Jug Bay Beer Chase - Jun 1, 2014

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The weather was very agreeable although I wouldn't have minded if it had been a bit cooler.

I got a bit of a head rush after I finished. I'm blaming it on the quantity of beer I consumed. I wasn't feeling bad at all until after I went looking for something to eat after I finished. I sat in my car, in the shade, for a while after having a few bites to eat. I gradually started to feel better.

I probably lost 30 seconds (which is meaningless considering where I finished) looking for the control to punch after drinking a beer between the first and second loops. If any of the volunteers manning the beer station pointed it out to me then it went in one ear and out the other. I probably should have been able to spot it without any help but I didn't.

More: AttackPoint Training Log - RouteGadget

Rosaryville - Apr 13, 2014

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Possibly my most successful orienteering adventure at Rosaryville. The last time I was there, in 2012, I lost my e-punch 20 minutes in. I never found it but it turned up later on. I went home feeling kind of dejected that time. Today's experience was infinitely better even though it wasn't entirely error-free.

It was very warm; the temperature was up into the mid-80s. I got my feet a little wet stepping into streams and crossing marshy areas. The skies were clear. My memories of past orienteering experiences at Rosaryville usually involve rain so this was a nice change.

More: AttackPoint Training Log - RouteGadget

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Pohick Bay - Apr 5, 2014

The weather was fairly warm. No precipitation. I wore a jacket although I had the vents open on it. It was a little muddy but not to excess.

More: AttackPoint Training Log

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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)

Combat Village - Apr 14, 2013

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The weather was great but my luck wasn't. I got off to a shaky start and things just got worse from there. If I could have had another hour then I might have been able to finish the blue course but by the time I threw in the towel I knew time was running short and the responsible thing to do was admit defeat.

I had a little bit of trouble finding the second control. I thought I was headed right towards it but when I wasn't able to find it on the first attempt I started to head south toward road. Before I reached the road I spotted it.

My trip from the 2nd to the 3rd control was a catastrophe, even though I eventually did find the 3rd control. On the first attempt I left the road in the wrong place. I ended up wandering around in the wrong part of the course for a while before heading back to the road. On the second attempt I found it within a few minutes. If I had just taken a little more time figuring out where to leave the road the first time around it might not have taken me 53+ minutes to find the 3rd control.

I didn't have quite as much trouble finding the 5th control. I think my confidence was still a bit wobbly after my experience with the 3rd control.

I wish I had a good explanation for why it took me so long to find the 9th control. After 5 I found 6, 7, and 8 without any trouble. From 8 to 9 should have been a straight shot. Instead I ended up wandering all over the place. First I thought I had not gone far enough and started to double back, then I thought I might have wandered off in the wrong direction. I'm tempted to blame the guy who stopped me for directions to a control that wasn't on the blue course but it was all me, even if he did distract me long enough to throw off my concentration on the task at hand.

I honestly thought that the 9th and 10th controls would be closer together than they were. I also wandered off in the wrong direction at first, and didn't check the clue on the map. The 10th control was in a big hole, which is what the clue indicated. I walked right past it once before I circled back around and found it. Still, it took me over 11 minutes to find it. Not good.

Eventually I had to give up. It was getting late. I had been out on the course for just over 3 hours when I found the 13th control. I wasn't feeling terribly confident that I would be able to find the 14th control relatively quickly so I just called it quits after 13. I got back with 20 minutes to spare.

On the whole it wasn't a great outing for me but it didn't feel like a complete disaster.


Course: Blue [19 controls; 9.6 km; 310 m]

Time: 3:21:40 - AttackPoint - WinSplits

DNF (gave up after finding the first 13 controls)

Actual Distance: 13.36 km / 8.3 miles

Manassas - Mar 17, 2013

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Course: Blue [19 controls; 9.3 km; 210 m]
Time: 2:43:34 - AttackPoint - WinSplits

Actual Distance: 12.46 km / 7.74 miles

 

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

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

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

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

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

Happyland (PWF) - Dec 11, 2011

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I'm not sure what happened. Everything after I got my map is a bit of a blur. I got off to a bad start and from there it just got worse and ended with a DNF. It took me almost an hour to find the first two controls. After finding the first one I had to cross a broad stream that seemed to be at least knee deep. I spent at least 10 minutes looking for a place to cross before I gave up, doubled back and crossed at a bridge.

After that it got a little better until It came time to search for the 7th control. It took me about 35 minutes to find it. I was about ready to give up when I spotted it. I found the 8th control without too much trouble. It was the last control I found.

I gave up and started to head back while looking for the 9th control. It took me roughly 45 minutes to get from the 8th control back to the start.

All in all not a great day for orienteering, for me. I wonder how I would have done on the red course. Possibly no better. I feel as if I just wasn't there mentally. I was going through the motions but that obviously wasn't enough.

