Valley women participate in 9-day off-road navigation event

Published 3:30 pm Friday, October 3, 2025

Two women from the Snoqualmie Valley are participating in the Rebelle Rally this month, a nine-day competition that takes them on an unpredictable journey through the desert.

Rebelle Rally is the first U.S. women’s off-road navigation rally raid, started by Emily Miller in 2016. It covers 2,500 kilometers (about 1,550 miles) of desert terrain in California and Nevada. Participants compete in teams of two — one navigator and one driver — navigating without GPS or cellphones.

This year, Trista Smith of North Bend and Kendra Miller of Snoqualmie are participating on their respective teams. The Rebelle Rally “just happens to be for women,” Miller said.

“It is not a race for speed, but a unique and demanding event based on the elements of headings, hidden checkpoints, time and distance using maps, compass and roadbook,” she said. “[It] is incredibly empowering. The event also takes place almost entirely on public lands. It feels incredibly special to get to explore these areas in this way.”

Competitors return to the base camp at the end of most days, but each rally includes at least one marathon stage, where teams are on their own overnight. Along the way, the journey varies in difficulty of terrain and navigation.

Challenges include skills like roadbook reading, plotting checkpoint latitude and longitude, plotting distance and heading, route choice, map reading and more.

Teams collect points both for checkpoint challenges and “Rebelle Enduro Challenges.” Checkpoints have to be met at certain times and in order, but not all checkpoints are mandatory, and teams have to decide what is most important to them.

“You’re trying to play that game of what’s a realistic stretch for ourselves,” Smith said. “And also watch your time so you don’t get totally hosed at the end of the day and you miss some really valuable points later. It feels like you’re rolling the dice every time.”

Smith, a native Washingtonian and lifelong athlete, said she joined because her adventure buddy and teammate, Karisa Haydon, asked her to.

“I talked her into her first triathlon being a half Iron Man,” Smith said. “So I was due for my turn to dive into something she was passionate about.”

Smith and Haydon — called Team Velocity — are entering their fourth season of Rebelle Rally and their third season representing Ford Performance. In their first year, they took home fourth place and were rookies of the year.

“Neither of us had driven off-road, I had never navigated, I had never used a map and compass,” Smith said, adding that she took navigation classes to prepare and found it came to her quite naturally.

That year, they drove a Ford Bronco Sport First Edition, putting them in the competition’s crossover category, and paid their own way into the competition, which starts at $15,600 per team.

Smith said they are now grateful to be sponsored by Ford, not only because of the financial investment, but because they needed a tougher car.

“Normally people put those [cars] in the garage,” she said, “Instead, we crossed over 35,000 miles in 2021 … and the radiator blew up.”

For their second season, Ford put Team Velocity in a Bronco Wildtrak, switching them to the 4×4 category. This year, the team will be driving a Ford Ranger Raptor.

Team Velocity has landed in the top 10 for all of their past competitions and hopes to do so again this year, with a dream of making it onto the podium. However, Smith said, that was easier when they were in the smaller crossover category — the 4×4 category has 61 teams this year.

“Karisa and I try to remind ourselves that we’re playing a game,” Smith said. “It all feels really stressful when you’re out there … it’s gonna take us 11 hours today, we’re gonna cover, like, 200 miles, right. But at the end of the day, it’s a scavenger hunt.”

Kendra Miller is entering her ninth season and competed in the first rally in 2016. She and her teammate Emme Hall — also an original Rebelle — are sponsored by Subaru and will be driving a Subaru Crosstrek Wilderness. Their team is called Desert Disco.

Rebelle Rally has changed Miller’s life in more ways than one. Her Rebelle experience led her to take a stage rally co-driving class at DirtFish Rally School in Snoqualmie and then a new job.

“I became a full-time instructor at the school and now compete several times a year as a stage rally co-driver,” she said.

Like Smith, Miller is the navigator of her team, a role she fell into when her first teammate was already an off-road racing driver.

“We decided I would navigate, and I really fell in love with it,” she said. “It’s tough but rewarding work to be able to find a place in the world using just a map and compass with a 3-meter or less accuracy. I know that if I have those two tools, I can find my way anywhere.”

Smith and her teammate have learned a lot throughout their Rebelle Rally experiences, but one of the best lessons, Smith said, is to take the leap of faith.

“We’re always on a mission of, like, if this is something you’re interested in at all, find the people who will support you,” she said. “We just really had to lean in and say yes, and humbly so, and we’ve been massively rewarded for doing that.”