Scouting Trail with Norton and we found ... Monsters !

It was a good day. Norton, for those of you that don't know him, is
the old man that organizes the caving trips for the Sierra Club, and
occasionally he shows up at a few hashes. We named him "Norton"
from Ed Norton of the Honeymooners, in reference to his numerous
explorations of the Wilkinsburg sewer system, his "playground" when
he was growing up in those locales.

He makes a living as a "recycler", will purchase objects at garage
sales, and sell them at flea markets. He's been doing this for
twenty years, has no antique knowledge, no internet, no conventions,
no appraisers, no college degree. But, instinctively, has a "feel"
for what sells and for what price. So, today, we went to a couple
of garage sales, and he would cherry-pick a few objects from the
morass and layers upon layers of accumulation of someone that is
leaving their home and moving into an assisted-living home. Pay a
few bills for the items purchased, and hopefully, resell them for
just a few bills more. A recycler.

Then, we set out to a flea market near Bridgeville. There, he went
to see an old aquaintance, to whom he offered to sell some things
that only he could see and only he would be interested. It was a
box of videotapes of homo sex that he found on the curb down by the
street where he lives. Usually, he would sell any curb find at his
flea market stand, but this material, no, he wouldn't sell. So, he
made a person-to-person business visit, and he knew exactly who
would be interested. The potential buyer was indeed interested, and
the box with these tapes stayed with him.

By the flea market aisles, we looked at some old vintage stuff. He
would tell me what would sell and what would not sell. His "feel"
for prices comes mostly from recognizing items that he knows he has, asking for the price, and then, when it is he selling the same item, he has a better idea on what to ask.

Next, we set out for our "real" activity we set out to do this day:
urban caving. We targeted a few culverts to explore, and possibly
to be used for future hashes. We parked at a baseball field lot,
walked by the edge of the woods, and then, disappeared in the thick
greenery, quickly descending in a creek below. Following the creek
bed, we finally found the orefice, turned on the lights, and crawled
in. On the other side, we found still water, ankle deep, and thick
swamp plants. Then, another culvert, this one protected by
a "collection box" [maybe Spermit knows the real terminology], but
it was basically a concrete wall protecting the culvert opening. We
had to climb six feet to an opening above and hang and descend on
the other side, and went into the second culvert. On the other
side, we got to a bigger creek, following which, got us to a huge
culvert, ceiling was 12 feet high. At the end of which, another
culvert. Not bad, not bad.

Before returning to our parking location, we decided to explore some
fields and wooded area on that side of the road. We walked on and
about for about 40 minutes, until we stumbled into a residence, only
to startle the three male residents. One of them was farming a
vegetable garden. They didn't seem pleased to see us, and we
quickly returned to the trail we came from. Some 20 minutes later,
a ATV rider zipping by without helmet, we recognized him as being
one of the three, he was checking us out. We just waved a hand at
him, and he just waved a hand at us. Norton observes how unusual is
to find a house with three guys living together, and one of them is
farming vegetables.

We retrace our steps to the giant culvert, and decide on taking the
most direct route out of the creek, up a very steep wooded slope.
We emerge out of the thick vegetation on a road, with parked cars
and a hotel. We see BMW convertibles, blond women in suburbanite
attire, and a sign, "Welcome to Monster Bash 2007". It's a horror
and sci-fi Monster Bash convention.

I see a guy walking in my direction carrying a vintage set of a
1970's game, Haunted House.I ask him if one has to pay to get
in. He says he can give me his pass. He sees Norton, and gives him
another pass. Nice guy. I hope he has fun with his new
toy.

We go in. There is a Dracula impersonator greeting us. Sellers
abound, selling T-shirt, DVD, autographed movie photos, Planet-of-
the-Apes toy models, masks, face-painting. We attend a couple of
presentations. One guy tells stories of Bela Lugosi, another is the
actor that played "Jaws", the bad guy in the James Bond movie "The
Spy That Loved Me".

We are going around the rooms and aisles and convention rooms with our "sewer" clothes, wet from the knee down. One character that I see often in the sellers portfolio of vintage 1950's movie posters is some kind of swamp mud monster. "That's us", I note.

One of the sellers is selling an entire set of Planet of the Apes miniature model , with the original 1974 cardboard box, all in
pristine condition. He wants $200. The fact pricks Norton's ear,
next time he's scavenging some basement in SqHill on a estate sale,
he'll be looking for those toy sets.

We leave the convention with a full knowledge of the genre, and of
the people that will drive or fly distances and pay hotel rooms to
attend these events. It's a niche market.

