All in One Day

Canoe, Bike, Run, Cave, Night Orienteer , all in one day on Saturday May 17

RootsRace adventure race, from 9 AM to 12:30 PM, in occasion of the VO festival in Pittsburgh (Washington's Landing island, under the 31st Street bridge). Kayak, bike, run, all in rogaine format, where participants must find control points. $40 per team of two.

drive to Bear Cave, near Blairsville, PA, and hike and cave in Bear Cave, on Sierra Club scheduled trip lead by Norm "Norton" Snyder. No fee for cave visit, $1.50 for parking. Must be with trip leader, who has the permit. hike to cave.
Cave visit on Saturday afternoon.

Continue driving east to Johnstown, PA, where Western Pennsylvania Orienteering Club is hosting a Night Orienteering meet in Stackhouse Park. Cost $4/person.

total drive round trip is 163 miles)

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DETAILS for ADVENTURE RACE:
Less than two weeks remain before the VO2 Test at the Venture Outdoors Festival! It's important to note that this year's festival will take place on Washington's Landing and that the Grass Roots Racing Start/Finish line will be right in the middle of that action. How will this affect the race? In many ways! First of all....wait....I can't tell you that! What I can tell you is that this year's race will follow a more structured format with a defined order of events. This may take away some of the strategizing involved in last year's race but it will pit teams against one another making for even more head to head comptetition. I can also tell you that there will be a strong emphasis on paddling with boats supplied by Kayak Pittsburgh. We are keeping our fingers crossed that their shipment of new boats will make it before race day. If they do, this race will see the largest field of paddlers in GRR histo ry!&nb sp; I can also tell you that this race will reward the fleet of foot as we anticipate a course that is in slight favor of the runners. And finally we foresee a course that will benefit the road/cyclocross bikers as almost all of the bike leg will be on pavement.
If you are a newcomer to adventure racing then this is your race. It's a great chance to cut your teeth and sharpen your skills to prepare for our off-road events. If you are one of our regulars then this is a great chance to supplement your series points as this will serve as a substitute race for the SONAR and other series races. Either way you can't lose since the race costs only $40 per team! Add to that a 9:00am start time and you are out of excuses.

DETAILS FOR NIGHT ORIENTEERING:
7:30 pm - 8:15 pm
Registration for those who haven't registered and signing of the waiver for those who have preregistered. To preregister, send e-mail to jlwolfe@atlanticbb.net and state how many of you are coming and what your names are. Payment will be collected at the meet; the fee is $4 per person and each person will get a map. Preregistration is preferred so that we are sure we have enough maps.
8:30 pm
Briefing about the event with map, clue and punch card distribution. At this time, we will want to make sure everyone is properly equipped for night orienteering. The course is a score-O with about 40 controls worth varying numbers of points. All controls will be marked with the usual orange and white nylon bag and have a rod wrapped in reflective tape directly above the bag.
9:00 pm
Mass Start for everyone. You will have 2 hours to find as many points as you can. Lateness penalties will be rather severe. The course closes promptly at 11:00 pm; you must return by this time because we will begin taking down the course at that time. All participants must return to the start/finish by 11:15 pm.
Required equipment:
Compass (we will loan you one if necessary),
Light (with spare batteries or a second backup light),
Whistle (we will sell you one if you don't have one).
Safety Note: Stackhouse Park is surrounded by residential neighborhoods and there is normally no activity that takes place after dark in the park. Consequently, people and their dogs living near the park may react to your presence when you are at the edge of the park.
Courtesy Note: The park surrounds Sunnehanna Golf Course. There are some trails along the edge of the golf course that may be used; however, crossing any of the fairways or other parts of the golf course are strictly forbidden.

summary recap of the day:
Dave and Sherpes were team Two Guys Three Rivers. They used to be Three Guys Three Rivers a year ago at the SVO rogaine in Green Ridge, near Cumberland, Maryland, but the third guy dropped off into a more confortable lifestyle, thus the team name change.

Dave drove to Sherpes's place to pick him up. Since we needed to trasport two bicycles, we chose Dave's vehicle, a pickup truck, and drove to Herr's Island, aka Washington's Landing, aka Pig Island, under the 31st street bridge and in the river portion between the Lawrenceville section of the city, and Troy Hill.

