The courses available were White, Yellow, and Score. In addition, for the very very young, a String-O course was also available.
By pure coincidence, the Road Runner running club was having its monthly run event at the same location just 90 minutes before. After their event, they had a picnic BBQ, and donated alot of left-over pastries and cookies to our event, that were eventually voraciously devoured by our participants as they returned and ended their orienteering courses.
There were many first-timers: some cub scouts from the Shadyside/Point Breeze area. Some from Hampton Township, who saw the flier in their community center. One from Squirrel Hill, who saw the flier at the SqHill library. One art gallery owner that saw the event in a arts event website. There was a geocaching family that lived nearby. There was a family that saw it on the North Hills news. There were three runners with the harriers. Unfortunately, none of the Roots Race adventure race participants came to this event, who got word of the event from a flier handed around at the Pittsburgh Urban Rogaine a month earlier.
For the score course,
I chose to pretty much follow a clock-wise pattern. I decided to designate #2 and #1 to be my last controls. I quickly went to #3, then to #5 with no problems. Having runned in this park before, I was familiar with the trails, and went to #8 by using some trails I already knew. From #8 to #6, I crossed the road and bushwacked in the woods to easily spot #6. Then gained the top of the hill to find #9. I already knew from the reports of the other participants that #10 was MIA, but I decided to go for it and went on a steep downhill to find it. Found the pile of manure, but not the control. [Note: I did a mistake in not going to #7... will explain later]. Went to #14 without a problem. From here chose to go to #13 by going straight north and getting on the paved road to the highest (saddle) point. [Note: should have gone to 15 and then to 13]. From 13, it was a highway of trail that lead me to the vicinity of 17. Now, I faced a dilemma: should I go to 15, or to 19 ? I was really pissed off, because now 15 was in the center, and I wanted to look for 19, 20, 18. And 15 was really out of my route. Chose to go to 19, using trails I already knew, then to 20 by cutting through clearings and corpse of trees with some thorny bushes (was glad I was wearing long pants). The control location of 20 was pretty neat, didn't know that ruin was there. Then, cutting through more creeks and thorny bushes, got myself into another clearing were I spotted another participant. Reached the corner of the clearing running up-slope, into the woods, trail and paved road intersection, and the control quickly spotted. Continued on trail to reach the Mansion parking lot, and found the ruin where 16 was (neat location - didn't know it was there...). Now, I could finally bag #15.. what a dogleg for me, went to it, and then ran back to get on the main trail leading to #12. A big loss of time was finding #12: there were three parallel trails, and somehow I mistakenly went right on the first one thinking I was on the second one. Eventually I got terribly suspicious that I was on the wrong trail, gained the hill, found the other trail, ran back on that, and then found the third trail (and that is when I realized I had been wrong all along...) BTW: looking now at the map, I see that the catching feature was the pipleline clearing going East-West, so there was no need to go back north on trail... I could have just continued going south until getting catched by the pipeline, and then could have gotten my next bearing from there... From 12 to 11, just ran down hill on the pipeline, and really tested my new Salomon SA 3D XCR. After finding 11, realized what a mistake I did in not getting 7 earlier. If I had already gotten 7, then from 11 to 4 it was an easy trail in the clearing, and then downhill in the woods. But now I had to gain the top of the hill using the pipeline clearing, and then barrell downhill towards 4, a waste of energy... estimated loss of time, 4 minutes. From 7 to 4, followed the pipeline clearing, then found the trail intersection, recognized the re-entrant, and followed it downhill to the creek intersection. From there, gained uphill to the trail above, and followed the clearing to 2, and then straight run across the concert area grass to 1, and then finish.
In summary, could have done better strategy, but physically was fit and ran most of the time. The Salomon SA 3D XCR proved to be great and well suited for the terrain.
Estimated distance covered in 78 minutes: about 8.8 km. A better choice would have been 8.4 km.
Notable: near control 9, there is a small black cross on the map. It's a pet cemetery of two horses. There is another similar cemetery just next to the fenced garden near the mansion.
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