I was in Salt Lake City, Utah, last weekend when my phone beeped, signaling a message that the race had started. I had 24 hours to get as many checkpoints as possible.
The race, called The Questival, was a unique combination of urban scavenger hunting and adventure racing and one of the craziest things I’ve ever done.
Not only was it a hugely competitive event with over 1,300 participants, it served as the launch for a new brand called Cotopaxi.
(See our initial coverage of the Cotopax launch: “Cotopaxi Is A Brand That Plans To Change The World With ‘Gear For Good’”)
I teamed up with three journalists from Utah to race. We spent 24 hours driving all across the state, jumping into hot springs, skiing, flying in a prop plane, and completing other crazy quests.
Tasks varied from paragliding off a mountain, to performing community service at an elderly home, and everything in between. There were 184 different missions for teams to choose from that earned points; the team with the most points wins.
Teams had to stick together for the whole race, and take a photo while holding the Cotopaxi backpacks that were included in the registration.
To claim our points, we uploaded photos to social media using the required hashstags: #cotopaxi, #gearforgood, and #questival. We then used the Questival App (created just for this race) to check off our completed challenges, and add up our points.
The top all-female, all-male, and co-ed teams received trips to Kilimanjaro, Bangor Wat, and Machu Picchu. While our team didn’t win, I still had fun trying to see how many different challenges we could check off while traveling all around Utah.
Here is a glimpse of some of the challenges we encountered over the course of of the 24-hour race. — Amy Oberbroeckling
