Hickory Hop 6 Hr Rogaine - May 26, 2013

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Pre-Rogaine

I drove down with Dan and Jon the night before. We stopped at a Thai restaurant (Bangkok 56) in Harrisburg for dinner. We arrived at Camp Shehaqua after dark. We stayed the night in a small cabin. It was much colder that night than I thought it was going to be. The cabin was not heated and the "mattresses" were just plywood boards. I didn't bring anything with me other than a twin-size comforter and and a pillow.

The temperature dropped down into the low-40s, I'm guessing. I slept fully dressed under the comforter. I did my best to stay under the comforter but I woke up on a number of occasions to find that my nose was cold because it was sticking out into the cold night air. I have no idea how long I slept. I know that I was awake for long periods of time. I must have slept some because I was not dead-on-my-feet the next day and I have a vague memory of at least one dream.


6-hour Rogaine

I got off to a decent start (by my standards) but lost a lot of time (1:37:03 by my estimate) looking for two controls that I never found. Best case scenario I might have scored a couple hundred more points than I actually did. I am satisfied with my performance considering that it was my first 6-hour rogaine.

Map A

My initial strategy was to get all the controls in one section of the map. I started with the eastern section of the map. First I swept south and then east. It took me 21 minutes to find the first three controls (63, 75, 65) as I swept south. It took me 29 minutes to find the eastern-most control on the map (35). In retrospect, considering how few points it was worth and the amount of time I spent looking for it I probably should have skipped it and headed west instead after finding 65.

The next three controls (45, 77, 67) challenged me but I found them all. I was unable to find the 8th control (47) I looked for. I circled around in the general vicinity of it, probably passed close to it, but never found it. In retrospect I am torn as to whether I should have skipped it altogether or just approached it from a different angle. I spent almost 55 minutes looking for it.

Having found (or at least looked) for all the controls in the eastern section of the map. I didn't have a plan of attack for this portion other than to wrap it up by getting the controls closest to the finish. I found the first control (73) I searched for in the western portion of the map without too much trouble.

At that point I probably should have reversed course and headed back to the trail I left when I was approaching 73. Instead I did much fruitless bushwhacking in an attempt to find 61. I finally gave up on finding it after 43 minutes. At that point I was getting frustrated. In a little over two hours since finding 67 I had only found one more control, 73.

Having a little less than an hour and 45 minutes to go I decided to play it safe and look for the low hanging fruit. I found 31 without too much trouble. I probably played it a little safer than I otherwise might have due to my experiences with 61 and 47.

I made a colossal mistake when it came to finding the next control (53): I headed south when I should have headed north. Not only did I head in the wrong direction but I ignored two clear indications that I was headed the wrong way: I crossed a creek that shouldn't have been there and I didn't cross a string telephone poles. It wasn't until I got back to a control I been to before I that I realized I was headed in the wrong direction. I probably lost 20 minutes thanks to his mistake.

I found the last two controls (53, 51) that I looked for without too much trouble. I got back to the finish with a little over 15 minutes to spare.

Map B

The only control I found on this map (80) was 50 feet from the finish.

Post-Rogaine

We hung around for almost two hours after the rogaine. There was food and an awards ceremony. Jon finished in first place. No one found all of the controls, Jon came closest (47/50). All participants received a commemorative towel.

We stopped on the way back for dinner at an Indian restaurant (Taste of India) in Harrisburg.

I was determined to make it as far as I could on the drive back without refueling. I almost made it to the gas station I intended to stop at when my car ran out of gas. Lucky for me I was able to coast downhill to the gas station.

Course

The distance is the straight line distance of the route I walked, jogged, and crawled. I included the controls in the measurement. I only searched for 14 of 50 controls.

Course: 6 Hr Rogaine [14 controls; 8.1 km]
Score: 715 points (Map A: 635; Map B: 80)
Time: 5:43:29 - Results
Actuals: 14.81 (distance); 415 (climb)

Mason Neck - May 19, 2013

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The weather was warm but nice at Mason Neck. I was supposed to volunteer but I was relieved of that duty earlier than expected because of the low initial turnout. Because I had a lot of time on my hands I decided to try the blue course, even though I was warned that it was long and difficult. For the most part I didn't find it to be too difficult, but I had enough trouble finding two of the controls to cause me to decide to skip a couple of the controls.

Finding 3/125

Traveling from the 2/108 to 3/125 was a bit of trial for me. The straight line distance according to the map is roughly 1.73 km (1.1 miles). I walked in circles and squares, up down and all around before I finally found it. According to my Garmin I walked 6.9 km (4.3 miles) from 2/108 to 3/125. It took me 1:49:50 to cover that distance. That's almost half of the distance and half the time that I spent on the blue course.

My initial mistake was not traveling far enough to the east. I was headed towards the control but the lack of terrain features made it difficult for me to tell if I had gone far enough. I thought I had overshot the control so I circled around and headed back the way I came. When that didn't work I assumed that I was too far to the south so I headed north. I wandered here and there. Eventually I wound up back at the road. By then I had been walking for 1:22:35 (since leaving 2/108) and covered 3 miles.

