Stevens' company, Highland Events - co-owned by Terry Davis, of Cromwell - is behind tomorrow's Timburn Station Rogaine in the Lindis Valley, which has attracted 230 people and the most ''star-studded line-up'' to date.
International multisporters Dougal Allan (Wanaka) and Nathan Fa'avae (Queenstown) have entered, along with Rob Jarvis (Christchurch) and Matt Bixley (Dunedin), who together finished third in the world rogaining championships last year.
Top New Zealand orienteerer Jim Cotter (Dunedin) and former national rogaining champion Phil Wood (Queenstown) will also compete.
The event will follow the standard rules of rogaining, where teams of two to five people are given an hour to study a map before heading out into the wilderness to find as many checkpoints, or ''controls'', as possible within their chosen time category. The only navigational aids permitted are a compass and a map.
Each checkpoint has a different points value and the team with the most points wins. However, if teams go over their time limit, points are deducted.
There will be a three-hour family event, a six-hour event and a 12-hour event for the more experienced rogainers. A six-hour mountain bike event is also included.
Highland Events holds two rogaines each year, one in winter and one in spring, and entrant numbers have been steadily growing since the first event in mid-2007.
Entries for tomorrow are at 230, which is up about 40% on the last event in September.
''We're just slowly building up a bit of momentum with these things and once they get into them, they're hooked,'' Stevens said.
''In Wanaka we've been doing navigational tutoring a couple of times during the year and we've been getting really good turnouts.''
About 50 people attended a session earlier this week, many of them rogaine novices.
Stevens did the majority of the course setup across two stations - Timburn and Longacre, with topography ranging from 400m to 800m.
''I've never ever set up a course that's been able to be cracked. We design it so that the course can't be beaten and then that means that it makes it more strategic.''
Rogaining
The facts
What: Long-distance, cross-country orienteering.
Object: Score points by finding checkpoints located on the course within a specified time.
Length: Usually six, eight, 12 or 24 hours.
Skills required: Route planning, navigation between checkpoints, reasonable level of fitness.
Team size: From two to five people.
