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

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

Hemlock Overlook - Oct 16, 2011

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Hemlock Overlook is far from my favorite place to go orienteering, primarily because the map is uneven and inaccurate in more than one place. I’ve been to 4 or 5 orienteering meets at Hemlock over the past 6 years. I decided this time to try something different. Instead of doing the red or blue course I attempted the three easiest courses.

The white course was very easy, navigationally speaking. All the controls were along trails. There was only one control that wasn’t right on the trail; it was visible from the trail and easy to reach. I made decent time. Due to a dearth of serious competition I managed to finish 2nd on the white course.

The yellow course was longer than the white course. It was also a little more navigationally challenging but for someone like me who is used to advanced courses it wasn’t difficult at all. Two of the six controls on the yellow course were off the trail, but both were easy to find once I left the trail. There was definitely more climb in the yellow course than there was in the white. The competition was a little stiffer on the yellow than on the white. I finished 7th on the yellow course.

The orange course was longer than the two easy courses, involved more climbing and a little more navigationally challenging. There was only one control (8/116) that I had a hard time finding, and that was because I trusted the map too much. I was following a trail which just kind of petered out. I was waiting for it to turn to the right, at which point I was going to turn to the left. I wound up walking too far before I turned to the left. For a while I wandered around the wrong area looking for the control. Eventually I came to my senses and realized the mistake I had made. When I did find the control I was headed in the right direction but I also got some help from a couple other people who found it just before me. I was in 6th place on the orange course before I took over 30 minutes to find control 8/118. I wound up in 21st place.

All in all it was a great day for orienteering, notwithstanding the blisters and insect bites I brought home with me. The weather was perfect. I probably covered as much ground as I would have on the red course alone. Doing 3 courses instead of 1 worked out nicely for me, despite my one stumble. If I was to do it over again I think I would have had a bar to eat around the beginning of the orange course. I think that would have helped to keep me sharper and maybe I would have realized sooner that I had made a mistake and finished the orange course more quickly.

I hung around for a while after the meet was over, helped a little bit with cleanup and chatted with first the Onksts and then Dan and Jon. Once everything was cleaned up I went to dinner with Dan and Jon at Myanmar Restaurant in Falls Church, where the food was very good but the service was slow.

Course 1: White [6 controls; 1.8 km; 65 m]
Time: 20:26 - winsplits




Course 2: Yellow [6 controls; 2.9 km; 115 m]
Time: 37:09 - winsplits



Course 3: Orange [10 controls; 3.3 km; 185 m]
Time: 1:36:43 - winsplits - routegadget

Swanson Road - Oct 1, 2011

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For the first time I didn't do any orienteering at an orienteering meet because I was the meet director. It wasn't anywhere near as labor intensive as I feared it might be, at least not on the day of the meet. During the week leading up to this meet I did spent most of my free time gathering volunteers and communicating with others who were going to be there. Still, it was a long day. I got there at 9:20 and didn't leave until 17:30 or 18:00.

Swanson Road 1001, a set on Flickr.

Lake Needwood - Sep 18, 2011

Course: Red [7.3 km; 228m; 28 controls]
Time: 2:53:55 - winsplits - routegadget


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