The day is still young, and there is room for more culvert
exploration. We have the topo maps for another area, and we park
behind a school/baseball field near Aliquippa. The creek below is a
tough one, full of jaggers, PI, and downed trees. It is not a fun
choice. We finally arrive at the culvert, get to the other side,
conjunction with another creek, upstream that to a bigger culvert,
and then, a side stream and culvert back to the side where we
parked.

Walking upstream a creek in the approximate direction of our
vehicle, we are greeted by a barking dog that rushes to us, followed
by his owner, who sentences us with "Do you know you are in private
property?" no, we didn't [true]. He said he has signs. We say we
didn't see any [true]. "I have 200 posted signs, so don't give me
that bulls--t, so get out of my property", and he walks away. We
quickly cued the compass to get us back to the baseball field, and
we were out of there. Beaver County, you are not our friend.

Well, driving back to pgh, to sum out this day and scouting mission,
seven culverts, a free pass to a horror convention, a personal sales
call to a gay man, getting chewed up by a landowner, and seeing
people salivate to a $200 toy set made in 1974 showing a bunch of
miniature models of primate-looking humanoids, one of them
named "Cornelius".

It was a good day.

Monster Bash guests

Monster culverts

Aliquippa culverts

---
Highlights of the Monster Bash:

9:30PM - OUTDOOR MOVIE: THE WOLF MAN! Drive-in style. We will show the film on the lawn out back by the woods. Bring some "Off bug repellent, " a blanket and your portable FM radio. We'll broadcast the audio on an FM frequency. Introduced by Dee Ankers-Denning, daughter of THE WOLF MAN's heroine Evelyn Ankers! Special thanks to Drive-In historian Mark Bialek and projectionist Geoffrey Curtis for making this happen. And, make sure to check out Mark's Drive-In Web areas at www.driveintheatre.org!

8:00AM - MONSTER BASH MASS. Father Mike (yes, a real priest from Ohio) performs a mass for Bash attendees that can't make it out to fimd a church. All denominations are welcome. How often do you find a priest that's a big Bela Lugosi fan?! Perhaps....something VERY special this year too - IT'S A WEDDING MASS! Author Lenonard Kohl and his beautiful bride Dana!

