Oregon Ridge - Dec 16, 2012

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Course: Red [11 controls; 7.2 km; 220m]
Time: 2:04:06 - AttackPoint - WinSplits - RouteGadget
Actual Distance: 8.64 km / 5.37 miles

Happyland - Dec 9, 2012

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Overall, I did not have a happy time at Happyland. It took me considerably longer than usual to get there due to the fact that one of the tires on my car went flat on the 50-mile drive to the park. It took me a while to get the flat tire off the car, put the spare tire on the car, and then find a gas station with an air pump that included a tire pressure gauge so that I could make sure that the spare was properly inflated.

I originally planned to do the Blue course. I changed to the Red course because I arrived a good hour-and-a-half later than planned. I probably should have done the Green course instead. I made enough mistakes on the Red course that I ran out of time before I was able to find all the controls. I found the first 13 and was on my way to 14 when I saw someone picking up controls. I didn't stop and ask him if he had picked up 14. I took my inability to find it as an indication that he had picked it up. I didn't bother looking for 15, the final control on the course.

The biggest mistake I made was when I mistook one road for another when I was looking for control 11. If I had just consulted my compass I would have realized my mistake, 10 minutes earlier.

This makes my third DNF at Happyland. That's 3 in 4 times that I have orienteered in this part of Prince William Forest. What's crazy is that the one time I did finish a course it was a blue one; two of the three DNFs were on red courses.

Course: Red [Controls: 15; 7.4 km; 220 m]
Time: 3:10:29 - AttackPoint - WinSplits - RouteGadget
Actual Distance: 10.84 km / 6.73 miles

Great Falls, MD - Nov 18, 2012

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The weather was perfect for orienteering at Great Falls. The temperature was in the low 50s and there was a light breeze blowing.

Many of the controls on the advanced courses were close together. There were only a few that I had trouble finding.

2/128 was placed higher on the hill than I thought it would be. I made a couple sweeps along the bottom of the hill, close to the road before it occurred to me to look higher on the hill. Once I looked at where the control was supposed to be in relation to the bend in the road I realized that the logical place for me to look was at the top of the hill.

I "followed" other orienteers more frequently than I usually do. I wasn't always within sight of the orienteers that I was following. Sometimes they got a ways ahead of me but then I would see them after I rounded a turn or came to the top of a hill. Having them in front of me helped to confirm that I was headed in the right direction.

I found the beginning (11) of the second of the second butterfly loop unassisted. I was quickly passed by one orienteer and ended up following him through the first half (12-14) of the loop. About the time I lost him I was passed by another orienteer who I ended up following for the second half (15-19) of the loop and on to the next control (20) following the loop. About the time I lost him I was passed by another orienteer who I ended up following for the next few controls (21-26). I lost her after that and was on my own for the last couple controls.

Course: Advanced [Controls: 27; 7.6 km; 310 m]
Time: 2:16:10 - Winsplits - RouteGadget - AttackPoint
Actual Distance Traveled: 9.56 km / 5.94 miles

Pine Grove Furnace - Nov 11, 2012

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For the third consecutive year I participated in the Susquehanna Stumble. As usual I opted to "run" the short version of the stumble. I wanted to try the long version but the short is long enough, almost 10k, and I don't move fast enough to finish the long within the 5 hour time limit. At most I probably could have finished a third to a half of the second loop before I would have had to give up.

For the most part I didn't have any trouble finding the controls. In the first "window" I got a lot of help with the first control I was looking for, C. After I circled around once, lower on the hill than I should have been, I ran into Kathleen and Heidi and they pointed me in the right direction.

In a couple cases (7,14) I drifted off course and wound up 100 meters or more to the left or right of the control. In both cases I was able to figure out what I did wrong and find the control in the second attempt. I found the controls in the second window in alphabetical order but most people did not. Finding them in alphabetical order meant I had a very long walk from H to 14. It took me over 40 minutes.

It was a beautiful day. It was cool but not too cool. The sun helped to keep it warm even when the breeze was blowing.

After the stumble most of the QOC contingent met in Gettysburg, PA at the Allegheny Brewing Company for dinner.