We got there at 8:30, signed the release, and at 9:00 sharp, the first challenge: each team member had to run in different destinations of the island to find poker plastic chips at a location specified in a hand-drawn map and sheet of written instructions. This task only took about 15 minutes. Once back, we were given our next packet of instructions.

Now, the task had to be completed by one team member on a bike, and the other on foot. The two team members could alternate the use of the bike, if they wished. We had to locate three check points: one under the 31st street bridge in Lawrenceville, one in a coffee shop in the Strip district on 21st Street, and the last on the SW tip of Herr's Island near the bike-pedestrian walkway. Dave and Sherpes alternated the use of the bike, by biking ahead of the team member on foot, then the biker drops the bike and continues on foot, the runner catches up with the bike, rides the bike, passes the runner, then its his turn to drop the bike and continue on foot. This way the runner than becomes a biker can rest while on bike, and get a fresh running start after dropping the bike.

The third task was the paddle task. With the generous sponsorship of Kayak Pittsburgh, this event included the use of their boats to paddle on the two tips of the island to locate the poker plastic chips.

The fourth task was the bike leg. We biked along the North Shore bike path to different locations. We missed the bonus points of Point State Park because we didn't read the control sheet at the time. Sherpes bike was a 1984 Shwinn purchased for $10 at a garage sale, and Dave's bike was an older mt bike with slick tires.

The fifth task was a combination bike and run. We biked to the parklot under the 40th street bridge next to the Robotics Insitute, and from there, ran to Allegheny Cemetery to find one control point and several bonus poker chips. Here, the navigation was based on using a black & white cemetery map.



We ran back to the 40th st bridge parklet, and biked back to base with 11 minutes to spare. We wondered if we had enough time to bind the Bonus point 10 in the cemetery, but definitely felt we should have been more careful in reading the control sheet and not have missed the Point State Park bonus point in the bike leg.

Soon after, all the other participants returned. The talk was about which bonus point did others find. The homemade cookies were a quick munch. Bananas, oranges and other foods lined the table. Dave Batista and his team partner had all our check points and bonus points, but with the Point State Park bonus as well, so we knew he was ahead of us. Among the participants, didn't see Laura Gailey, she was at past grass roots events, and knew her from when she ran in the Hash House Harriers.

We had to leave quickly to our next event, so we couldn't stay to listen to the results. [update: 3rd place in All Male division, 4th place Overall].

First task, to collect the bonus chips from the SW tip of the island, round trip distance running: 2.3 km


Second task, one cyclist and one runner: 7.0 km.


Third task, paddle on kayak: 2.8 km


fourth task, all bike: 18.2 km


fifth task, bike portion: 7.2 km


fifth task, run portion: 4.9 km


Because we forgot the caving helmets, we drove back to Sherpes place. There, we switched vehicle to continue driving on a sedan, since we didn't need the bicycles anymore.

In the vicinity of Blairsville, we parked in the Bear Cave parking lot and reached the cave where we found Norm, of the Sierra Club, and four others. The water level of the creek was high. It was Dave's first time caving, and he was thrilled. The sound of the water stream in the underground chambers soppressed our voices. We did some belly crawls in the tunnels near the NSS log, and saw the keyhole. Took about twenty pictures in the cave using a Fuji disposable camera (pictures will be uploaded on May 28). Our dress code for the cave: old boots with a good thread, wool socks, work pants, synthetic shirt, nylon light jacket, gardening gloves. The light nylon jacket works well to protect the undershirt from abbrasion, and helps reduce friction when belly crawling or squeezing through a tight fit. The wool socks prevent hypothermia when having feet in the cold water. The old boots get shredded and torned up pretty quickly in a cave, from all the abbrasion, and usually I use a pair are past their prime years. For gloves, one caver I know uses kitchen dishwashing gloves, but I prefer the one dollar gardening gloves. A pair of kneepads would also work nicely, to we worn under the pants, not over. Having nothing, absolutely nothing in the pants pockets, also helps when crawling horizontally, and one doesn't want that friction of a pocketed object hitting against your body (better put them in an upper body pocket, like in the jacket). Redundancy: carry three sources of light, they don't have to be all headlamps. For photographs, it is customary to take a picture of ourselves before the cave trip, and after the cave trip: the difference is amazing. After the cave, the clothing is completely covered in brown dirt, relegating such fine apparel gartments to a lifetime use in caving-only activities. The exit from the cave is always a sensorial revelation: after several hours in the cave, the body attunes to an environment of sensorial deficiency, and when slowly going for the exit, the light, the birds chirping, the leaves flaking, the wind hitting your face, it is all a sensorial explosion.