Course: Blue [19 controls; 8.4 km; 245 m]
Time: DNF (2:45:55) - WinSplits - RouteGadget

Oregon Ridge - Oct 30, 2011

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It was unseasonably cool (40-45 F) at Oregon Ridge this year. There was even a little bit of snow on the ground, here and there. Considering how I felt after my most recent and only other outing at this park I decided to upgrade from red to blue.

For the most part it wasn’t too navigationally challenging. I only made a couple mistakes and neither of them were big errors.

When I was looking for 6/126, I misread the terrain but my error turned out in my favor. I arrived at the open area that the gas lines run along sooner than I thought I would. At that point I was very close to the control. I went past the control when searching for it, realized my mistake and doubled back. I found it fairly quickly on the second pass.

When I was looking for 13/132, I was travelling through an area that had lots of re-entrants. I started to go up the wrong one, heading east instead of north. I didn’t get very far before I decided to check my compass. Realizing my mistake I changed course and got back on track and didn’t have trouble finding the control.

I had one of those weird moments when I was looking for 14/112. I got close to the control but didn’t see it. I paused for a moment and compared the terrain around me to the map. I guessed where I was on the map and pointed to where the control should be, assuming I was reading the map correctly. I looked up from my map in the direction I was pointing and saw the control, not more than 30 meters away exactly where I was pointing.

The last five controls weren’t difficult to find but it took me about an hour to get to them. The longest leg was from 14 to 15, probably over 1 km.

Blue [19 controls; 10 km; 350 m]
Time: 3:27:43 - winsplits - routegadget

McKeldin - Apr 17, 2011

Course: Blue [8.3 km; 430m; 20 controls]
Time:2:17:05 - winsplits - routegadget


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Happyland (PWF) - Jan 30, 2011

Course: Blue [8.5 km; 380m; 13 controls]
Time: 3:35:50 - winsplits - routegadget


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I should have known better than to attempt the blue course, mainly I am thinking of the snow and ice, which were everywhere. I only orienteered at Happyland once before, March 2010. That time I did the red course and did not finish the course. So, I had no business trying the blue course, even though I did find all the controls.

Not all of the controls were easy to find. One control that was easy to find was the 4th control. It was right on the road at a bridge. For some reason I decided to try and cross the stream elsewhere. I probably cost myself 5 to 10 minutes with that brain fart.

The 5th control didn’t control didn’t give me too much trouble but I did not take the direct route. I took a trail most of the way there and then cut cross country. When I got near the control I looked around and found it very quickly. It was a long walk and I probably could have done a better job with route selection but I found it on the first attempt, which pleases me.

I think I lucked into finding the 6th control. The terrain was very repetitive in the area around the control. I was in the right general area when another individual who was also looking for it showed up. I took a quick look at the map, the direction he was heading in, my compass, took a few steps in the same direction he was headed in and there it was. I was very close to it, already but his appearance helped prevent me from wandering off in the wrong direction.

After the 9th control there was a lot of climbing; a lot of up and down steep gorges. The ice and snow didn’t make climbing, especially climbing up, any easier. On more than one occasion I had to put my map in my cargo pocket so that I could use both hands to climb.

The 12th control gave me the most trouble. There was a lot of ground to cover between 11 and 12. When I got to where I thought the control should be I couldn’t find it. I found another control that wasn’t on my course. I studied the map a little bit and decided that I must not be exactly where I thought I was, but I also knew that I couldn’t be too far off. So I circled around some more and eventually found it.

The 13th and final control gave more trouble than it should have. I think I was pretty worn out at that point. There was a lot of bushes and trees close together. I needed to head north-northwest but I kept veering west. Eventually I got to the control but it took me probably 5 minutes longer than it should have.

My feet were wet for much of the course. Not fun. After orienteering I took off my boots and socks, dried my feet and put on dry socks and shoes. Still, it wasn’t until I had driven 45 miles back to my apartment that my feet started to feel normal again. Just for the record, I didn’t wade through any streams. My boots are defective and melting snow and ice was leaking into them. I need to buy new boots.

Before orienteering I performed my good deed for the day. There wasn't much space to park. I arrived just behind a small pickup truck. We had to drove down a road, turn around, and then park on the side of the road. When turning around the truck got stuck.

After watching his wheels spin for about 30 seconds I got out and offered to give him a push. He didn't think it would work. I wasn't so sure myself. I did my best to push, when that didn't work I tried rocking the truck. That did the trick. I was a little annoyed that several people walked past without offering to help.

After orienteering I grabbed a bite to eat at the winter meeting. I was in the woods for so long that the meeting had already begun and most people had already had their fill. I picked and chose from what was left. I'm not sure what I had to eat but it was filling.