I obtained my unofficial splits from my Garmin Forerunner 110 because e-punching was not used for this event.

Course: Short [Controls 15; 9.6 km; 385 m]

Time: 3:27:50 - Results
Actual Distance: 12.9 km / 8.01 miles

SPLITS
# Time Time (C) 1 13:08 13:08 2 10:38 33:46 C 14:21 48:07 A 5:07 53:14 B 3:52 57:06 6 11:34 1:08:40 7 19:39 1:28:19 8 16:03 1:44:22	# Time Time (C) D 13:08 1:57:30 E 5:09 2:02:39 F 7:32 2:10:11 G 7:30 2:17:41 H 10:03 2:27:44 14 41:28 3:09:12 15 11:35 3:20:47 Fin 7:03 3:27:50

Patuxent - Nov 4, 2012

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The weather was very nice for the 2012 Mid-Atlantic Orienteering Championship. It was a little too breezy to just stand around without a jacket or hat but it wasn't bitterly cold either.

I ended up volunteering after orienteering even though I had not planned to do so. I teamed up with Dan to pick up controls. I picked up 3, she picked up 7. Mine were a little more spread out than hers were. I also had to lug a couple unopened gallons of water back from the first control I picked up.

Instead of blue I "ran" the red course because it was my age appropriate course. I don't think I was fast enough to have an impact in the scoring. I finished 17th out of the 17 that finished the course.

For the most part I didn't have any trouble with the course. There was lots of up and down, especially in the southern section of the map. For a while, after crossing the road while on my way to 2/115 and until I crossed the road after finding 5/125 I didn't see anyone. It was kind of nice. That wasn't the case in the southern portion of the map. I ran into considerably more people there and often they were looking for the same controls as me, even though most of them were not running the same course as me.

There weren't many SVO participants but SVO is a fairly small club. The DVOA contingent seemed a little on the small side. That probably had something to do with the effects of Hurricane Sandy.


Course: Red [Controls 12; 7.2 km; 270 m]
Time: 2:11:13 - WinSplits - RouteGadget - AttackPoint
Actual Distance: 8.8 km

Hemlock Overlook - Oct 28, 2012

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I had a fairly good day of orienteering at Hemlock Overlook. I made one glaring error but aside from that I think I did a pretty good job. I've had problems at this park in the past, which for the most part I think are due to the fact that the map isn't complete. There are missing contours in places which can lead one to believe that they have found the right terrain feature when actually there are more of them in reality than there are depicted on the map.

I made my glaring error of when I left control 3/114. I should have headed southwest but instead I headed southeast. I had gone a couple hundred meters or more before I figured out why the terrain I was looking at looked nothing like what I was expecting to see. I think I got distracted when I left 3/114 by another orienteer.

Some of the trails should have been marked as broken up. In particular the trail leading northeast from 7/132 was overgrown with all sorts of vegetation. In places the trail seemed to disappear altogether but then reappear 10 meters later.

I found most of the controls on the first attempt.

Control 15/124 was in a hole in the ground but the hole was flagged with a pink streamer which kind of gave it away.

I drifted off course when searching for control 17/119 and instead wound up at 14/142. From there it was easy enough to make my way to 17/119 which was due north of 14/142.

I got thrown off a little when searching for 19/110 because some of the trails were less distinct in reality than they were on the map. I eventually ran across 3/114 and was easily able to navigate to 19/110 from there. Based on these experiences it seems that one advantage to doing the blue course in a smaller park like Hemlock Overlook is that there are more opportunities that usual to use other controls on the course to help navigate to the one you are looking for.

All in all the weather was perfect. The rain held off until well after 3 PM. I didn't see any until after 5 PM but by that time I was several miles from the Hemlock Overlook.

After orienteering I had an early dinner at Loving Hut, a vegan Vietnamese restaurant in Falls Church with Dan and Jon. The food was excellent.


