Phil: This is Accra, the capital of Ghana. Founded by the Ga people, it first rose to prominence when it became the capital of the Gold Coast. Today, it's a global center of trade, communications, and West African culture.
Phil: And on the outskirts of Accra, Osu Castle. Situated on the Gulf of Guinea, it was first built by the Danish and hosted the Ghanaian government. Today, it is the starting point for three teams as they embark on their final leg on The Amazing Race.
Phil: Dahlia & Jasper, who were the first to arrive, will depart at 6:00 pm.
Dahlia: Fly to Vermont!
Jasper: You have zero dollars for this Leg of the Race! Righteous!
Phil: Teams must now fly over 5,000 miles to Burlington, Vermont. Resting on the shores of the magnificent Lake Champlain, this town of 42,000 people is the largest in Vermont, and the smallest town to be the largest city in its state.
Phil: When teams arrive in Burlington, they'll find their next clue on the hood of their marked cars outside the airport.
Phil: All teams are now flying to Burlington, Vermont, via Washington, D.C.
Teams run to the cars
"Drive yourselves to the Champlain Islands!"
Phil: Teams must now drive themselves 20 miles to the town of South Hero on the Champlain Islands. Once there, teams must locate the Arnold Zlotoff Tool Museum. 
Phil: A refuge for colonial traditions and a beacon of island self-sufficiency, this museum is a 200-year-old time machine. It is in this farmhouse that teams will find their next clue.
"Time to go back in time"
Phil: The Champlain Islands are renowned for their simple lifestyle and self-sufficiency. This museum is dedicated to a way of life gone from most parts of the country, but thriving in Vermont. The museum's founder collected colonial-era tools and sought to teach others how to both make and use them. Teams will now take part in this tradition and create a tool essential for life on a farm- a broom.
Using entirely local materials, including Bushy Bluestem grass, teams must make a broom of their own. Once the museum's director approves of their relic, they will be directed to one of two side rooms of the barn and sweep out a 6 by 6 square foot section of the floor. Doing so will reveal one of the two options in the upcoming Detour. Should teams wish, however, they may sweep in both rooms to reveal both sides of the Detour. It's a gamble, and teams must ask themselves how much effort they're willing to sacrifice for information. Decisions are key in this final leg, and this junction is no exception.
Once teams reveal the name of any side of the Detour, they will receive that clue from the Director.
Teams that sweep the left room will reveal CHEESE, while teams that sweep the right room will reveal TREES.
Phil: In Cheese, teams must drive themselves to Allenholm Farm, one of the many family-operated farms that dot the islands' landscape. Once here, teams must immerse themselves in one of Vermont's most famous activities- cheese making! Locating the cheese cabin, teams will have to carry cheese wheels to an outdoor scale.
Phil: The only catch is that there are four different varieties of cheese in the shed- Cheddar, Raclette, Swiss, and Appenzeller- and teams must use cheese of each kind to weigh out exactly 500.00 pounds of cheese. Each wheel of cheese weighs between 15 and 30 pounds, and all wheels of the same variety weigh exactly the same.
Phil: Teams must deduce the correct combination of cheeses in order to reach 500.00 pounds and carry these wheels 100 feet from the shed to the scales. Once teams hit the magic number of 500 on the nose, the farmer will give the team their next clue. Will teams gifted in math prove themselves to be cheese whizzes, or will the physical labor leave teams wheezing?
Phil: There is perhaps no tree as important to Vermont as the Maple. Not only does its remarkable foliage bring millions of tourists to New England each year, but the syrup produced from its sap is a favorite as well. In Trees, teams must drive themselves to At Hackett’s Orchard.
Phil: Teams will then search the farmhouse complex for 15 different framed Maple leaves, each belonging to a different species. The pictures identify each leave by its scientific name.
Phil: Teams will use these pictures and names to solve a puzzle near the fruit stand, consisting of a glass frame with six leaves. Teams must correctly identify the leaves using their surroundings in order to guess the right species names. The first letter of each species name will spell out a six-letter phrase, which they can repeat to the farmhand to receive their next clue.
Phil: Unbeknownst to teams, this mystery word will be APPLES, of which Hackett's Orchards produces over 40 varieties. With the answer all around teams, will shrewd teams pull ahead, or will teams be too bogged down looking for leaves that they won't notice?
"Drive yourselves to Grand Isle Art Works"
Phil: Teams must now drive themselves to Grand Isle Art Works. This gallery for local artisans showcases the talent of the islands. Each artist draws inspiration from Lake Champlain, whether it stems from the materials of choice or the subject of each work. Teams will find their next clue outside the building.
"Time to meet the real Champ of the Race. Use the provided piles of driftwood to create a sculpture of Champ, a local sea monster that calls Lake Champlain home."
Phil: The depths of Lake Champlain are said to be home to Champ, a sea monster that resembles the Loch Ness Monster of Scotland. First sighted by Samuel de Champlain, it is now a symbol of the Lake and Vermont as a whole, memorialized in the area's sports teams. Teams must now pay homage to this creature by creating a model out of driftwood, a favorite local material.
The Grand Isle Art Works features a collection of driftwood sculptures, and today teams will be adding to that collection. Teams must loosely follow the provided example to create a sculpture of their own. The sculpture must be at least seven feet long and five feet tall, and should have sufficient depth- teams should make more than a skeletal frame. Teams may use glue, but are forbidden from sawing, cutting, or drilling their wood. Once the art director approves of the teams sculpture, from its size to their own creativity, he will give them their next clue.
