The Western Pennsylvania Orienteering Club organized its annual nocturnal fouray into the woods of Blue Spruce County Park near Indiana, PA. From the city of Pittsburegh, Mark Malagodi, John Hartman and Alexis Rzewski car-pooled together the 53 miles that separated the East End of the city to this park just 10 miles north from Indiana. It took us exactly one hour, avoiding route 22, we took 380/286/156.
There were 42 controls, with the controls 1-9 worth ten points, and the remaining controls worth points as many as the control's designated number.
Start was going to be at 8:30, and end was going to be at 11:00 PM. There was still 20 minutes of light left when we did the mass start. Decided to go on a counter-clockwise route.
Went to control 18 first.
Then, quickly followed trail to find control 25.
Followed major dirt road to find control 7.
Then hiked steep uphill, then at trail slight bend, went tooking to the right of the trail to find control 31.
Got back to the trail, passed the powerline, and on the clearing on the left of the trail with a gas well in the clearing, and with the twilight remaining, could see from afar control 37.
Backtracked to the trail and reached the intersection with the powerline, followed powerline North and a trail off it to the left, and bushwacked to a trail below, and went looking for the ditch. Now it was dark enough that I had to turn the light on. Found control 28 easily.
Gained the ground to reach the trail above, and followed the trail to find control 14.
The first time sink of the event was in finding trail to get from 14 to 22. Since at meet instructions we were told that we could not walk outside the park boundary, could not use my initial idea of going from 37 to 22 using the dirt road bordering the map on the south-east corner of the map. So, the problem was now how to get from 14 to 22. I took a small trail going East once reached the corner of a clearing, and found myself fighting with shrubs, downed logs. Eventually reached the dirt road and found control 22 at the spring just by following upstream. In retrospect, should have gone from control 14 to control 26, and from there to control 41 by using well-marked road and trail, and then from control 41 to control 22.
From control 22, noticed the highly-valued control 41, but didn't feel like fighting again with brush, so just ran up the hill following the dirt road on NE direction, to easily finding control 33.
Then, gained the top of the hill, and followed a very faint trail on a steep downhill to reach a trail below, at which I then followed the trail briefly until it intersected a stream, and I knew I could use that as attackpoint to get to control 41. Set the compass to East, went bushwacking on a steep woodsy uphill, and against the full-moon sky, made out the rocky features of the large cliffs where control 41 was located. Got lucky.
Descended back down to the trail below, and followed it North to easily find control 2.
Aiming for control 35, reached the paved road, met the meet director that was patroling with his mountain bike, and once seeing the oil tank in the clearing, got off the road and went to the stream looking for the control. This turned out to be another time sink. Noticing how the control was located on a side stream, went scouting, but found the wrong one. The control was located much closer to the oil tank.
Descended back to the stream in the clearing, then followed it upstream to reach the dirt road, which I followed to easily find the clearing where a side trail departed, following which got me to control 20.
Following easily recognizible trail and dirt road, found control 8 buried in thick branches of a pine tree.
Then, the real time sink of the event: control 42. Made major mistakes. From control 8, set the compass to NW, and found the stream. Followed the stream briefly, and then, thinking that I found the rough open on which border I would eventually find control 42, I instead was in the clearing in the off-limits area, and bordering the woods. I could see a light and house on one end of the clearing, and thinking it was the house that is located at the end of the clearing West of control 42, enforced my belief that I was in the right clearing, and kept looking for. Eventually, gave up, and wanting to reach the road where control 27 is located, went north. What happened in reality is that I went north into a deep wooded area with pine trees, on steep hilly terrain, to reach a open clearing bordered by a strail line of trees, which I tought maybe that was the line of trees that I was looking for when searching for control 42. Ran on the field for about 4 minutes, then really gave up, and went NW, reached the paved road, was totally disoriented, decided to go on the paved road in West direction, found the homes and driveways, and realized I was totally off the map for a good 20 minutes. ouch ...
Running on the paved road, overshoot a bit the point to get off the road to reach control 27, got back, went up on the terraced land above the road, and luckily got control 27 in the ditch.
Followed the terraced land and faint trail to get to the dirt road to reach the oil tank, bushwacked a bit NE to reach the trail and then to control 24.
From control 24 I could have descended back down to the paved road to reach control 10, but chose to follow the trail in the woods in counter-clockwise direction. Followed a stream into a marshy patch, got lost a bit, found the paved trail, and finding the relatively-cleared area of the marshy patch as a good attackpoint, went looking for control 10. It took some effort, but eventually found it. Definitely to few points for the effort spent looking for it.
Ran back to the paved road, went West on the road, found the dirt road leading to control 19, got off the road and into the stream and followed upstream in thick logs, vegetation, and steep banks, to find the control after about 80 meters.
Gained the trail nearby, crossed it and briefly walked over vegetation to find the nearby parallel trail, that got met to a near hilltop, at which I set the compass to NE, knew I had to orient to be SE of the hilltop, and went straight into control 39. This was the most points earned for the least amount of effort.
Then, intention was to continue on the dirt road and go for control 11, but with 20 minutes of time left, understood that the event was soon over, and had to get back. Reached the powerline and its clearing, choose to return to base via this powerline, bag control 21. On the sloped clearing of the powerline, pointed both flashlights into the bush, could not get any reflection from the control, and eventually gave up and reached the road below. If I had a more powerful light, maybe I would have seen it.
On the paved road, went W, recognized the lake, found the clearing, the trail over a small wooden bridge, and realizing I had only 12 minutes left, went for the highly valuable control 26. Located in the middle of a clearing, it was an easy find.
With minutes remaining, found control 6 and control 12, and got back to base.
No comments:
Post a Comment