After the cave, we looked for Dean's Diner and its storied pies, but couldn't find it. We got to Johnstown in a rainstorm, parked on top of the incline at 6:30 PM to see a beatiful rainbow, then continued to Stackhouse Park, where the Night Orienteering was to take place.

Despite torrential rain, dropping temperatures, mercurial weather systems, the event was attended by several boy scouts, scout masters, a family from Pittsburgh, and several "usual suspects" of the local orienteering club. Starting at 9 PM and ending at 11 PM, the "score" format course offered 37 controls of different difficulties. Sherpes used a NiteRider light loaned by mountain biker WMD of the Hash House Harriers, whose power went off after 1h 37 minutes (Sherpes had a LED light for backup). The Lorenz family had the 3 Watt high-power LED headlamps made by Black Diamond that REI store in Pittsburgh sells. Their long beam is pretty impressive.
Map in "score" format:


Route chosen:


Took the wrong trail at the very beginning, thinking I was going to 20, but in listening to the creek on my left, figured out that I was totally wrong, so back tracked and eventually saw the lights of Dave Torick and Jim, and eventually control 20, 8, 12. On the route from 12 to 35, while Dave and Jim chose to stay on the high ground, took the descending trail to connect with the lower trail to eventually find 35 (always had better luck finding controls on slopes from the bottom), and I had a few more references on the lower trail, and the intermitting stream as catching feature. Stayed on trail to find 17, then descended in a steep woodsly and slippery slope to a trail next to the creek, and went looking for 13. Must have connected to the trail just 50 meters upstream from where the control was, because I couldn't find it, then, saw the forking trail and returned downstream to find the clearing, and the control. On route to 22, continued downstream to find the large masonry columns of a ruined house, used that as attack point, and set the compass to NW, and eventually saw the reflective tape of the control. Went straight up the slope to find an upper trail, stayed on trail to control 3, went straight up the slope to find another upper trail bordering the golf course, and bordered the golf course to get to the area where control 23 was. Found 23 totally by accident by just scanning the surrounding area with the light beam and got the reflection back. What made it unsure was that the area immediately to the East from where the control was, all the trees where cut, and I would have expected a clearing, which is not on the map. Continued on the trail bordering the golf course looking for 14. With the shar turn to North, and sloped downhill, cut to East too early looking for a lower trail, and followed this trail with a creek on my left, downstream (which made no sense), so went clockwise, and incredibly, stumbled right on control 23 again. Repeated the trail, and incredibly, found myself again on the trail parallelling the creek, but this time I went upstream, saw the trail crossing the creek and turning, and when it started to go downhill, went West towards the golf course and eventually found control 14 (a disastrous consumption of time for just 10 points). On route for 29, the original idea was to reach the north end of the golf course and look for a small trail. Instead, got a bit over confident, and went bushwacking, thinking I was going to locate it right away. Instead, went a bit too much on the East side and continuing downslope, to the North East of the control. Went circling a bit counter-clockwise in thick vegetation, and sloped rocky terrain, found a lower trail, which lead me up to the control. Returned to the golf course border, and went looking for 25. Found the trails nearby, but must have looked to far East to begin with, circled clockwise, got back on trail, repeated the search but this time a bit more West, and eventually found it. Got back to the golf course border. For 31, went downslope early, and then stayed level and walked West, to eventually find it without problem. Back to the golf course perimeter. For 26, realize now it was pure luck: before the start, I marked my intended route with a light green marker. During the event, looking at the map in the semi-darkness, the green marker looked like a vegetation boundary, and went looking for a "V" shaped thick. So, running along the trail bordering the golf course, and scanning the side with the light, I detected a more open woods area than the thick vegetation I was seeing until then, and veered off to that direction, to find control 26 right on. Two days after the event, while reading this, I am now realizing that that the original map had no vegetation change, and that my veering off trail position was completely coincidental, and fictional. Lucky break. (was somewhat helped a bit by seeing some lights of the Lorenz family that just punched). Went back to the golf course border, and following the lights of the Lorenz family, punched 11. Continuing on the trail bordering the golf course, found a trail fork intersection, and (should have gone to the right) went left, slightly