Sherpes

Last Post - Redirect to another blog website

2009-06-15T06:10:00.000-07:00

Could not post any more in this blog because Google tells me i've exceeded (1 GB) my free allowed size quota space that is given to free accounts.

So, I created a second blog: www.SHERPES.blogspot.com

Orienteerer from North East Ohio visits Pittsburgh

2009-06-12T21:21:00.000-07:00

Got an email that Master Bo was going to be in Grasshoper's city, so called him up, and he was en route to a park nearby to play Frisbee Golf while his wife attended a conference. Met up with him, and we started playing Disc Golf. First time. After a few throws and puts in the basket, had to go because the Pens were playing Game 7 of the Stanley Cup, and we headed back to the cars. On our way, a pavillion with a huge family gathering asked us about how the Disc Golf is played, and we stopped and chatted. They offered us food. Master Bo was too well-mannered to accept, but Grasshoper had no such scruples, and taught his Master how to accept such food offers. We picked some really meaty ribs. At the street were the cars were parked, someone broke into a car to steal a DVD player. Master Bo had asked Grasshopper earlier if that park was safe, and he replied it was the safest park in the city. But contrary to everyone's expectations, there it was, the scattered glass, as if the city wasn't exciting enough for Master Bo. As a good Ohioan, he always carries duct tape and plastic sheets in his vehicle, and offered to help his neighboring state resident the tools to patch up the side window. Grasshopper proposed that Master Bo go downtown to hear a funk music concert, free, outdoors, as part of the Three Rivers Arts Festival, and then, see period three of the hockey game in some nearby bar, but that was too much eventful activity for a single evening for Master Bo. After all, we did score a meaty rib from perfect strangers. That was eventful enough.

Johnstown Stackhouse Park Orienteering

2009-06-01T06:57:00.000-07:00

From start to 5 (rootstock), easy route
from 5 to 1 (rootstock), very easy downhill and then trail
from 1 to 3 (ruined wall), headed to clearing and thought "go upstream of creek on left side", but chose the WRONG CREEK ! realized of the error when saw a trail intersection.
from 3 to 7 (boulder, 1 meter), crossed creek and uphill in thick vegetation
from 7 to 2 (boulder), easy trails
from 2 to 17 (rootstock), followed trail that led to underhill side of control, instead of staying on high ground, given past experience that reentrant feature is more recognizable from below than from flat and feature-less top, but in retrospect, should have stayed on high ground.
from 17 to 8 (knoll), easy trail. Missed the control and used pond as reference
from 8 to 10 (rootstock), followed trail downhill and uphill, but realized I should go to control 11 first (spring). Wasted some time and energy and went back downhill.
from 11 to 10, trail and then thick vegetation underbrush.
from 10 to 18 (rootstock), trail, thick vegetation, stony ground.
from 18 to 20, trail, missed it, catching feature was trail intersection
from 20 to 19 (junked auto remains), easy trail
from 19 to 13 (lower end of trail), easy downhill road to trail intersection, then followed stream and woodsy terrain to control
from 13 to 9, uphill to forest road, trail, bit confused on a trail intersection (was expecting a T-intersection) but there never was one: the trail coming from the North is barely visible)
from 9 to 15 (ruin), easy trail
from 15 to 12 (stream reentrant junction), easy road, then uphill on stream
from 12 to 16 (cliff, 3 meters), downhill to trail, crossed creek on footbridge, used trail junction and marsh as reference, easy find
from 16 to 14 (rootstock), used trail junction as reference to then cross creek, and slightly uphill on other side of creek, but missed it. Trail was catching feature, and eventually, at trail-road intersection, got my reference back and from there, easy find.
From 14 to 6 (edge of thicket), uphill to road, then climb uphill.
from 6 to 4, steep downhill to trail, then easy find.
from 4 to finish, trail, then steep climb in woods, then road.

Buffalo Orienteering

2009-05-19T03:29:00.001-07:00

Sunday route

Orienteering at Camp Twin Echo

2009-05-10T11:52:00.001-07:00

The Western Pennsylvania Orienteering Club hosted a orienteering meet at at Boy Scout of America camp near Ligonier, PA, Camp Twin Echo.

There were four courses available: White, Yellow, Brown, and Line.

Line was a novelty for all: one had to follow the line as drawn on the map to ensure to find unknown mystery controls on mapped features on touched by the line. It was easy to miss some controls, since not always one went on exactly where the line was. Missed three out of 16. And along the way, found other controls that did not belong to the Line course. On the map below, the red circles were added on the map to indicate were the controls were placed, and the yellow circles indicate where other controls were placed that did not belong to the Line course.

This was definitely an event where athletic ability was diminished and map navigation was rewarded. For example, in following the Line in the vicinity of control #9, went a bit south of where the control was, and found a utility pole with a small electrical line. Looked up and saw that the line was making a small bend. Located on the map the bend of the power line, and noticed that I missed a power line and a root stock. Kind of backtracked the Line and went to the pole (nothing there), and then to the rootstock, and hurrah!, there was the white-and-orange visual of a control. So, looking for mapped features was the key of the game here...

Doing the line backwards

Orange line is route followed

Cooper's Rock 4-hour orienteering Rogaine

2009-04-27T10:25:00.001-07:00

Part of M.A.S.S. (Morgantown Advenure Sports Series), this 4-hour race took place in Cooper's Rock State Forest, just east of Morgantown, West Virginia.

