Governor Dick Hill - Nov 20, 2011

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I didn't have the easiest time at GD Hill but I finished. The first part of the red course was the most difficult, for me at least. The 6 controls in that section of the course were in an area that was relatively flat and had a number of thorny spots.

1/62 This wasn't a difficult control to find but I took a round-about route to get to it.

4/65 & 5/61 These two controls were fairly close to another. I managed to walk right between them and not see either of them. I eventually realized that I must have passed them and turned around. On my second pass through I found 5/61 And then 4/65

6/79 I wasn't careful enough when looking for this control. I veered off in the wrong direction. Eventually I realized my mistake and headed back towards where I assumed the control must be. I found a control but it wasn't the one I was looking for. I circled around some more, got a better idea of where I was, and eventually found 6/79 It was visible from the other control I found. I dunno why I didn't see it when I found the control that wasn't on the red course.

I had some help finding controls 8-12. They were all fairly close together but I still appreciated the help. After finding 8/69 there was a fair amount of climbing to do to find the rest, first up and then down.

The remaining controls were not difficult to find although I managed to make a number of silly mistakes when looking for the last control and then heading to the finish.

The ride up and back was okay. Nothing too eventful happened. There was a birthday party on the bus, which began while we were still at the park. I missed most of the fun because I was changing clothes. I didn't want to endure a 2.5 - 3 hour bus ride in wet clothes.

The weather was nice and unseasonably mild for mid November in Central PA. There wasn't as much climbing on the red course as I thought there would be. The course was definitely challenging enough.

Time: 3:34:12 - winsplits - routegadget

Great Falls, MD - Nov 13, 2011

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The weather was perfect, much nicer than it has been the past few times I have orienteered at Great Falls.

There was a huge turnout. Over 200 people participated.

For the most part the controls didn't give me too much trouble. To be fair I had some help in the form of other competitors who, one way or another, led me to some of the controls.

When I was looking for control 6/112 I got off course. I was heading down the wrong side of a large reentrant. I thought I was headed in the right direction based on my compass but it felt wrong. So I took a chance and crossed the reentrant and quickly found the control flag. That experience gave me a boost of confidence.

I dropped my map when I was looking for control 12/114. It wasn't long before I realized it was missing. I had a good guess as to where I might have dropped it. In the process of heading back to the spot I found the control.

While looking for control 22/119 I'm pretty sure I wandered into the forbidden zone by accident. I should have headed southwest from the previous control in order to avoid the out of boundaries area but I headed south. The forbidden zone didn't cover a very large area. It was shaped kind of like the letter U. The control was right in the middle of the hollow of the U. I can't have the been only person to mistakenly cross into the forbidden zone. There were no signs of any sort to indicate the boundaries of the zone. It was just marked as such on the map. When I sketched my route on RouteGadget I lied about the actual route I took to get to control 22/119. I made it look as though I skirted the forbidden zone but did not cross into it.

Red [28 controls; 8.5 km; 345 m]
Time: 3:03:46 - winsplits - routegadget

Elk Neck - Nov 6, 2011

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I was unsuccessful in my attempt to complete the short version of the Susquehanna Stumble.

The woods were very thick in places and the map was very old. According to the meet director the map had not aged well. He warned that there were plenty of things on the map (trails for instance) that were not there any more and other things that weren't on the map that are currently there. He was correct.

I didn't give up until after I found all the controls in the second window. I was getting concerned about how long I was taking. If I had just taken the road I probably could have completed the course, although not within the the 3 hour time limit. When I gave up I was worried that I was nearing the 5 hour time limit for the long course. If I had been keeping track of the time then I would have realized that I still had over an hour left at the time I gave up.

Within each of the two windows we had the option to find the controls in whatever order we wanted. Here's the order in which I found them. Control H was the last one that I found before giving up.

Window 1: C-B-D-A
Window 2: E-F-I-G-H

I carpooled to Elk Neck State Park with three other QOC members. The drive up and back was very pleasant. One of the other guys drove. It was nice to not be the one driving for once.

It was a cool day but not cold. Great weather for orienteering.

Susquehanna Stumble Short [16 controls; 8.54 km; 370m]
Time: 4:14 (approx) / DNF - results