Continued: Ultrafit: From PowerPoint to compass point

It was 5 p.m., a drab Monday in late April, when the accountants from Cargill hiked into the woods. Fresh off an afternoon of PowerPoint slides and budget meetings, the group was anxious to stretch out and breathe in the air of an oncoming spring.

"A bit brisk out here," one worker commented, heading off trail near a marsh. "Hope we can find our way back."

The Cargill Health & Nutrition Finance Team Orienteering Challenge had begun, and groups were tromping off to the urban wilderness of Bloomington's Hyland Lake Park Reserve, maps in hand, on a treasure hunt.

The event, part of a two-day meeting to kick off the upcoming fiscal year, was organized by a new local company, True North Adventures, which touts "team excellence through navigation-based challenges."

As a corporate team-building outfit, True North is one of hundreds of small companies that create events analogizing the business world into activities from paintball to karaoke. It is a realm where collaborating to solve problems might be demonstrated by law associates building a human pyramid while singing a Beatles hit.

True North, founded in January by 35-year-old Minneapolis high school teacher Jerritt Johnston, promotes team-building by incorporating detailed maps, hidden flags, clues, a point system and prizes, and engages participants with a physical challenge as well as a mental game.

Adventure, in the guise of mandatory off-trail routes and labyrinthine wilderness settings where you might get lost, is the value-added bonus.

"It's kind of like that show 'The Amazing Race,'" Johnston said at Cargill's prerace pep talk, referring to the CBS reality series that sends couples on round-the-world scavenger hunts.

The challenge

About 20 Cargill workers -- from entry-level accountants to senior managers -- sat at tables in a Hyland park warming hut, squinting at maps and taking notes as Johnston relayed rules and instructions. "I promise nothing too crazy," he said, handing out a satellite-photo puzzle, the first of many mental challenges to come.

After Johnston taught the Cargill crew to use a map and compass, teams of two were formed and Johnston gave the signal to start. Team members gathered water bottles and fleece vests and filed onto the course with varying levels of enthusiasm and speed.

"What's this small black box?" one worker yelled, pointing to a detail on the map. "Where are we on this page?"

The race, which featured 20 flags scattered around the north end of Hyland Lake, allowed participants to choose their own route through the woods. The rules gave racers about an hour to pick off as many flags as possible, punching a card at each point to imprint a code and prove they were there, with 10 points garnered for every punch.

Bonus points were obtained by querying the competition on answers to unique "mystery questions." Each team had some of the answers for other teams' questions, but getting the information while on the run was an additional challenge in the race's overall strategical whirlwind.

Johnston has been involved with corporate education for more than a decade. He started the small company to focus on navigation-based events, which are a passion and a pastime he pursues as a member of the Minnesota Orienteering Club. He has competed in orienteering meets and adventure races that have put him and his race partner -- his wife, Molly -- on wilderness courses for more than 15 hours at a time.

"On one race, Molly and I saw the northern lights, took a near-hypothermic swim and came across a moose and her two calves," he said of a 2004 event on Minnesota's North Shore.

The idea for True North came when Johnston realized the formula required in adventure racing was a fit for corporate team-building.

"Other activities I've done test mental or physical abilities, but navigation races require both," he said. "Often those skills don't all exist in the same person on the team, so people are forced to work together."

Race is on

At the Hyland race, teams had been prearranged into coed pairings of employees who may not often interact. Some squads featured young workers just out of school yoked to upper-level managers. Local employees ran with workers from offices in Nebraska, Iowa and Belgium.

Dave Korus, a 28-year-old analyst in Minneapolis, raced with Sandy Stricklett, an "over 40" account manager from Omaha. The team, dubbed "Less Is More," struggled to find the first flag at the shore of Hyland Lake. Working together, the two realized they were reading the map wrong.

"I should be good at this," Korus said. "I know topo maps from the Superior Hiking Trail."

Stricklett paused to assess her teammate. "Uh-oh, they paired me with a real hiker!"

Nearby in the woods, the "Matadors," a duo in their 20s, hunted for flag No. 8. They stepped over logs and pushed thorny branches out of the way. Then they hit a stream. "Is this on the map?" asked Bill Bandzuch, an analyst. "We need to go north, then to the left."

Bandzuch's teammate, 23-year-old Emily Braun, confided that she used to orienteer as a Girl Scout. "I did this in, like, second grade," she said.

The Matadors hacked through the underbrush to discover a log propped above the muddy stream. "Here's a bridge," Braun shouted. Soon the pair surfaced on a hilltop, an orange flag the reward for their bushwhack. Braun ran the final 20 feet. "You punch the card, and I'll look at the map for the next route," Bandzuch said.

A half-dozen additional teams crunched through the forest or hiked nearby on trails. The open nature of the race -- you could collect flags in any order -- mixed up the field, making it hard to tell who was ahead. As the race clock ticked down, the pace picked up. "Let's run!" one racer yelled.

A point penalty would be assessed to teams that were late, making time management another factor in race strategy. No team could find all 20 flags and make it back in time, so the challenge was to optimize your route.

"Let's hit these two flags and arch back," said Bandzuch of the Matadors, tracing a finger on the map. "We have a long jog to the end."

With 10 minutes to go, team Less Is More -- locked into a steady hiking pace -- grabbed a couple final flags and ran to the end, finishing just before a time penalty would apply.

"We got a bunch," Stricklett said, flushed from the trek.

The race complete, Johnston gathered the competitors and tallied points. The Matadors grabbed second place. First place went to Korus and Stricklett, the hiker and the hesitant Nebraskan.

"I gained steam as the race went on," Stricklett said. "Dave hiked and I followed as fast as I could."

Stephen Regenold is a Twin Cities writer and author of the syndicated column www.thegearjunkie.com.