Starting at 1 PM, the day was very hot with clear skies. There were four water stations spread in the park. There were about 35 controls, most on hilltops, stream junctions, spurs.

The event had 17 starts (teams and solo). Most of the participants were from the Morgantown area.

A quality map printed to scale of 1:10000 made this event great, well organized, and rewarding.

online photos

Route of team Two Guys From Three Rivers was 22 km long

Hartwood Acres Orienteering

2009-04-22T08:38:00.000-07:00

more photos

Green 6.36 km, 260 m
southeastern-most rootstock
middle rootstock
southeastern ruin
between rootstocks, water
southern end of stream
stream intersection
rootstock
lower end of spur
eastern side of ruin
reentrant
north-east outside tip of vegetation boundary (evergreen)
lower end of renentrant
stream bend
boulder, 1.0 meter, water
ditch, north-east end

Choosing a similar but wrong control

2009-04-09T11:07:00.000-07:00

North East Ohio Orienteerers at Flying Pig

2009-04-07T06:33:00.000-07:00

Bob & Randy

Orienteering at Patapsco Valley State Park, Maryland

2009-03-31T09:06:00.000-07:00

The Quantico Orienteering Club (QOC) hosted an "A" meet in this state park 20 miles east of Baltimore. Spanning events in three days, it attacted over 300 participants.

4-hr orienteering "Rogaine" at Cooper's Rock SF, West Virginia, April 26

2009-03-30T09:15:00.001-07:00

Event website

Sunday, April 26, 2009 -- Bruceton Mills, WV / Coopers Rock State Forest
Get Lost! Orienteering Competition - Morgantown Adventure Sports Series (MASS)
#2 (iPO Event Id#: 12019)

Fees / Divisions

Solo (including mtn. bike) - $25 (Before April 17) / $30 (After April 17)
2-Person Team - $35 (Before April 17) / $40 (After April 17)
Family / Team* - $40 (Before April 17) / $45 (After April 17)
*Up to 3-people competing together, then add $5 per person

Coopers Rock State Park
The GET LOST! Orienteering Competition is a wilderness based recreational navigation challenge. During this event competitors will have up to 4-hours to score points by locating various checkpoints using only a map, compass, and their sense of adventure. All participants* will receive a custom race map and a locally made glass tumbler with the event logo! (*Team as a whole gets one map only)

Awards Will Be Presented to Top 3 Finishers in Each Category Below

- Novice Solo and Mountain Bike Solo (BOTH male and female) - minimum age 18
- Intermediate/Advanced Solo (BOTH male and female) - minimum age 18
- Masters (age 40+) Solo (BOTH male and female)
- 2-person Teams (BOTH male and female) and Co-ed 2-person - minimum age 14 with 18+ year old partner
- Family/Team (up to 5 people together) - minimum age 12 with 18+ year old partner

- Groups or organizations that have at least 4 separate entries will also be allowed to compete for the overall group award. This award is based on the highest combined score total from up to 10 competitors.

What's your skill level?

Novice - Very limited experience with topographic maps and compasses. Not likely to get totally lost, but new to the sport and/or with very limited experience.

Intermediate/Advanced - Capable and experienced with outdoor navigation. Can interpret maps quickly and travel to checkpoints with at least moderate speed and accuracy. In it to try and win it!

Race Location

Coopers Rock State Forest - http://www.coopersrockstateforest.com/

The park is located at Exit 15 off I-68, turn south and follow signs 13-miles east of Morgantown, WV, 26525. Registration/Check-in will be held at the Coopers Rock State Park overlook pavilion at the far end of the main park road.

The race will start and finish at the Rock City pavilion. It will begin at precisely 1:00pm. Competitors will then have a maximum of 4-hours to locate as many checkpoints as they are able or desire to try and locate. Strict and harsh point penalties will be given to competitors who do not meet the 5:00pm finish deadline.

The race will be a "rogaine" style event and no it will not help to re-grow your hair! What this means is that the course is open for each team to plan and execute its own strategy and route. There are no mandatory routes, checkpoints, or minimum time requirements. Over the 4-hour long race, some teams may only locate a few checkpoints while others may locate them all! Competitors move at their own pace and the fastest competitors don't necessarily win. Strategy and accuracy is greatly valued.

Checkpoints will be marked with specially designed markers called controls. At each control you will find a coded hole punch that will be used to mark the control card you will carry with you during the event. Each checkpoint will have a point value associated with it based upon its location and distance from the start/finish. Some checkpoints will be relatively easy to locate and reach while others will be quite challenging. On and off-trail travel will be required to reach the various checkpoints. The exact course details are kept secret until just prior to the race.

At the end of the race competitors will be ranked by the score they accumulated on their control card. Finish times will only be used as a tie breaker for equal scores within the categories.

General

1. Absolutely NO GPS devices may be used during this event. This includes GPS pace/speed monitors such as Garmin Forerunners, etc.

2. Participants must stay within the course boundaries at all times. Entry into out-of-bounds areas is grounds for disqualification.

3. This is not a closed course. Please be respectful to other forest users, racer volunteers, and fellow racers.

4. Unsportsmanlike conduct is grounds for immediate disqualification.

5. Outside assistance from non-participants is not allowed.

6. Racers may only use the maps provided for the event. Outside maps are strictly prohibited.

Timing and Scoring

1. The event will begin at precisely 1:00pm and end at exactly 5:00pm based upon the race clock.

2. The starting and finishing area will be a booth at the Rock City pavilion.

3. For a checkpoint to be scored, the participant/team must have reached the control marker and punched their control card in the appropriate box.

