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