Billy Goat run in Brecksville Metropark near Cleveland

The North East Ohio Orienteering Club hosted an orienteering meet, offering a Long Goat course, a Medium Goat course, and a White course. About 40 participants showed up in a sunny day. The White course was 3.5 km long, and the Long Goat was 5.9 km long. Terrain was alluvional, deeply forested, with deep muddy ravines and cuts in the terrain. The slopes of the ravines had often "false summits", or mini-hills and knobs.

Photo album with high resolution images: website

The Middle Goaters left at around 12:40, while the Long Goaters left at 1 PM.

Zac and Mom on a spur, upper part, control #18 on Long Goat





Marked as a ruin map feature



This was marked as a special next to the ruin


This was not marked as Special, but as ruin. Did not find a ruin.



Interesting Special map feature

Time for a bath with soap and bubbles

This ruin has only one wall, 40 cm height


Long Goat clue sheet


Just before starting on the Long Goat, we are informed that we are allowed to skip two non-consecutive controls. Kostansek, Stanislav, Randy, Olga, Bob and possibly others started running in group, not going too fast, and arriving at the first set of controls relatively at the same time, so much that we each other passed the punch to the next in line after punching the control card. After control 3, my first mistake. I ran down the ravine and went on the other side of the creek, but must have not seen or overshot control 4, located on one of these mini-hills or knobs located on the steep slopes of the ravines. I realized that I must have missed it because I lost the pack and then, looking behind be, I saw the entire pack running towards me at about 50 meters distance. Decided it was not worth going back looking for 4 and stayed with the pack. Control 4 became, unintentionally, my first skipped control. Running from 5 to 6 was easy open woodland, and the meandering creek was easy to spot. From 6 to 7 used the hiking trail as guide, and at the spur, left the trail and went looking for the ditch. From 7 to 8, once on the spur where the control was located, everyone in the pack went uphill, but the clue sheet suggested "foot of" and went to the bottom of the spur along with a Middle Goater that had the same idea. From 8 to 9, alone, reached the stream intersection nearby, then the clearing on the otherside, and then climbed up the hill knob to reach the control. From 9 to 10, alone again, reached the clearing above the control, then sided next to a pond, ran to the East of a building, followed a road, and at the road bend, went looking for the control, and saw Kostansek running below in the woods, and from his directionality, got the hint were the control was positioned. From 10 to 11, followed Kostansek around a spur and on through lightly wooded forest to the terrace where the control was located. Then the obvious skip of control 12 (something everyone seemed to agree...) and off to 13. On the proximity of 13, I got a bit confused, seeing Kostansek climb up the very steep slope on a spur, but I was convinced the control was on the other side of the reentrant, and stopped to look at the map, at which point Randy caught up with me, and also went up the spur, so I figured it must be right, and telescoping the slope rim above, could see faintly the control, so, there it was! and charged uphill as well, reached the top, and punched. Well.... at this point, this was going to be the last time I saw the lead pack, for a TOTALLY LOST mental fog that stunned me for the next 30 minutes. What happened is that as I visualized my approach to 14, my idea was to run on a flat terrain until reaching the upper part of a reentrant, and then turn around the reentrant and coast the edge of the reentrrant. Somewhere later, my mental image of the control switched from being control 14 to control 16, which had a similar approach: "flat terrain, find the upper level of a reentrant, and turn around it". So, once on the spur above control 14, I was looking at the map and I was looking/thinking at control 16. On the clue sheet, control 16 was defined to be on the upper part of a spur. Searched for it on the spur located 300 meters East of control 14, and obviously could not find it. Very Lost. VERY VERY Lost. So, kind of desperate, ran down the spur to the creek below. I thought maybe I was on the wrong spur, and that there was another spur. Scanned the woods for other runners, but didn't see anyone. Ran parallel to the creek for ages without seeing anyone, not a soul, then, seeing a very evident and sharp spur, took that up, and at the knife edge above, could see the red nylon jacket of Bob Boltz down below on the stream, going in the same direction as I was, him below, me above. Figured that my only hope was to figure out where control 13 was and start from there. Identified the spur on the map, and went for 14, again, in mental mode of looking for 16. Then, realized that my control card had no punches for 14 and 15, I thought, Oh My God, I forgot to punch 14 and 15, I must return back. So I am running back, and at about 100 meters later, in a rare moment of rational cool, I finally realize that my destination was 14 ALL THIS TIME. What a screw up !

the similar approach is what made me focus on 16 instead of 14


OK, I am back in now, at least in my mind. [and from this moment all everything went pretty smoothly]. Retraced the path to the reentrant top, the flat terrain, the spur, the descent down to the creek, the cluster of rootstocks, and finally punched 14. Found Bob before me at control 21. Saw Olga at the last control. And finally finished. A very varied terrain, beautiful morphology.

This billy goat thing is fun because it's a mass start, and you are with the pack, sometimes shortcutting, sometimes not.. but you get a "feel" for where everyone is going/thinking. Fun to watch from a running perspective, kind of cross country, but very varying with the terrain . Like, I am ABOVE the ridge looking down, and another runner is BELOW the ridge looking up. We are all headed towards the same objective, but simultaneously taking different routes.