Course: Blue [Controls 20; 9.1 km; 350 m]
Time: 2:50:29 - Winsplits - RouteGadget - AttackPoint
Actual Distance: 10.75 km

Swanson Road - Oct 14, 2012

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For the second consecutive year Quantico Orienteering Club had an orienteering meet in the Swanson Road Natural Area. Once again I was the meet director. On the whole I think this year's meet went well. The weather was much nicer and we had a significantly bigger turn out than last year. My biggest task leading up to the meet was recruiting people to help run the event. I wasn't completely successful in getting enough volunteers prior to the day of the meet but luckily some people stepped up at the meet to help out.

I bought more food this year than I did last year. In addition to lots of water, this year I bought 30 apples, 20 oranges, 4 one pound bags of pretzels, and 3 two pound packs of cookies. I was worried early in the day that I might have bought too much but by the end of the afternoon it was all gone.

Missteps

I may have focused a little too heavily on volunteer recruiting and buying supplies for this event. I feel as if I did not give enough time to other things like coordinating with the course designer and making sure I had everything I needed, like course notes. The course designer for the 2011 Swanson Road meet (who also happens to be the club's president) was much more pro-active than the one I was working with this year. Last year we communicated quite a bit in the week leading up to the event. That was not the case this year and I am at least partly to blame for the lack of communication.

Another area where I think I failed was in preparing the bulletin board that goes next to the registration table. It was sorely lacking in information. It should have included a copy of the meet announcement and the course notes. I did not press the course setter for course notes and he did not produce any. I also didn't realize that he wasn't going to be at the event until the night before when I was notified by one of the officers of the club. Still, I should have made a better effort to keep an open line of communication with the course setter, difficult as that might have been considering that he doesn't use e-mail and his only phone is a landline.

At the very least the bulletin board by the registration table should have included that following:
- a list of the courses offered (color, level of difficulty, control count, distance, elevation)
- a warning about areas of the map that need work (to put it politely)
- a warning about giving a wide berth to the Prince George's Radio Control Club's activities

The map

It needs some work. There are areas that are marked in white that aren't as open as the map would lead you to believe. There are also sections of the map, from what I have been told, where the contours are not representative of the actual terrain. If the map isn't updated by the next time it is used then, as indicated above, a warning should be posted for those who will be looking for controls in the areas where the map is known to be inaccurate.


A not so easy white course

The white course, one of the beginner level courses, was more difficult than it should have been. In order to find the 6th, 7th, and 8th controls on that course you needed to follow the telephone lines through some fairly thick undergrowth. I had one of the volunteers go out and place streamers through that section but that was after a number of people had attempted the course. Even with the streamers it still would have been a slog and quite difficult for anyone unfamiliar with orienteering or off-trail hiking.


Control pickup

Because the course designer wasn't at the meet I took care of organizing a group of volunteers for control pickup. I wasn't successful in getting enough volunteers for this task before the meet. One volunteer backed out at the last minute due to an injury he sustained while orienteering. In the end I managed to get five people to help me with control pickup.

After parceling out the controls I left myself with 10 controls to pickup. It took me about 70 minutes to find them all and lug them, plus two gallons of water, back to the start. During that stretch I also collected roughly half of the streamers that one of the volunteers put out for the white course. I didn't get to see all of the park but it was nice to see more than just the area surrounding the start/finish. According to my watch I walked about 2.75 miles.

While picking up controls I tripped over the remains of a barbed wire fence. I fell flat on my face but didn't sustain any injuries. When I got home I found a big tear in one of my shoes that wasn't there before; must have been the wire fence I tripped over. I'm glad I was wearing an old pair of shoes.

End of the day confusion

We had a little bit of drama after I got back from control pickup. We thought that one of the volunteers was still out looking for controls. We came to that conclusion because the control boxes he was supposed to pickup were missing. A couple people drove out to look for him. About ten minutes later we discovered that we had the missing flags but not the control boxes. After a couple phone calls, including one to the search party, we concluded that the missing control boxes must be in a bag that some else took home with them. This was confirmed later in the evening by e-mail.

Link: Swanson Road Results

Meadowood - Sep 30, 2012

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I was supposed to help set up before the o-meet. I arrived 10 minutes later than I was supposed to be there, 50 minutes before the meet was due to begin. There were already 15-20 people there waiting to orienteer in addition to the folks setting up the meet. There wasn't much for me to do at that point so after standing around for a half hour or more I paid my event fee and did a course.