orienteering board game

the board game

Green Ridge Rogaine

On saturday, the SVO (Susquehanna Orienteering Club), in conjunction with Garrett College of Adventure Sports, organized a long-range orienteering event called Rogaine. Sherpes, Hung Like This, and Just Dave, formed a team and named themselves "Three Guys, Three Rivers", since we were all from the Pittsburgh area. Sherpes had already done a rogaine the year before, in Allegany State Forest in New York, although he only did the six-hour event. Just Dave did the Night-O and the Boyce Park O-meet organized by WPOC, the Western Pennsylvania Orienteering Club. Hung Like This runs with the Hash House Harriers. On friday afternoon, we drove for three hours to the Green Ridge State Forest, located 20 miles east of Cumberland, Maryland. After pitching tent, eating a pasta dinner that was cooked at 4 PM, and it was still warm in its pot, and listening to the mandatory 8:30 meeting, we then retreated to the dining building and talked strategy. We were given a couple of topo maps that had trails on it that were not on the orienteering maps given to us, and with a red pen, we marked those trails on our maps. The dining hall closed at 10 PM, and we finished the strategizing on a picnic table outside. Then it was bed time. The background noise of the adjacent I-68 highway was present all night. But we got our good sleep. At 5:20, we rushed out, quickly prepared ourselves, and at 5:40 we got our safety briefing. Five minutes later, the rogaine was officially started. We weren't quite ready, so we walked back to our car, picked up the compasses and whistles, and set out on our "intent" itinerary. Just dave had a camelback with some munchies and medical tape and few other accessories, Hung Like This had a water bottle belt and a water filter (in case if we needed to get water from streams), Sherpes had a water bottle belt. We all had running shoes, long pants, and short-sleeve shirt. Temperature was not going to exceed 75, not oppressive has the day before. Leaves were wet from the rain of the day before.
From past experience with Score courses, we decided to leave the easy ones near base camp to the final 30 minutes. Since we asked if walking on the interstate was not against the rules, we planned to reach the north-east corner of the map where there were several high-value controls, then work pretty much clock-wise.
Our first control to target was 30. Clue sheet indicated a reentrant. We looked for it, but never found it. Climbed the hill back, and tried a different reentrant. No avail. We decided not to waste any more time, we crossed the creek, followed it downstream, reached a forest road, and eventually got us where the control with highest points was located, 71.
Control 71 turned out to be very easy. We found it at 7:30 AM.
Our next control was going to be 67. We wanted to reach the creek below and from there, take a direct climb on a hill to reach the control area, but we did not recognize well which side stream was which, and we ended up walking downstream on numerous bends. Eventually we took a spur to gain high ground, reached the control area, looked for it for a good 20 minutes, and after repeated attack points used, Just Dave found it, to our great relief. Time was 6:10 AM.
From control 67, we went straight down to a road located south. We followed the road, then left it to follow a wash in downstream direction hoping to find a spur nearby. We never found the "stream intersection" and instead followed a very evident spur, then abbandoned, followed the stream upstream, got back to where we were before, but in a hunch, followed a slope next to the creek and found the control. Time was 9:07 AM. Later, talking to other Rogainers, everyone said how hard this was.
With a mix of bushwacking and trail, we found the reentrant where control 51 was. Time was 7:45.
From there, we wanted to reach control 60. Once we were on top of the ridge, we weren't sure if it was where we wanted to be, so we ran portions of trail to verify our location. Eventually, we found 60 on a saddle point, after being tricked into an other saddle point. Time was 10:15 AM.
From there, we quickly descented the hills and reached stream and road below. From the road at a hairpin turn, we quickly found control 55. Time was 10:50 AM.
Our next control was to go pretty much directly to control 50. What happened is that we missed the spur directly north of control 55, and instead followed a spur that was going west. We realized the mistake, talked a bit, one of us wanted to descent down to the creek and climb the hill again, this time going north. We eventually decided instead to continue going west until a road was found, then follow the road to an easy trail leading to the control, which we found quickly at 11:30 AM.
Back on the road, we walked until we found a water stop, marked on the map with a yellow star.
From there we went straight West to find control 42 on a spur. It wasn't that evident, so it took some time. Time was 12:25.
From there, we continued west, gained a road, then followed a wide ATV trail, and easily found 35. Time was 12:45.
Continuing on the ATV trail, we spent an excessive amount of time trying to find 45. Eventually, we gave up, and decided to continue on the ATV trail to a side trail leading to a reentrant near the control. This trail was our "catching feature". We finally found it. Time was 1:30 PM.
Continuing on the wide ATV trail, we met a family of five that said they could not find 61 and 66. We started looking for 61, and after three passes, it was finally found. What happened is that the stream that we followed upstream actually has a stream intersection, and the spur was between the two streams. Time was 2:20 PM.
Control 66 was incredibly easy. We found it in 10 seconds after leaving the trail.
From there we bushwacked to a stream below and followed a trail until we could recognize two side streams coming from SE, and thus identify the spur between the two. Found it at 3:20 PM.
From there, we climbed a hill towards control 41. From a road "Y" intersection, we got our bearings, and walked downhill looking for a spur. We found many, but no control. Then, after criss-crossing numerous times the terrain, had a hunch, followed a reentrant downhill, and from down below, saw an obviously identifiable spur, and after climbing it, saw the glow of white and orange decal. This was a tough one. Time was 4:05 PM.
At this point, we started organizing our On-In. To finish the 12-hour rogaine, we had to be at base camp before 5:45 PM, with penalty of 10 points per minute late. Back on the road, and for a long straight line, we then left it and walked downhill in the dry seasonal stream (clue has it marked as reentrant)looking for control 31 and found without problems. Time was 4:45 PM.
From there, we walked/jogged on the road, towards base camp. In our intentions, we wanted to get control 25 from the horse-shoe turn, and then back to the road to camp, but we were out of time. We easily bagged controls 11 and 10 on the way. We arrived at the finish line at 5:31 PM.
Bananas, oranges, cookies were devoured, other rogainers slumped on the grass unable to stand or move. The SVO folks quickly checked the control cards and computed to score totals. Among the six-hour participants, the highest score was in the high 300's. Among the mixed gender teams doing the 12-hour event, the highest score was in the 500's. Among the men doing the 12-hour team, third place had 703 points, second had 720, and first had 817. The team "3 guys, 3 rivers", had the top score.
We talked a bit with the other rogainers, and discussed which controls were the hardest. Many said that 67 and 65 absorbed an hour each, preventing some from having time left to find 71. While we found 71 easily from a trail, many had a hard time finding it coming from 67. Some people found 60 hard to find because of the saddle before another saddle where the control was at. The only control that we attempted and that we did not find was 30. Asking around if anyone found it, nobody could answer because no one attempted it, so it is still a mistery where it actually is.

Using Google Map Pedometer, we routed the itinerary and found to have walked about 31 miles. If we had found the controls immediately and using our intended and more optimal route , we would have walked about 25 miles.