4. Punches in the incorrect box on the control card will not be scored.

5. Punches that are not discernable as accurate or complete will not be scored.

6. Checkpoints may only be scored once each. No duplicate punches.

7. If the control card is lost during the event, a replacement may be acquired at the start/finish booth but no score will be credited from the lost card.

8. Participants who have not checked-in at the finish booth by 5:00pm will lose 5-points off their score for each minute they are late. (i.e. finish 5:01 = -5 points, finish 5:02 = -10 points, etc.)

9. Two-person teams and groups must have all members present at the booth in order to be marked finished.

Mandatory Equipment

1. All participants are required to be self-supported during the entire event. Snacks and water are only available at the start/finish area.

2. Each participant or team must provide their own compass for the event.

3. Solo competitors must carry the following mandatory equipment at all times during the event:

- Whistle

- Full charged cellular phone secured in a waterproof bag (i.e. zip-loc)

- Emergency survival / space blanket

- Capacity to carry 20oz of water

4. Participants must dress appropriately for the event and the weather.
----
what is the map like ? like a USGS topo map scale 1:24000 ?
are the controls like standard orienteering controls, white and orange, of standard size ?
how many controls will be placed ? are they placed in nagivationally-challenging map features like reentrants/small spurs or on obvious features like hilltops/stream junctions ?
the flier mentions in parenthesis "including mtn bike" for Solo division. So, does this mean that there will be both foot and bike competitors ? are all controls reachable by mtn bike ?

---

The maps for this event are going to be custom made. The base map we will be using is a 1:24,000 scale map with a 20-foot contour interval. However, to make the map less cluttered and more user friendly we are planning to enlarge the map by a factor of around 3x. All controls will be pre-plotted so UTM skills are not necessary and with the enlarged maps the scale will obviously be changed. All other features on the maps will be standard including contour lines, roads, water features, trails, and other prominent locations including major man made objects. Also note that we are holding a navigation basics clinic on the Saturday prior to the event so if people are hesitant about being able to read the maps or "stay found" then they can learn the basics at that time.

The controls will be standard size markers with the white/orange/blue stripe with control punches. Some checkpoints may be manned. The total number of controls is planned for around 35-40. Placement of the controls will vary as will the point value of each location. Many will be at obvious "beginner friendly" locations such as trail/stream junctions, etc. but there will also be some that are very challenging to locate and will test the abilities of better navigators.

The mountain bike division is an option for solo racers who would rather roll than run/hike. Obviously all of the checkpoints will not be able to be ridden to, but many will. Others will be reasonably close to a trail so bikers may have to dismount and travel off-trail for a short distance on foot. I think in order to do well in this category the mountain bikers will still likely have to do at least some off-bike travel.

Orienteering at IUP Cooperative Park

2009-03-23T07:09:00.001-07:00

First meet of the 2009 season by the Western Pennsylvania Orienteering Club. Park is the Cooperative Park by Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP)

White Course - 8 controls - 1.9 km
1. Trail, north end
2. Par Course Station, West side
3. Vegetation Boundary, North end
4. Gas Well
5. Root Stock
6. Trail Junction
7. Trail bend
8. Dry Ditch, top
180 meters to finish

Yellow Course - 9 controls - 3.5 km
1. Dry Ditch, top
2. Clearing, north edge
3. Powerline Pole
4. Clearing, North-West corner
5. Fence, East end
6. Seasonal Stream, middle
7. Rock Pile
8. Clearing, North-East edge
9. Trail, South end
120 meters to finish

Score Course - 17 controls - finish in 90 minutes or less or incurr a 10 point penalty for each late minute
1. Fence, East end
2. Root Stock
3. Root Stock
4. Special
5. Stream Intersection
6. Vegetation Boundary, South edge
7. Stream, middle
8. Root Stock, northern-most
9. Root Stock
10. Fence, south-east outer corner
11. Knoll, western-most
12. special
13. Stream Intersection
14. Vegetation Boundary, northern edge
15. Trail Bend
16. Root Stock
17. Root Stock, northern-most

Route choice to find them all is about 8.2 km long

The park has two active geocaches. In the Rough is located relatively close to the lodge

Lepregaine 6-hour orienteering "rogaine" adventure race in Salt Fork State Park, Cambridge, OH

2009-03-15T05:57:00.001-07:00

Team Frog Stompers, found all controls but one, they left the easiest one out

... the third member of the team...