Meadowood has always been a challenge for me, and others. Part of the problem is that the map isn't as good as it could or should be. The club has yet to get the sort of data it needs to update the map. In particular there are trails and contours missing from the map. On most (if not all) of the advanced courses I'm sure that made a difference. I know that I felt it on the blue course.

The first time I had problems that I would attribute to the map was when I was searching for control 4/126. There was at least one re-entrant which I mistook for the entrant that the control was just above. I spent a few minutes searching it before deciding that it must be an unmapped feature. When I did find the control it was because I was following a trail which was mapped.

Control 7/101 seems to have been placed on the wrong root stock. There were two of them marked on the map. The map indicates that it should have been on the northern one but instead it was on the southern one. This gave me a little bit of trouble. I circled around for a little while before I found it with a little help from a couple other people who found it first.

Control 8/109 was not misplaced but I did a poor job when it came to finding it. I got in the general area and then tried cutting cross country instead of following a trail. When I did eventually find it was because I relented and took a trail.

Control 11/115 probably shouldn't have given me as much trouble as it did. I wasn't low enough into the re-entrant when I started looking for it. First I walked southeast along the re-entrant, then I tried heading northwest, and finally southeast again. Each time I got a little closer to the center of the re-entrant and on the third try, just as I was starting to get desperate, I found the control.

Control 13/129 wasn't easy to find. I knew that it was north of the trail I used to get in the general area of the control. What I couldn't figure out was where I should leave the trail and head north. I ended up much further west than I needed to go. When I started to head back east I wasn't sure where I was in relation to the control. I wandered a bit, got lucky and little bit of help from another orienteer.

The map is one of the key tools that orienteers use. When a map is as inaccurate as the Meadowood map is it shakes my confidence in it and my own abilities. There is no backup system for the map. What I end up doing is trying to figure out where the map is accurate. This usually adds to the time it takes me to find controls. Such was the case today.

On the plus side the weather was gorgeous. It was a little warm but not too warm. On the down side the bugs were out in full force and I came home with lots of little bites.

I stuck around after the meet to help clean up. After that I went to dinner with Dan and Jon. We ate at Busboys and Poets in Shirlington. I had hummus; black beans, wild rice, and grilled chicken; and banana bread, white chocolate pudding.

Course: Blue [Controls: 18; 8.8 km; 235 m]
Time: 3:40:46 - WinSplits - RouteGadget - AttackPoint
Actual Distance: 14.01 km

Lake Needwood - Sep 23, 2012

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This was my first orienteering event of any sort since the Beer Chase in early June. I probably should not have tried the Blue course but I did anyway. It was not an easy course but it wasn't extremely difficult either. I made my life difficult by making a number of silly mistakes. I was able to correct them but I probably lost 15 minutes due to a lack of concentration.

Here are some details:

I set my compass wrong when I left control 4/103. I should have set it to northwest, instead I set it to northeast. I knew something wasn't right when it looked like the golf course was in my path but it took me a minute or two to figure out exactly what I did wrong.

There is an unmapped re-entrant between controls 6/104 and 7/108. From past experience at Lake Needwood I knew the map wasn't perfect. I hesitated when I came across the unmapped re-entrant but realized very quickly that the west side of it wasn't the downhill I was looking for because I had not gone far enough from 6/104.

I got distracted a number of times by other people. One of those times was when I was looking for Control 10/107. I went right past it on the first attempt. It  wasn't in plain sight but I might have found it on the first try if I had been paying closer attention to the terrain, in particular the slope just north of the creek I was walking along. When I saw a trail heading north up a re-entrant I knew that I had gone too far and needed to double back. I found the control without any trouble on the second attempt.

Control 21/148 - This one was very well hidden. I had to circle around once before I found it. Even then it was only with a little help from someone else who was more or less standing on it.

Control 22/149 - This one gave me even more trouble. Once again I got careless and wasn't reading the terrain as carefully as I should have. It wasn't until I had gone a ways past the control that I figured out that I must have gone too far. I doubled back and found the control on the second attempt without any trouble.