uphill, to find residential homes and a paved road and road gate. The Lorenz family followed me, and they also seemed a bit mystified. After consulting the map, we all routed to the trail below, and right by a creek intersection on wood planks as bridge, could barely tell from the map that that was the closest attack point to start from, and went looking for the ruins buried in thick vegetation, to find control 30. On route to 28, found the intermiting stream, and the control, with the Lorenz pair close by. Continuing on trail on route to 27, figured I should see the trail crossing the stream as "catching feature", and from there find the control very easily. And that is what happened. Surpringly, the Lorenz pair were not nearby, and probably the stopped to consult the map. On looking for the nearby control 6, saw some lights of a pair going upslope (maybe the Lorenz pair, but it didn't make sense, since they were above that slope before...) and eventually found the control. Looking for 5 by the clearing was easy. At trail end, looked for the trail veering off the clearing to control 7 but could not see the trail, so gave up (which turned out to be a good thing since it would have just sucked time, and at this point, there was only 24 minutes left). Looking for 32, crossed the stream, used the stream junction as indicator, but with the high water, it was hard to see it since there were many "stream junctions". Eventually found the dam on the North, and the bridge on the South, and just aimed at half point between dam and bridge and climbed upslope, and walked sideways staying level at half slope looking for the control in the semi-thick wooded area, to eventually find the control (at least 10 minutes spent to find this one). Went back down to the creek, then the bridge, then across the trail into the area where control 15 was. Again, lights of other orienteers helped, and found the control easily. Back on the road, with intent to go to 18, recognized the clearing, recognized a rootstock on my left, and then simply went East, straight upslope, to find the level trail. Traveled on trail going South (my NiteRider light went dead at this point, 1h 37m, used a LED light as backup) and found the control easily. Stayed on that trail going south, and found a fork, with another trail going slightly downhill to the road below. Thinking it was the trail near control 24, I reached the read below and went looking for 24 near that intersection, but could not find it, and continued on the road. Then, heard the voice of Dave Torick that was yelling "found it" to his partner Jim, and consulting the map, realized that they were bagging control 4 nearby the road, and realized that control 24, that I assumed was behind me (that I abbandoned the search for), was actually in front of me. Found the trail-road intersection with Dave and Jim now next to me, and we all went looking for 24. After finding it, it was a run for home, with only 6 minutes left. Running on the road, now going slightly uphill, it was painfull, specially after the long day we had. My original intention was to reserve the cluster of controls 16-19-21 towards the end, and was somewhat wishful thinking of being at least able to punch 19 that was right next to the road. Dave and Jim bailed off from the road to take a smaller trail that lead to control 2, and eventually to the stream and parallel trail and then to finish. I continued on the road, but too had to give up aspirations of punching 19, and when I saw the next trail going slightly downhill, took it. Apparently there was a control, 9, on a rootstock not far from the trail, but didn't even see it, now reduced to a small LED light. Arrived at finish, Dave and Jim soon arrived 15 seconds later. At the shelter, the talk was all about which and what control participants found and did not find. Byron was talking about not finding 33, and the course setter mentioned it was the most difficult control, in his opinion. Looking at my map, I saw that I marked with the green marker my intended route, and included 33 as the control to find after 18, but apparently, because of the lack of time, abbandoned that intent, and went looking for 24 instead.

Arrived 14 seconds late (20 points penalty per minute after 11 PM).
scoring:
controls 1-9 are 5 points
controls 10-19 are 10 points
controls 20-29 are 20 points
controls 30-35 are 30 points

20-8-12-35-17-13-22-3-23-14-29-25-31-26-11-30-28-27-6-5-32-15-18-24 (total of 24 controls)

(8-3-6-5, 4 controls at 5 points each = 20 points)
(12-17-13-14-11-15-18, 7 controls at 10 points each = 70 points)
(20-22-23-29-25-26-28-27-24, 9 controls at 20 points each = 180 points)
(35-31-30-32, 4 controls at 30 points each = 120 points)

total points: 390 - 20 (penalty) = 370

General comments: it seemed that
- control 27 was worth more like 5 points than 20 points, being so close to trail.
- control 35 was worth more like 20 points being so close to start.

On the drive back to Pittsburgh, on the outskirts of Blairsville, we found Dean's Diner, and stopped for on of its famous pies. The diner is open 24 hours a day.

After a slow drive in the fog, arrived in Pittsburgh at 2 AM.