Organized by Central Ohio Adventure Racing (COAR), 3-hr and 6-hr foot orienteering in rogaine format in Salt Fork State Park, near Cambridge, OH. 20 controls were positioned in an extensive area of the park, each with points ranging from 30 (easy) to 70 (difficult), for a total of 1000 points. Also, an unspecified number of control points would have information on a "mystery" control where participants would find Leprecaun Gold, and participants would have to decide whether to improvvise a "detour" and try finding the gold coin before other participants, or stick to their route plan. A gold coin find was rewarded with a cash prize and 50 bonus points. At the end of race, it was disclosed that there were four "mystery" control points with gold coin, of which three were searched for and found. The fourth one was not attempted by anyone, probably with the assumption that it already had been found. About 97 participants showed up. Weather was great, no muddy trails. Great control locations. Map was a National Geographic copy, similar to USGS 1:24000. Solo participants were allowed to participate (most rogaines prohibit that for safety reasons). Winning team found 19 out of 20 controls for a total of 970 points, leaving the easiest one for last, and running out of time, left that out. Participants came from Columbus, Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown, Marietta, Cincinnati, Weirton, Pittsburgh. Great event production, organization, control locations, good map in plastic protective sheet. Everyone had great fun. The only con is that pre-registered teams only got one map per team: apparently the organizer felt that to allow last-minute sign-ups should be able to get a map, but at the expense of those team members that pre-registered weeks in advance. This actually became a problem where a team member could not correct the navigational decisions of the team member holding the ONE map (so what was the advantage of being in a team, then ? might as well split the team into a bunch of individual solo competitors, and each would have gotten a map...)

Winning team route (bit of a guess on parts of it...) 37.5 km, with no mistakes, 970 points

Route of Rubber & Steeler, aka Robbers & Stealers 37.2 km with mistakes and gold coin detour, 860 points

photo album

rules

control descriptions

north west quadrant of the map

north east quadrant of the map

south west quadrant of the map

south east quadrant of the map

by comparing the 2008 and 2009 events, the 2008 was more navigational. In the 2009 event, only CP 19 seemed to present a navigational challenge, and the Gold Coin CP from CP 18, and the Gold Coin CP from CP 15.

In the 2008 map, CP 14 is difficult to find since there are several spurs that one could follow thinking it being the right spur, yet it may be on any of the parallel ones, and coming from the top flats on the west, it is difficult to judge which spur to follow. CP 3 seems difficult for the same reason. One could follow the reentrant on the east of where the control is.

2008 map

2008 map - north west corner

2008 map - north east corner

2008 map - south west corner

2008 map - south east corner

2008 map - southern side

A first-rate resort conference center, with dining facitilies, swimming pool, retail shopping, fireplace. In this rogaine there were no water drops, with the lodge being the only place in the park with drinking water available. We walked in to the second floor entrance, six waitresses saw us muddy and in a sorry state and listened as we said "we are doing an adventure race. Can we fill our water bottles", at which, instantly, they all pointed us to the water fountain. We sure made a scene.

Our first serious mistake. Instead of taking the second creek upstream, we took the first. Both of them had a pond (aerial view shows it, circled in yellow) but on the topo map only the second shows a pond. Should have believed the map was accurate in showing the road as paved.

Costly mistake in reaching the dirt road from the creek below, and going to the left, uphill, instead of to the right, downhill. Only when we intersected with the paved road we realized the mistake. Should have seen that the control was a creek bed and thus chosen to go downhill once on the dirt road.

Small mistake, but winning team that was following us was able to come ahead. We chose to attack from above, but had to loop around a reentrant. Faster would have been to go directly either from below near the marsh clearing or from the woodsy side.

Small mistake, but winning team that was following us was able to come ahead. We were following another competitor, and mentally lost focus and did not check the map. For some reason, believed the control was on the spur facing the lake, and not the reentrant. Should have cut off from the road well before the lake, and bushwacked through the small saddle area and into the reentrant from above.

Serious mistake but fortunately did not cost us much: mistaken the hill with the control and instead targeted the hill above the Stone House Museum. After reaching the hilltop and not finding the control, we realized from seeing the protuding peninsula on the north shore of the lake (yellow lines) that we were on the wrong hill. We eventually reached the correct hill from running on a nearby paved road.

Mystery checkpoint as indicated in the mini-map found at CP 18. Location was a spur. Best approach was to follow the flat road going north, then across the paved road, use the large flat ridge as attackpoint and reach the mini spur from above.

The gold coin in the mistery checkpoint as indicated from the mini-map found at CP 15 was never attempted to be found.

CP 3, hilltop

CP 6, Waterfall/Cave

CP 5, Reentrant near water

on the north shore of the park there is a known large cavern

Orienteering DVD by VEA (Video Education America)

2009-03-08T06:08:00.002-07:00

Found this DVD at the local public library, and loaned it out. It is a 26 minute non-fiction education video, distributed by VEA, based in White Plains, NY 10601 ( http://www.veavideo.com/Product.aspx?id=244 ).

The video seems to be produced by an Australian club called Victoria orienteering club. They mention the sun to be mostly on the north during the mid-day hours. Also, the term they use for orienteering in the forest is "Bush Orienteering". They compare that with "Park Orienteering", in which it uses a local park without too much "bush". In the park orientering, there are images of the control points in which the characteristic flag markers are not used, but instead flat red-and-white metal plates laying horizontally on the ground are used, with a card puncher along with it.