"Find the Bird House Forest on White's Beach!"
Phil: Teams must now drive back to South Hero and find White's Beach. Once there, they'll have to put on waders and run to the cluebox in the Bird House Forest. Originally built to attract birds in order to reduce the mosquito population, today the birdhouses add a bit of color and charm to the forest.
Roadblock: Who can see the forest for the trees?
Phil: In this Roadblock, the final task of the Race, one team member must run through the forest, searching amongst the birdhouses for those that have been painted with the colors and the patterns of the flags of the foreign countries teams raced through. They could then reach into the Birdhouse and retrieve a picture from the legs that took place in said country, with each picture representing a task or location from the race.
Phil: That team member will then run back to the entrance of the forest and place the image on a game board. However, teams will have to be very careful; not all birdhouses have pictures that matched the painted flag, but correct pictures can only originate from the matching birdhouse. Therefore, teams will have to know their flags and their race history.
Phil: Once all ten countries are represented with the correct pictures, the light at the top of the game board will turn green and teams will receive their final clue. However, if any pictures are incorrect, the light will turn red, but team members will not know which image or images are wrong.
"Drive yourselves to the Finish Line, Alburg Dunes State Park! This is it! Go, go, go!"
Phil: Teams must now drive themselves to the Finish Line, Alburg Dunes State Park! This beach is one of the largest on Lake Champlain and today marks the spot where one team will win The Amazing Race and the one million dollars that goes with it!
Hi, judges! I hope you liked my Leg!
With half an hour between the Pit Stop and the Airport and teams spaced out within half an hour of each other, all teams will make it to the Airport with more than enough time to all get on the same flight to Washington, D.C.
I decided on Vermont because I have some friends and role models from the area. It's never been featured before, and has a bounty of natural attractions.The proximity of the Champlain Islands to Burlington Airport is excellent; teams can drive a relatively short distance to islands with towns of 500 or less. A lack of charter flights, buses, or even toll roads minimizes costs for WRP, hence the lack of money for this final leg.
As you can see, the locations are all quite close together; 1.5 hours for total on-ground travel time means that teams shouldn't even need to stop for gas (not that there are gas stations on the islands).
In fact, the two farms are .2 miles away, meaning teams can reduce travel time between Detours if they choose to switch. Speaking of Detours, I wanted to try out this "forced Detour" twist, as it adds yet another decision for teams to ponder- do they take another 5-10 minutes to sweep out a 6x6 area, or proceed with the limited information they have. Teams really have to factor in their opportunity cost, and it adds another potential area for teams to pass each other. Often times, finales are all too linear; by adding a Detour, I tried to circumvent that, and the limited Detour information adds even more variance into the mix.
I believe the Detour is fairly balanced; assuming each team member can carry 40-ish pounds, they only need to make 6/7 trips between the barn and the scales, situated 100 feet apart. Additionally, each Detour has a little "cheat"- teams can weigh each cheese wheel individually in order to determine the weight of that variety, allowing them to do the mental math needed to reach 500.00; otherwise, they can use trial and error. Similarly, Trees takes place in an orchard famous for apples (in fact, both farms featured in the Detour prioritize apples), meaning that the word they need is right in front of them. Shrewd teams could figure out the first letters or so and leave relatively quickly. However, adrenaline induces tunnel vision, as we all know, so it's more likely than not teams can run around. Therefore, the Detours can take as little as 10 minutes (Trees) or 20 (Cheese) or an hour each. Given these calculations, I'd say the Detours are balanced, but certainly have room for placement shuffling.
I wanted to honor Champ in some way, and felt the ARI is a good way to do so. It rewards brawny teams, but also teams with artistic vision, allowing for creativity to shine and, again, placements to shuffle. I would wager that the task can take roughly an hour to an hour and a half.
The final RB is multipart; knowing flags is important, but overdone, so I wanted to include it but not make the Race depend on it. The way the pictures are distributed rewards teams for identifying flags, but they still need to remember what tasks took place in what leg. Essentially, there might be six birdhouses painted to resemble the Ghanaian flag, but only 3 of the six would have an image that actually represents the Leg. The other birdhouses might have images that pertain to New Zealand or something. I used the TAR13 game board because that also featured pictures, but the flags make finding the pictures more about memory than luck. I'd hope the task allows for teams to pass each other and forces team members to really think. Perhaps half an hour to an hour.
Overall, teams should reach the Finish Line between 1:45 pm and 3:50 pm (90 min driving + 30-50 min Brooms + 15-60 min Detour + 60-90 min sculpture + 30-60 min RB = minimum 3:45 hr maximum 5:50). The beach is very long and wide and tides do not fluctuate much, so there's plenty of room for a Finish Line! Plus, late summer/early fall experiences the lowest tides of the year.
Lastly, I chose September 10th for the filming date because it's the week directly following Labor Day. Many beaches and watersports-based venues in the Northeast close after Labor Day, so keeping it to the week after means its the last chance for these places to be open (mainly the Bird House Forest and Finish Line). I wanted to make it as late in the year as I could, too, to maximize chances that any leaves would begin to change color- not many would, but it still might generate some great scenery, as Vermont is beautiful in the fall! I found the date to be a perfect compromise and compliment the flow of my leg- to celebrate the ingenuity of the people and the harmony with nature seen on the Champlain Islands. As
this article states, "everyone here does more than one thing."