While traveling from 24/146 to 25/148 I made a couple mistakes. First, I could have sworn that I set my compass to northwest and was following it faithfully. Based on where I hit the road and the GPS data from my watch I headed west until I hit the road. I'm not sure how that happened but the evidence speaks for itself. When I got close to 25/148 I walked right past it. I couldn't have been more than 10 meters from it. I miscounted the re-entrants and thought I had one more to go. When I got to the road I knew I had made mistake, took another look at the map and doubled back. The control was exactly where it should have been and where I should have looked the first time around.

Anyhow, as usual I finished it last place although I was less than 4 minutes behind the person who finished just ahead of me. If I could have just avoided one of the many mistakes I made I might have not finished last. Despite the silliness, I am quite happy that I finished the course.

The weather was beautiful. No rain. The temperature was just cool enough.

I used my GPS watch for the first time for orienteering. It worked great; better than I did.

After the meet I had to pack up the meet kit in my car. It was a lot of stuff. I had to put the back seats down. I had help loading the car but I was on my own when it came to unloading. It took me about 10 trips and 30 minutes to move everything from my car into my apartment. In three weeks I will reverse the process, load up my car for the meet at Swanson Road which I will be meet directing for the second year in a row.

Course: Blue [Controls: 28; 9.2 km; 295 m]
Time: 3:27:57 - WinSplits - RouteGadget - AttackPoint
Actual Distance Walked: 13.33 km

Vacation Plans - Mar 2013

I've started to plan a vacation in Ontario which will include a couple days of hiking. I've found some trail maps on the Internet for a couple long hikes that are both within a couple hours drive to Toronto.

My biggest concern is the weather. I want to go in mid-March and the weather can be a bit unpredictable at that time of year. Provided there isn't heavy snowfall just prior to or during my trip I think I should be okay. I can deal with some snow or hiking in snow, provided it isn't too deep and the trail is well marked.

Walking Health - Aug 29, 2012

I really need to be more careful with my feet. I learned a lesson last weekend about wearing boots that are too snug on a long hike. Here's hoping that I will put that information to good use.

I'm still undecided as to whether I should attempt to do the very long walk from Takoma Park to Shirlington and then back to Takoma Park this weekend. My feet are feeling better but the blisters are still there.

Despite the blisters I have gotten back to walking to the Metro from the office and from home. I've logged over 10 miles since yesterday morning. So far so good but am I ready to walk 32+ miles? I dunno.

Weekend Hike - Aug 26, 2012

I went for my longest hike yet this past Sunday: 29 miles. I'm still a sore from it. The parts that hurts the most are my feet. That is due in large part to the boots I decided to wear. My Merrell boots area medium width. I need to be wearing a wide-sized boot.

I didn't wear my Columbia boots (which are wide-sized) because I thought there was going to be a lot of rain today. I wore them last week when it rained for the last 1.5 hours of my hike and those boots got waterlogged fairly quickly. It didn't rain this week but I came home with a couple blisters.

Aside from that it was a fine walk. I was pretty exhausted by the time I got home. It took me just over 8 hours to complete the walk. Most of it was on paved trails but there was a section in the middle that lasted for 6-7 miles that was unpaved.

I'm undecided at this point as to whether I should go through with my plans to walk from Takoma Park to Shirlington and back next weekend. Once again I think that I will play it by ear and see how I am feeling, in particular how my feet are feeling when next weekend rolls around.

I ate breakfast (oatmeal and a slice of pumpernickel raisin) before I left. While hiking I nibbled at a ProBar. That one ProBar was all I had to eat during the hike. I drank some water but not a lot. I think I need to start taking more to eat than just ProBars. I'm thinking pretzels would be a good idea and maybe some tuna fish.

Walking Plans (as of Aug 24, 2012)

I've taken it easier this week on my weekday walks (I've only walked 25 miles) than I have in the past few weeks (when I accumulated anywhere from 33-42 miles). I'm saving my energy for the hike I'm planning on doing on Sunday. I feel much better about hiking long distance this weekend than I did last Friday.

Over the past 4 weekends I have been escalating my weekend hikes. I have gone from 4.8 to 11.5 to 17.8 to 22.6 miles. If all goes as planned then I will do a 28-30 mile hike this weekend.