Spring 2009 Schedule

2009-02-19T19:39:00.001-08:00

looks like it might be a thick Orienteering schedule this spring:

Sat March 14, Lepregaine near Cambridge, OH in Salt Fork State Park

Sun March 15, Green Dress Hash with the Pittsburgh Hash House Harriers

Sun March 22, the first meet of the season with the Western Pennsylvania Orienteering Club WPOC, score course at College Lodge, co-op park in Indiana, PA

Sat and Sun Mar 28-29, the A-meet near Baltimore, MD organized by QOC
Sat March 28, Akron Campus-O meet organized by NEOOC

Sat and Sun April 4-5, the A-meet near Cincinnati, OH organized by OCIN

Sun April 18, WPOC meet at Hartwood Acres, Pittsburgh

Sun May 3, Camp Twin Echo, new map, meet by WPOC

Sat and Sun May 16 and 17, Buffalo Orienteering A-meet

Sat and Sun May 23 and 24, SVO rogaine 24 hours in Michaux state park

Sun May 31, Johnstown Stackhouse Park WPOC meet

Pittsburgh is positioned well for those attending the three A-meets this spring

Georgia Navigator Cup 2009

2009-01-22T16:13:00.000-08:00

Flew in into Atlanta on Saturday morning, and my ol' buddy Ried was there waiting. He had been waiting a little more than expected because the plane was a bit late. You see, up north, in the frigid temperatures of -10 F, they had to de-ice the plane. When I told Ried, a seasoned Atlantan, of the de-icing, he laughed, as, apparently, they don't do that in Atlanta.

It was good seeing Ried. It had been 14 years. Last time I saw him we were both working in a small company in NYC. He then returned south, but we kept in touch. And a few years later, when the movie My Cousin Vinnie came out, starring Joe Pesci, we would exchange emails and phone calls on south vs north kind'a bantering.

I looked forward for this trip down South, and possibly tasting for the first time ever, Grits, not that instant grits that could have gotten Joe Pesci's client in trouble.

Pine Mountain and the FDR state park lies south of Atlanta, in an area that is home to several touristy stores and restaurants, and a couple of resorts for weekend vacation-goers from Atlanta. The Georgia Orienteering Club organized a three-day event, with the first two days being ufficial A-meet competitions, and the third day as an Extreme-O event with rope bridges, culvert crawls, canoeing.

While Ried got his first taste of orienteering by signing on to the "map hike" Yellow Course, which costed him $8 for the purchase of the map, I got ready for my run on the 7.5 km Red course, to start at a pre-scheduled precise start time. On the start line I recognized a few familiar faces and chatted a bit, while warming up. This was the first run after a long lethargic xmas holiday season, full of beer, turkeys, and greasy gravies, so I was not hopeful for a illustrius performance, and was taking it easy. On my first leg, my first mistake: I mistook the curve of the paved road for another curve, and I aimed off the paved road 300 meters from where I was supposed to. The biggest mistake was while searching for control 4. While the map showed a trail along the RR tracks, there was no trail. But that was not the issue that caused my 30 minute leg time ! The control was next to a gully but on the map, that gully is shown as NOT intersecting the stream to the East. While coasting the side of the creek going North, I found a stream intersection with banks of height 1.5 meters, and it really looked like the stream intersection that now I now is NE of control 4. So, I thought I was on that stream intersection, and went south along the bank of the creek, and then aimed West, looking or the control. Never found it (of course). I must have spent 20+ minutes canvassing that entire semi-thick vegetation. Stunned, I eventually retraced the entire creekside, found the gully-creek intersection (not on the map), went along the rully in direction NW, and then, finally found the control. With tail between my legs, finished the course. Wow... not a good way to start the new year...

After the orienteering event, we went in the woods looking for interesting mapping features, inclding a + mark, indicating a grave (which turned out to be just a bunch of stones layed flat). We found an interesting tree, a tree that I also remembered seeing half-way point between controls 3 and 4 on Red (day 1). The general consensus is that it is a Magnolia tripetala.

Wearing a blue coat, we got sighted several times by searchers looking for a teenage boy lost in the woods that was also wearing blue. At dusk, we went for dinner by first having Mayfield peach ice cream in the town of Pine Mountain, then some dinner food at a New Orleans style restaurant (fair... Jymbalayaa was dry...)

The next day we went for breakfast at a place that Ried knew well. Got my first taste of grits. Real grits. And the ham: it wasn't just a slab of rectangularly-shaped out-of-the-steel-can slice. No: it was a real steak with the bone-in.

Filled the gastric sac with high-calorie and colesterol-rich artery-busting material, we dragged ourselves back to the park, getting ready for another day of competition. The rain that clobbered the runners all morning was now tapering off, and was going to benefit of the only sunshine to hit the trail. Good omen. Get to the start, get the 10 second warning, beep the start, flip the map, go to reach my compass that is normally tied around my neck, and, not feeling it, realized that I FORGOT THE COMPASS IN MY CAR. I turn around and quickly tell the start volunteer "I forgot my compass. What should we do?". He quickly reacts, and says "Here, take mine !" and opens his velcro cargo pocket and reaches for the lifesaver. Awesome. I run happily. This is good. Run goes well. A mistake or two here and there, with a bigger one that costed me 4 minutes while looking for control 11. But overall I was in much better shape than the day before.

We stay for a bit looking at other participants finishing, take some pictures for memories, and then drive back to Atlanta to do some sightseeing before dusk. Walk around Georgia Tech campus, a bit of downtown, and then head to the Swallow in the Hollow, a BBQ restaurant in Roswell. Superb meat, great atmosphere.

At Ried's home, we watch the Steelers win over the Ravens.

The next day, it's indoor orienteering, using the house floor plan as base, and hike-and-seek activities. We then go for a geocache in a park nearby. It's a ammo box. Great little hide. Then it's the Carter Presidential Library (no "Just Ask Amy" button here...) and the MLK Historic Site, and we are visiting on MLK Day. Lots of crowds.

my first mistake: aimed off from the wrong curve of the road

my second mistake: found what looked like a stream intersection, but was in reality the gully where the control was.

