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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
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