."

The epidemic of short races, sprints, 24-hour, two- to three-day races, and series is definitely good for the sport. These create more interest, more involvement, more opportunity, and serve as excellent feeder races for the biggies (Eco-Challenge, Raid, Elf, Southern Traverse.) But let's remember that's what they are — apprenticeships for the Holy Grail. They are gateway drugs to the big bad dose that all would-be adventure racers want to mainline: the expedition adventure race.

The real beauty of an expedition race (like the real beauty of an expedition) is that you don't know what the outcome will be. You might get lost. You might fail. You might die. All this talk of sanctioning bodies and organizations responds to a need for order and control, the exact antithesis of certain aspects of expeditions. Need for control reflects a fear of being lost.

Says Jack Crawford, an adventurer who has been lost and likes it: "I think the problem is that we have this need as humans to use a compass. The knowledge of our location and direction gives us a sense of safety. It is very uncomfortable for humans to throw away the compass, and just go wandering. We have a tendency to give in to our fears, and are afraid of being lost. I think that many of us are looking for that sense of direction from politics, and rules, and controls. So when we ask, 'what is the future of AR,' instead of answering 'My compass says we go this direction, and I make the rules,' perhaps we should answer, 'No matter where you go, there you are. Just don't drink the water.' Then we may realize that we are in adventure racing so that we may get lost from time to time."

Mark Macy, a wily veteran of six Eco-Challenges, echoes those sentiments: "The real purpose of adventure racing is to get away from all the BS in our everyday lives and spend some time in the woods. I personally will never have anything to do with any governing body in the sport. I left triathlon in the late '80s because it became too regulated and political and became an ultra-runner because of its simplicity, its lack of organization. As far as I know, nobody has any intent to organizing that sport. If AR goes the way of triathlon, I guess I can go back to Ultras. To those of you who need organization, more rules and regulations, perhaps you should become lawyers and leave the rest of us alone." Ironically, Macy is himself an attorney.

Laws of equilibrium will likely play themselves out in this turbulent time, and the sport will find a balance. Down the road (hopefully a long, windy, rutted, and, in places, impassable one) there will probably be a hierarchy of governing bodies, committees, sanctions and organizations controlling adventure racing, and racers will be able to compare split times and show each other their membership cards and talk about their podium finishes in their respective categories. It's not a day to look forward to.

Imagine a CAT V Pro-Elite Clydesdale in the Semi-Sprint One-Day Longcourse Expedition 24-Hours of Leptospirosis Adventure Race, and you get the picture.

If it comes to that, plenty of teams and individuals will retreat, going back to what started all of this in the first place: wandering around in the woods for a few days to see what you find, or what finds you.

— Buddy Levy, MountainZone.com Columnist