Adidas Climacool Cardrona replaced by AS 1

2008-11-29T13:16:00.000-08:00

Looks like the Adidas ClimaCool Cardrona are officialy retired by Adidas. There is another shoe, however, that picks up many of the design features of the Cardrona. It is called AS 1, and it is sold as a lightweight hiking shoe. Notice the sole and the grooves that are along the longest axis of the sole. That is a distinctive feature of the Cardrona sole, allowing to run on slopes, staying at same altitute, the grooves and ridges making sure that the shoe doesn't slip downslope.

AS 1

cardrona

Frick Park Scavenger Hunt

2008-11-14T09:34:00.000-08:00

Orienteering at Pine Ridge Park, Blairsville, Pennsylvnania

2008-11-10T05:53:00.000-08:00

The Western Pennsylvania Orienteering Club had its last meet of the year at Pine Ridge county park, near Blairsville, Pennsylvania. Directed by Dave Battista, it offered a White and Yellow course, and a 90-minute Score course. At the end of the event, the members of the club had a social pot-luck dinner.

Terrain is a bit more rocky than the usual alluvional soft-terrain found on western pennsylvania. The Chestnut Ridge, where the park is located, is indeed more rocky. The leaves on the ground covered many small rocks and one had to thread a bit more carefully while running. Also, marked on the map where striped areas to denote very difficult areas to pass through. These were slopes on a hillside with lots of Greenbriar.

On planning for the Score course, decided it was best to go first to the controls downhill and do the controls uphill last, so that if I ran out of time, I could always decide to do a fast run to the finish, all downhill, without risking running out of breath (which could have happened if my last stretch had been uphill).

My first mistake was on closing in on control 8 on the western edge of the park. Mistook a trail intersection for another, and ended up NE of the control, saw some large boulders on the northern side of the creek, and then realized where I was. Then, returning to my steps, went too much south of the control, and once I hit a reentrant with intermittent stream, saw it on the map as being on the West of the control. Now, that is two consecutive mistakes on the same control.

The control on 36, the edge of a small pond, on the Western side there were some really thick greenbriar bushes. Followed the creek bed, which didn't have any bushes ground on it, but above it.

My second mistake was on the approach to 40, on the Eastern side of the park. Must have not seen the trail covered in leaves, and stayed on the slope south of the control, and followed a creek side for a while, until I realized I must have gone too far. Returned downhill following the creek, and 200 meters later found the control (2 minute loss).

On the approach from 40 to 37, miraculously I found a path along the greenbriar, probably set by deers, and was able to puncture through without too many scratches.

On the approach from 38, to 39, went a bit too East, saw the farm clearing, and once there, saw where the trail was and followed it.

On the final leg from the last control to finish, I wondered if I could push myself through the greenbriar, hesitated for a few seconds, then said "why not", you only live once, and took the plunge. My shoe got tangled a couple of times, and another time had to crawl on the ground under a thick bush, but eventually made the lower wooded ground, and made the last run to the cabin at the finish.

Had the route followed here been a cross-country event, it would have been 7.65 km long with 400 m elevation.

leg 1: 500 m
leg 2: 320 m
leg 3: 370 m
leg 4: 240 m
leg 5: 370 m
leg 6: 320 m
leg 7: 420 m
leg 8: 390 m
leg 9: 360 m 33 minutes
leg 10: 370 m
leg 11: 310 m
leg 12: 280 m
leg 13: 360 m
leg 14: 430 m 60 minutes
leg 15: 580 m
leg 16: 510 m 77 minutes
leg 17: 350 m
leg 18: 630 m
leg 19: 290 m 86 minutes
finish: 250 m 88 minutes

SVO Susquehanna Stumble XI

2008-11-03T08:24:00.000-08:00

On Saturday November 1, Dave Battista and I drove 195 miles to King's Gap State Park, near Mount Holly Springs, Pennsylvania, to attend a long orienteering event prepared by SVO. It is an annual fall calendar event, called the Susquehanna Stumble. There were two offered courses, a Short and a Long stumble. There were about 30 participants, mostly from DVOA and QOC, with a few visitors from HVO, Ottawa, and Seattle.

The weather was fantastic. The park has mostly deciduous trees with some young conifers in the lower elevations. Something that was really felt by everyone were the short blueberry bushes, as they really seemed to create friction and drag and tire down the run.

Peculiar thing happened: on the first half of the run, found a control that was of the second half (228) and punched the box in the control card that was meant for another control nearby (208). Then, on the visible horizon inside the woods, saw a darting red and white DVOA shirt of another participants, followed that, and found another control (208) and punched box 9 without thinking much about it (box 9 should have been for control E, found much later...). Then, a minute or two later, as I was looking at the map, I noticed there was no circled control 9, and at that time, I thought that maybe the drawer forgot to draw a circle for it, and kept going. After I got into the EFGHI box, and did it in sequence FGIHE, once I got to control E, I noticed it was already punched (box 9). That really took me on a spin, not sure what happened, how it happened, did I mess up, did I miss a control, where did I mispunch. Punched again on the side of box 9 with the punch of control E. Must have pondered it for about two minutes, before I decided it was OK to keep going and get to the finish for the map exchange. It would be only a couple of days later that I would evenutally solve this mistery, after verifying the punch holes on my control card (they let us keep the cards, they trusted us on our word when we said we visited all controls) and noticing that box 8 and 28 had the same hole punch. And to add to it all, these two controls that were near each other, have also similar control numbers, "208", "228". Nice.