I was about ready to give up at that point. Then I recalled a handrail that I used the last time I was at Mason Neck, a line of old telephone poles. They seemed to lead almost directly to 4/126 which wasn't too far from 3/125. I followed a trail to the line of poles and approximately 28 minutes and 1.3 miles later I found 3/125.

Finding 11/124

I didn't have much trouble finding the next 4 controls. After reaching 8/122 I decided to skip 9/129 and 10/130. Doing so cut almost 2 km out of the remainder of the course. Instead I headed for 11/124. According to the map it looked like I needed to head north northeast, which according to my Garmin I did.

When I didn't find it I assumed that I might have headed northeast instead of north northeast. So I turned west for about 50 meters and then proceeded to head south southwest. Still no success. I was about ready to give up at this point. I started to head northwest toward the road. I hadn't gone too far when I spotted a couple people 100 meters away to my right. They were standing right on 11/124.

In looking at my track after I got home it looks like 11/124 was actually due north of 8/122. I'm not sure if the problem is with the map or the placement of the control but I feel somewhat vindicated in that at least this time I adopted a sound approach based on the information I had. The straight line distance from 8/122 to 11/124 according to the map was 0.43 km (0.26 miles). I ended up walking 1.45 km (0.90 miles) in 29:43 before I found it.

I was running out of time quickly but I decided to try and find the remaining 4 controls, which I did with out much trouble. It is difficult to say if I would have had much trouble in finding 9/129 and 10/130 if I had looked for them. I like to think that I would have found them with out much trouble because both controls are close to the line of telephone poles that I used when I was searching for 3/125.


Thumb Compass

I used a thumb compass (left-handed) for the first time at Mason Neck. I borrowed it from the course setter. A few days prior to Mason Neck I watched an instructional video on thumb compasses on YouTube  As with most things I needed more than just instruction to make the leap from using a baseplate compass to a thumb compass; I needed practical experience.

I wasn't entirely successful when it came to holding the map and compass in the same hand. Turning the map to line it up with the compass in theory should have been fairly simple but for some reason it was a difficult adjustment for me to make.

I also had to be careful about how I held the compass. I occasionally caught myself drifting to the left of the direction I wanted to head because I wasn't holding the compass directly in front of my body.

The biggest advantage I found to using the thumb compass was the speed and ease with which I could check the direction I was headed.


Blue Course (Modified)

Because it took me too long to find 3/125 I skipped 9/129 and 10/130. By my calculations that shortened the course from 9.3 km to 7.4 km.

Skipped: 8 - 9 (1100 m); 9 - 10 (250 m); 10 - 11 (940 m)
Added: 8 - 11 (430 m)
Net Change: 430 - 2290 = -1860
Adjusted Total Distance: 9.3 km - 1.86 km = 7.44 km

Course: Blue Modified [13 controls; 7.4 km; 210 m]
Time: 3:58:14 - AttackPoint - WinSplits
Actuals: 14.97 km (distance); 303 m (climb)
Track: Garmin Adventures

Pohick Bay - May 5, 2013

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This was a good challenging course in both physical and navigational terms. The weather was warm but not excessively hot. I found myself a bit distracted by other orienteers, usually ones not doing the same course as I. I'm certain this cost me some time in the case of the 1/124.

There were a few other controls that gave me some trouble. I got some help from other orienteers in finding 7/105. I descended what I thought was the re-entrant where the control was placed, but it wasn't there. I had a number of people pass me at the bottom of the re-entrant headed to the north, towards the bottom of another re-entrant. I'm pretty sure that one of those re-entrants is not mapped.

There was a lot of ground to cover from 18/144 to 19/149. The most direct route didn't look like the sensible route. I took a trail that skirted the coast as far as I could before I started cutting cross-country through an area that looked much worse on the map than it turned out to be in reality. I passed 19 on my first attempt to find it. I was too high up on the hillside. It was hidden from my view on that first pass, but I found it fairly easily on my second attempt. I would have found it faster if I had not overshot it by quite so much.

The next three controls, (20/148, 21/147, 22/143) weren't difficult to find but there were some steep ascents and descents to navigate before I reached them.

Course: Blue [23 controls; 8.9 km; 575 m]
Time: 3:22:10 - AttackPoint - WinSplits
Actuals: 12.26 km (distance); 308 m (climb)

Patapsco/Rockburn Branch - Apr 28, 2013

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Under normal circumstances I would have done the blue course. My right hip was bothering me a little bit so I opted to do red instead. My hip is now feeling better than it was before orienteering but not all better.

The most notable thing about this orienteering excursion is the regularity with which I kept encountering the same JROTC student. He was also doing the red course. He caught up to me between the 4th and 5th controls. He was with me, either just behind or just ahead of me while I searched for 5, 6, and 7. I took a different route and got to the 8 before he did.

He passed me on the way to 9 but overshot the control. I saw him when I was on my way to 10 and pointed him in the correct direction. He caught up and passed me on the way to 11. We both fumbled around on the way to 12 but found it around the same time. I caught up to him at 13, where he was drinking some water. He was with me for 14 and 15. After 15 he took off in the right direction while I decided to take a less direct route to 16. I didn't see him again until after I finished the course.

Course: Red [19 controls; 7.0 km; 250 m]
Time: 2:15:12 - AttackPoint - Winsplits
Actual Distance: 9.48 km / 5.89 miles