Teams compete in Wilderness Challenge

YORKTOWN, Va. - Twenty-three teams from Hampton Roads are in West Virginia Thursday, ready to compete in the ninth annual all-military Wilderness Challenge.

The challenge, a series of six outdoor adventure races, is coordinated by the Navy Region Mid-Atlantic Region, Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) Department at Naval Weapons Station Yorktown.

More than 300 military personnel representing teams from around the world are expected to compete.

The competition is held in the New River Gourge area of West Virginia. It runs from October 8th through 10th.

Teams participating in this year's challenge will compete in an 8K mountain run, a 14-mile mountain bike race, a 14-mile forced hike through the mountains, a 13-mile white-water raft race and a half-mile swim in the swift moving waters of the Gauley River, and a 7-mile kayak race on the New River.

Hampton Roads area personnel competing in the 2009 challenge are from all branches of the Armed Forces. They include teams from the USS Mason (DDG 87); Navy Expeditionary Combat Command; Coast Guard Training Center Yorktown; Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth; 1st Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Langley Air Force Base; Special Operations Command Joint Forces Command (SOCJFCOM) in Suffolk; Assault Craft Unit 4; USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77); Navy Submarine Torpedo Facility; Navy Expeditionary Logistics Support Group (NAVELSG); and a Wounded Warriors team from Navy Medical Center Portsmouth.

The 2008 challenge winner was a Coast Guard team from Boston, Mass.

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