Due to time constraints and other scheduled activities next weekend, Labor Day weekend, will be my last weekend for long distance hiking until at least October. I'm planning to attempt a 32-35 mile hike that weekend from my apartment in Takoma Park, MD to Shirlington (where I work) in Arlington, VA and back.

I will be occupied with comic book related events (Baltimore Comic Con, Small Press Expo) the first two weekends after Labor Day. Quantico Orienteering Club has events the next two weekends (Lake Needwood, Meadowood) that I'm planning to attend.

Walking in the Rain

I think I hit a wall yesterday. I went for a hike as planned. It was cooler than I thought it would be. It rained for the last 5.5 miles. My boots were waterlogged by the time I got home. Originally I wanted to try a longer hike (28 miles) next Sunday than the one I did yesterday (22.6 miles). Now I'm not so sure. I'm thinking I should back pedal a bit and rest up a bit before I try a longer hike. I may still hike next weekend but instead of 28 I may try something shorter like 16-18 miles.

Right Ankle

I'm not so sure about my walking plans for this weekend. I think I pushed it just a little too much Thursday night. I probably should have taken the night off. The bottom line is that my right ankle is now sore. It doesn't hurt if I don't put weight on it but when I do it hurts quite a bit. I added insult to injury by walking to the metro Friday morning.

I'm gonna play it by ear but as of right now it looks doubtful that I will be walking any great distance this weekend.

Walking Challenge

I've been walking a lot lately, a whole lot. For a couple weeks now I've been averaging 50+ miles per week. This weekend I'm planning to do a 22-24 mile walk and the following weekend a 28-30 mile walk. Labor Day weekend I want to do my own personal Takoma Park to Shirlington challenge: walk from my apartment to the office and back, which should be 32-34 miles.

I'm probably my own worst enemy. I have a tendency to push myself too hard and injure myself. So far so good. So long as I continue to focus on my form and stop pushing myself to walk faster I think I should be able to do all of these walks.

Walk fast and I won't last. That's my new mantra

Jug Bay Beer Chase - Jun 3, 2012

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The weather was warm but not too warm or too humid for the 2012 Beer Chase.

I forgot to bring my boots so I orienteered in the old pair of walking shoes that I put on that morning. I got my feet a little wet and muddy but not excessively so. The wetlands were not as wet as they often are.

For the most part I did fairly well when it came to finding controls. I made a few mistakes. When leaving the first control in the first loop I made a 45 degree error. I headed ESE when I should have headed ENE. I realized my mistake when I spotted a field that should not have been there. The problem wasn't that I set my compass wrong just that I didn't take notice of how I had the map oriented in my hand.

While searching for the 2nd control on the 2nd Loop I arrived at a control that was on the 3rd loop. Forgetting that I had the map for the 3rd loop on the flip side of the 2nd loop map I took a guess as to where I was and headed off in the wrong direction. It wasn't until after I spent 5 minutes searching for the control unsuccessfully that it occurred toe to flip the map over. After that I found the control fairly quickly.

I overshot the 1st control of the 3rd loop. It was much closer to the field I was coming from than I thought it would be. Also the stream bed on the map where the control was supposed to be was more or less non-existent in reality. So I kept walking east until I found a stream bed, the wrong stream bed. I searched along it for a few minutes without finding the control. After studying the map again it became clear to me that I was searching the wrong stream bed. I headed west and found the control fairly quickly.

I felt pretty good about my performance at the chase but I still finished next to last in my group, not counting MPs and DNFs. I guess the more things change the more they remain the same. I managed to finish ahead of 2 or 3 people who opted to do the short course.

Loop: 1 [6 controls; 2.8 km 85 m]
Time: 47:12

Loop: 2 [5 controls; 1.9 km; 30m]
Time: 38:06

Loop: 3 [5 controls; 1.7 km, 20m]
Time: 30:45

WinSplits - RouteGadget

Photos: Jug Bay 2012

Glen Artney - May 20, 2012

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It was hot, very hot. I should have taken some water with me. I also should have had a little more to eat before I stepped off. I probably made some poor decisions on account of this oversight.