At the finish of the first half, grabbed the map of the second half, ate an apple on the downhill run, and went to control K first. After that, went to control M where I saw Vadim and Nadim (hey, their names rhyme...) punching, but after that they were off to conrol 18, having finished visiting all the controls in that window. After M, I went to J and L (what I should have done, after K, is follow trail to J, the trail has a nice catching feature by ending in a T instersection with a bigger trail nearby, then follow that bigger trail to get to L, and then to M).

On the approach from 20 to the NOPQRS window I made a stupid mistake of following a NW trail instead of the other NNW trail. Once i got to the stream and trail intersection, I realized I was nowhere were I wanted to be, and eventually corrected, but it costed me valuable minutes.

Navigationally, control 27 was the hardest. A terrace with not much other references nearby. Control 19 was also difficult, but at least there was a open clearing not too far to provide some reference.

Another mistake was when looking for control I, I searched too much on the North-East area of the control and eventually hit the trail. There was a hunter on a parked ATV, with some orange clothing on it, and went for it thinking it was the control. The hunter saw me running towards him at full speed, I bet he wondered what the heck I was doing. Eventually I used the trail bend to directionalize me towards the correct location of where control I was.

After the event, we ate bananas, cookies, pretzels. The weather was still very nice. We looked at a pond nearby, a nice control location I could have photographed if I remembered to bring my camera was control Q, on the eastern side of a boulder. It would have made a nice control and mapping feature photo.

We stopped at the King's Gap General Store on Pine Street, talked to a couple of old timers, explored their antique display in the shop's basement. Definitely a treasure trove of old Americana.

maps borrowed from Sandy

Garbatella Orienteering

2008-10-29T07:37:00.000-07:00

In the "Lotti Popolari della Garbatella", this nice and interesting public housing project build in the 1930's during the Fascist Era, on Sunday Nov 2, morning hours, there will be a Orienteering event, an outdoor competitive sport involving land navigation using map and compass.

The map cost is one Euro. You can purchase the map and walk about and try to locate the white-and-red flags ("lanterna", "control") marked on the map with a small red circle.

To actually participate, I believe one must be a member of FISO (Federazione Italiana Sport Orientamento), and they don't actually allow ad-hoc registrations for people that aren't members of FISO. My understanding is membership with FISO (at around 70 Euro/year covers participants with insurance from accidents) and that is why they don't allow non-members to participate. For this event, there will be a large number of school children, also non-members of FISO, but for them, they are pre-registered and are already covered by their own insurance and doctor's note saying that "si attesta che il partecipante e' idoneo all'attivita' della corsa di orientamento".

The map is really good. Worth going to get it and walk around the neighborhood. Besides, no tourist map of Rome has the Garbatella included in their tour books, so this is a great chance to see this neighborhood. Plus, you wouldn't feel to nosy, because the local residents will be already be disturbed with all the commotion of 400 kids running around in their interior courtyard, with white sheets and other laundry hanging on laundry lines and flapping on the wind.

Last year's event

Pictures of last year's event

To participate you need to pay 7 Euro for membership to FISO. Here is the explanation:
da non tesserati, per motivi legali di assicurazione, non ci
è consentito far partecipare alla gara (leggi: considerare
ai fini della classifica) non tesserati alla FISO.
l'unica via per i non tesserati è l'acquisto della carta e
la libera conduzione del percorso oppure presentare in
segreteria di gara un certificato di sana e robusta
costituzione valido, procedere al tesseramento (vista la sua
scadenza il 30 novembre invece dei 15€ previsti scendiamo a
10€ che includono però già i 3€ di iscrizione alla gara,
quindi di fatto sono 7 per il solo tesseramento).

Billy Goat run in Brecksville Metropark near Cleveland

2008-10-27T05:34:00.001-07:00

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.

South Central Ohio Rogaine

2008-10-21T11:39:00.000-07:00

Sat Nov 15 - One hour south of Columbus

there will be a "rogaine" in a very craggy forested location one hour
drive south from Columbus, Ohio, organized by a Southern Ohio
adventure racing club. It starts at midnight and ends at noon, so,
seven hours will be in darkness. Cost is $60/person, and it includes
food, shirt, prizes. A topographic base map in PDF format is viewable
at website

2006 rogaine map

Here are some answers to some questions:

Q: Do the controls have reflective tape on them somewhere on the
control or string ?

A: The controls will have reflective tape on each side so they will be
visable from any direction.

Q: How many controls will be placed ?

A: There will be 30 controls

Q: I saw the base map PDF of the forest, looks very craggy and
interesting… Can you provide some examples of clue sheet description
of control location (reentrant, saddle, stream intersection, edge of
…, etc). On the base map, the red lines delimite private from
public property. I am assuming that the rogaine area will be only
within the public property. Are you planning to place controls in the
partly separated area of the forest north of Moss Hollow Rd, and the
area south of Woods Hollow Rd/Wilson Run Rd ? What about the
eastern-most area, basically next to the Scioto River ?

A: There will be 30 controls and they will all be on public land
within the forest. The placement will
be a good mix of reentrants, saddles ridges, knobs and spurs.
The only parts of the forest that we will not use are the parts that
are land locked. We will not force you to go
onto private property although you may be tempted.

