Urban legends visit Las Vegas

Columnist Susan Snyder

For 228 people heading to Las Vegas this weekend for a $50,000 urban treasure hunt, the toughest part of the contest could be just getting around.

Teams entered in the final rounds of the national Urban Challenge racing adventure have two choices of transportation -- ride the bus or run.

Neither is a sterling choice in Las Vegas, which has one of the highest pedestrian fatality rates in the country and a bus system that isn't known for being the most convenient. Makes climbing some no-name Tibetan peak look sissy.

"That's what I've heard," said Adrienne Heald, spokeswoman for the New York City company promoting the event. "But a lot of these people are in amazing shape. They might actually run faster than the bus."

We have desert tortoises that probably can run faster than the bus.

Anyway, Urban Challenge 's 19-city tour started May 18 in Phoenix. Participants wandered through such cities as Cleveland, Los Angeles and Raleigh, N.C., before qualifying for the grand prize finals Saturday in Las Vegas.

"Everything we've been doing all summer has been leading up to Las Vegas," Heald said.

Urban Challenge is part scavenger hunt, part adventure race and all head game. Participants play in two-person teams. They start each race with a trivia challenge , which determines the order in which the teams start.

Then they are given a list of clues to 12 locations. They have to take photographs of those sites before returning to the finish line. Being a fast runner helps, but people also must unravel the cryptic clues and develop strategies for finding those answers. So even middle-of-the-road runners have a fighting chance.

And therein lies the inspiration for this event, Heald said.

The race was created by Kevin McCarthy, owner of a Phoenix cabinet-making company. McCarthy, who staged a similar scavenger hunt last year for his daughter's 12th birthday, is an average runner. And he figured even average people ought to get a chance to win sometimes.

Teams receive all 12 clues at the beginning, but are assigned to start at different sites to scatter the field of players and keep them from traveling around in one big clump.

The clues aren't easy. For example, the clue for Seattle's Checkpoint 4, Stone Lantern, said: "This birthday gift to the United States in 1976 is located within one-half mile of 6th Avenue South and Main Street."

Winning racers learned early to carry a cell phone and stay in contact with a network of family and friends who were logged onto the Internet and waiting to help with research.

"One team had a friend situated in Japan helping them out with clues," Heald said.

The semifinal round begins at 7 a.m. Saturday at Jillian's in Neonopolis. The field will be narrowed to seven pairs of finalists, who will compete for the $50,000 in a final round that afternoon. They will be bused to a secret starting point but end at Jillian's.

Cell phones aren't allowed in the final round. And none of the competitors are from Las Vegas or Nevada. So they will be running blind in the strangest of strange towns.

It's not so different from living here, actually. Except we don't get $50,000 at the end of the day.

Susan Snyder's column appears Fridays Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.