I'm glad I got an early start. It took me just over 4 hours to finish the blue course. That's 1 hour longer than the person who finished just ahead of me. I did have some help. I had company when looking for the first 5 controls but then I was on my own for the next 5. I started to see people again starting with the 11th control.

Some of the controls were well hidden. I found the 12th one fairly easily because I approached it from an odd angle. If I had taken the fastest route to it then I would not have spotted it from quite so far away.

In looking at the results I'm surprised by how many DNFs and MPs there are by experienced orienteers. It wasn't easy but I didn't think it was that difficult. It was more physically challenging than it was navigationally challenging.

Course: Blue [20 controls; 10.1 km; 420 m]
Time: 4:01:36 - WinSplits - RouteGadget

Balls Bluff - May 12, 2012

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It was hot. There were bugs everywhere. I brought a tick home with me.

The course wasn't too difficult although I still managed to make a couple mistakes. I committed my biggest error when I was looking for the 3rd control. The map may be partly to blame; it ain't perfect. My mistake probably cost me 5 or more minutes.

I ran into what might be some unmapped re-entrants when I was looking for the 7th control. I think I ran into the same problem last time I was at Balls Bluff. If I had just stuck with the trail instead of trying to take a short cut I probably would have found that control faster.

Course: Red [16 controls; 7.2 km; 255 m]
Time: 2:19:42 - WinSplits - RouteGadget

Rosaryville - Apr 28, 2012

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In one sense this was probably my least productive orienteering experience ever. I arrived on time. I registered for the blue course and within 10 minutes was on my way. The first two controls were fairly easy to find. They were more or less out in the open and people led me directly to them.
The third control was in a wooded area. To avoid following the person who led me to the first two controls I took a more interesting but less optimal route than I otherwise might have tried. In the process of finding the third control I had to cross a couple deep re-entrants. When I got to the third control I realized that my e-punch had slipped off my finger. I felt like I was just getting started. I was just starting to work up a sweat. My boots were still fairly clean. If I was in a NASCAR race the equivalent would have been wiping out in the first few laps. That's how I felt. I could have finished the course without my e-punch but at the time it felt like that would be a pointless exercise. I tried retracing my path from 2 to 3, unsuccessfully; I did not find my missing e-punch. After searching for about 20 minutes I gave up and headed back to the start. I checked in and let Valerie know I was done and that I had lost my e-punch. I changed my shoes, got in my car, and drove home. That night I got an e-mail from Valerie telling me that someone had found my e-punch.


The weird part is the calm way in which I took it all. I was disappointed but I didn't beat myself up over it. Course: Blue [19 controls; 8.6 km; 220 m] Time: DNF - WinSplits - RouteGadget

Mason Neck - Apr 22, 2012

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I was warned that this was a difficult place to orienteer and that was what I experienced today. What made it difficult is that there were fewer pronounced terrain features than at any other park that I can think of. The fact that it was cold and raining didn't help.

I found all the controls but two of them (6/113 and 14/111) really tested my patience. The first few controls were relatively easy to find. Starting with 6 the level of difficulty increased as the distances between controls became longer and the terrain less distinct.

I misjudged how far I had gone when I was looking for 6 and started circling sooner than I should have. I eventually found a good attack point, a line of telephone poles. Even with the help of the telephone poles I might have walked right past it if it weren't for another orienteer who ran right up to it just when I was about to walk past it. At the time the control was no more than 20 feet from me.

I almost gave up on 14 after circling around a few times. I must have passed very close to it two or more times before I finally found it. I think I got lucky with most of the other controls between 6 and 14. In other words I got into the general vicinity of where they were and then spotted them fairly quickly.

The weather was crappy. It was cold (enough) and it rained the whole time I was out there. I got completely soaked. My fingers were numb and didn't want to function properly when I noticed one of boots had come undone. It took me a few minutes to retie it. I was very happy that I brought a full change of clothes. The floor in the rest room where I changed was very cold but I felt so much better after I did.

I am very happy that I found all the controls. The only thing worse than getting soaked would have been getting soaked and not completing the course.

