About us
How Street Scramble began
Terry & Eric: of Meridian Geographics at inaugural urban orienteering event, the 2003 Seattle Night & Day Challenge, holding boxes of maps and map cases.Eric Bone and Terry Farrah, have been devotees of
the sport of orienteering for many years -- Eric since 1989, Terry since
1999. Fans of urban exploring, Eric has lived in Seattle
his entire life and Terry was born in San Francisco and lives there now, but has lived in Seattle for 15 years during the 80's and 90's.
In October 2002 they did a 15 mile run on the San Francisco Bay Area that included stops at a very old redwood called the Methusela Tree and at some cool sandstone formations. Perhaps inspired by the touristic nature of this run, the two got to talking about how cool it would be to put on an "urban rogaine" in Seattle.
What's an urban rogaine? Sixteen hour Night & Day is precisely what an urban rogaine is. Most rogaines are held in undeveloped terrain and are a full 24 hours long. They decided to limit Night & Day to 16 hours because pavement is more punishing to the feet than earth. A rogaine is a kind of orienteering race. But most people have never heard of rogaines or of orienteering, so it was decided not to call it either one.
The first Night & Day in Seattle was held on July 19-20, 2003, drawing just over 100 participants. It was based at their friend John Lee's house, in Seattle's Central District. It was very successful, and Night & Day was scheduled again for 2004.
Wanting to give people a chance to train for the 2004 Seattle Night & Day, Terry and Eric planned three micro Night & Day style events called Street Scramble®. The two soon discovered that Street Scramble was going to become even more popular than Night & Day.
Call Terry and Eric crazy, but they decided to create the business, Meridian Geogrpahics, to produce these and other fun events full-time. 2010 marks the 8th anniversary of Seattle Night & Day, the 7th year for Street Scramble, the 6th year for BEAST adventure race series (also in the Seattle area), and the fourth season for Northwest Trail Runs. Meridian Geogrpahics also produces a myriad of navigation classes, camps, and private events.