News | Ground UP Adventures

The Family Adventure Race (FAR) is Saturday, September 27th 2014, from 1:00-3:30 pm (this weekend!). This race is one of our favorite events to put on because it lets parents come out and have fun in the "wilderness" with the kids--or it lets parents bring the kids out to see some of what they do in "grownup" races. Kids from ages 6-16 can come race on a family team (kids and grownups) or a youth team (just kids). Entry is $15 per kid aged 6-16, and adults and kids younger than six race free. You can register here. What is an adventure race? Adventure races combine cycling, running or hiking, sometimes paddling, and always navigation. Your team stays together the whole time--this isn't a relay race--and you use a paper map to figure out where you are and where you need to go. To finish, your team needs to navigate to a bunch of different checkpoints on the map, and can get bonus points for completing "mystery challenges" along the way. Check out groundupadventures.com/far for complete details of this race and photos and videos from previous races.

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It has been a very, very busy summer for GUP. In addition to all the normal summer activities that most of us get up to with our families, we were able to pull off a fantastic summer adventure camp [check out the video!], host several climbing sessions at the wall in conjunction with other youth focused organizations, and (fingers crossed) actually get this boat house open! Although we originally announced a boat house opening date of mid June, rainy spring weather pushed that initial deadline into July where other committments and a vast under-estimation of the amount of work to be done pushed it even further. But, progress continued to be made and with the hiring of two new builders to assist with the progress the first container is slated to be inspected and moved by this weekend. We're still planning to open operations once this first container is done but will be holding off on the programming we'd hoped to offer this summer so that we can 'get our feet wet' so to speak. We will focus on getting folks to the river on these nice late summer afternoons and will be putting on several free community paddling nights between now and the end of the season, so stay tuned. Next summer we will come out with paddles blazin! For more information, visit the boat house website--www.bhonthered.org.

16 youth aged 10-14 will be heading off to the North Shore of Lake Superior next week for Ground UP adventure's third annual adventure camp. On tap this year is lots of rugged miles on the superior hiking trail, rock climibng at Carlton peak, kayaking and SUPing on the lake, and maybe even some packrafting. Huge thanks to Altru Health Systems and the Grand Forks Parks District for providing funding for camp scholarships this year.

Ground UP is proud to be one of four local Grand Forks non-profits that are a part of the giveGRAND charitable challenge week, April 27-May 3rd. Your tax deductible donation during this week will be matched dollar for dollar by some of our community partners, so there isn't a better time to show your support of our mission to bring adventure to the lives of the regions youth (and adults too!). Check out the giveGRAND page for more on the charitable challenge and to donate to our organization.

It's a done deal. The race has reached its cap a full two weeks before it happens. More than 100 kids and parents will challenge themselves during the event as they navigate through the Assiniboine Forest on bike and foot and take on mystery challenges--and this time, thanks to the efforts of our guest race directors, Tara and John Kenny, I will be one of them! --Andy Magness, Ground UP adventures president.