Course: Red [16 controls; 6.9 km; 50 m]
Time: 2:53:14 - WinSplits - RouteGadget

Fountainhead - Mar 31, 2012

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I had a fun orienteering at Fountainhead today.

The weather was great, damn near perfect. It was supposed to rain but thankfully it didn't. If it had rained it would have been a very muddy day.

Partly because I showed up late and partly because it was my first time orienteering since I had my gall bladder removed I decided to walk the green course. It wasn't too difficult but it was physically challenging. There were lots of hills and lots of trails. The trails seemed to wind all over the place. I didn't use them very much. I navigated using contour lines and streams, for the most part.

I made a couple big mistakes. The first occurred when I was heading toward the 7th control. I mistook one re-entrant for another and wound up further west than I should have been. It took me a few minutes to figure out what I did wrong and where I was exactly. Once I did I was able to correct myself and found the control without too much trouble.

My other big mistake was on the next control. In this case I think I got a bit distracted by some of the other orienteers. I went down the wrong side of a hill and wound up no where near the 8th control. Once again it took me a few minutes to figure out where I was and how to get back on course. Those two errors combined probably cost me 10-15 minutes.

After the 8th control I didn't have any problems with the remaining controls.

Course: Green [11 controls; 4.9 km; 270m]
Time: 1:39:46 - WinSplits - RouteGadget

Patuxent - Mar 3, 2012

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Course: Brown [9 controls; 3.6 km; 95 m]
Time: 1:14:33 - WinSplits - RouteGadget

Pohick Bay - Feb 26, 2012

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Course: Blue [18 controls; 8.5 km; 405 m]
Time: 3:00:16 - WinSplits - RouteGadget

Greenbelt - Feb 12, 2012

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It was cold, cold, cold today at Greenbelt. Winter finally arrived with a vengeance. I spent my first 90 minutes helping out with registration. Due to park regulations we are unable to accept payments in the park. Most people pre-registered. Those that didn’t were directed across the street from the park to the parking lot of Capitol Cadillac. That’s where I and a few other volunteers were stationed. People drove up in their cars and we registered them. It is unclear to me why we couldn’t run this operation from a vehicle. We had to stand out in the cold, and it was bitterly cold.

When I was finally relieved I headed back over to the park. I first used the bathroom where I discovered just how cold my hands were. I didn’t have any gloves. I had been keeping them in my pockets but they were still a bit numb. After using the facilities I got the zipper on my pants up and fastened the buckle but I couldn’t get my pants to snap back up.

Jon offered to loan me a pair of gloves but I turned down his offer. I felt that I could manage without and for the most part I was right. For a while my hands didn’t feel cold at all, but looking back now I have to wonder if they were just numb at the time.

The course itself wasn’t terribly difficult. None of the controls gave me any trouble. I got lucky in a couple cases but for the most part my familiarty with the park, the lack of foliage and the placement of some of the controls meant that I didn’t experience much in the way of frustration.

I think I broke my compass today. Just after finding the 13th control I noticed that there was an air bubble in my compass. I hadn’t noticed it before. I think the casing must have cracked and let that it. I fell a couple times today but didn’t think I landed hard enough to break it. I’ve had that compass for about 6 years, so I feel like I got my money’s worth out of it.

I used a garmin today. I remembered to start it at the right time but I forgot to stop it after I finished. I was about to drive off when I realized that I was still wearing it and that it was still running. It had been about 30 minutes since I finished the course at that point.

On the way home I stopped at REI. I bought a pair of gloves. Maybe I should have bought a second pair: one pair for orienteering and another pair for day-to-day use. I wanted to buy a thumb compass but they didn’t have any. I guess I will need to shop online for one of those. I wore the gloves home even though it was warm enough in my car that I really didn’t need them.

Course: Blue [15 controls; 8.1 km; 230 m]
Time: 2:34:08 - WinSplits - RouteGadget

Pine Grove (PWF) - Jan 29, 2012

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Course: Blue [22 controls; 9.7 km; 315m]
Time: 2:46:09 - WinSplits - RouteGadget

McKeldin - Jan 8, 2012

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Course: Blue [18 controls; 7.2 km; 290m]
Time: 2:12:36 - WinSplits - RouteGadget