Q:Is there a MANDATORY equipment list (whisle, water bottle…) ?

A: As far as mandatory gear we are flexible. We hope you know your
abilities and bring the gear you might need. There will be water drops
but you could go
two or three hours before you reach one. I always carry a whistle with
me as they dont weigh anything but its upto you.

Q: Are there specific rules, such as "all team members must be at
audible or visible sight from each other" ?

A: There will be a rule sheet given out before the race but of course
we will try to make sure every team stays within 100 feet of each
other as well as some other things.

Map is a high quality tear-proof map.

--- post event notes ---

Here's the account of my latest adventure.

The “Sleepy Hollow 12 Hour Rogaine” at Scioto Trail State Forest

A few months ago, I received an email about this orienteering event and immediately was intrigued. Playing off the “Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, the race directors challenged participants “to keep their heads” while navigating the course in Scioto Trail State Forest near Chillicothe under a full moon. One of my first thoughts and fears was about Ohio in mid-November. It would not have been unheard of to see a foot of snow on the ground at this time of year. Actually, that would have been better than what we experienced.

Since no solos were allowed, I teamed up with Ingrid Honzak and Mike Allen, both experienced at ultra-distance events, as “The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly”. I think we could have named Bob Burke, our honorary fourth member, “The Smart”. Recovering from injury, Bob stayed warm and dry sleeping in the car while we ran, meeting us at the aid station with his camera and encouragement. Ingrid put Bob to work getting her food and warm beverages. We joked that he was useful as well as ornamental.

For a few weeks prior to the event, I trained by running with my headlight and Camelbak pack filled with water. Testing out equipment turned out to be a good idea. While doing a morning run with Janie & Rex, I accidentally pulled the hose loose from my pack, instantly flooding my backside with cold water. I fixed this problem to make sure I didn’t get wet during the race. Perhaps, a little foreshadowing of things to come.

The race was scheduled to begin at midnight on November 15, concluding at noon the following morning. A number of other runners and I thought that this meant Saturday night to Sunday morning. Great I thought, since I could get a good night sleep Friday night with a leisurely drive over to Chillicothe Saturday afternoon. Actually, the race started Friday night, so after putting a full day in the studio with just a brief nap, Mike & I drove to the park. This drive gave us a great view of the promised full moon. It also turned out to be the only time the moon would be seen.

We arrived around 9:30 PM and were handed topographic maps of the 9600 acre forest showing the locations of the 30 control points. One of the first things that struck me as I looked at the map was all of the contour lines. Even driving into the State Forest in the dark, you become aware of the elevation change, but to see it put on paper is something else. All of those thin lines appear to be less than a 1/2 of millimeter apart. Studying the map further revealed that those contours actually indicated 20’0” intervals. The reality of this fact would become apparent later on.

Ingrid & I studied the map, and plotted our course from control to control utilizing the trails and fire roads as much as possible. We were told that to efficiently clear the course about 40 miles would be covered. Each control was assigned a different point value based the distance and difficulty of its location. Both of us knew that we would not clear the course, so we purposely didn’t include all the controls. I think we decided to skip two or three. We could give up a few, we thought.

The weather forecasters provided to be accurate Friday night. The rain and the race were supposed to start at midnight. The race directors took a final head count, and gave out last minutes information such as “Watch out, there are hunters out there, but they’re bow hunters and they usually like to get closer to their game before they shoot”, and to be aware of private property, that “people around here take trespassing seriously”. With the shout “Go”, the rain started coming down, and didn’t let up for the next 10 hours.

About an hour later, we were still looking for our first control. We discovered that the undergrowth consisted mainly of barbwire like thorns, which formed a nearly impenetrable barrier. Mike’s plastic poncho became more and more shredded as the night went on. Finding the first control provided us with the confidence to go on to our second.

Don’t worry; I won’t give a blow by blow account of each control we found. Besides, it wouldn’t really take that long. We finished the race collecting only 10 of the 30 controls.

After becoming thoroughly soaked, the rain didn’t seem to bother us. Since we were constantly moving, we were just occasionally aware dropping temperature. We passed through pockets of fog, which restricted our vision to 10 to 15 feet, making it difficult to see the paint markings on trees of designated trails. It was a little worrying when the markings ran out.

As the rain tapered off and the sky lightened, we put our lights away. I was amazed when Ingrid announced that it was 7:30 AM. I wasn’t really tired nor sleepy. Ingrid explained that all of the constant decision making, navigating, and searching for the controls takes your mind off the time spent running. Most of the time was spent walking or hiking with short bursts of slow downhill running on the fire roads.

With a brief stop in the aid station for pancakes and dry socks, trying hard to remember which ones get the syrup, we continued searching for controls. The temperature was dropping and the wind was picking up. I thought about these conditions, I hoped that Ruth wasn’t experiencing the same ones. These were appropriate for an adventure event, not a road marathon.

Looking at the map at the location of last control, which we decided to find, made it look simple enough, a reentrant or gully about a hundred meters off a fire road. Mike & Ingrid said, “Ken, why don’t you go get it”. After descending over 220’ of elevation change to find the control, and ascending what seems like three miles to get back to the fire road, I was spent. We decided that with a little under an hour to the noon cut off, we’d make our way to the finish. If we were late, the penalty was to lose our highest point control plus one minute for every minute past noon. We had worked too hard to lose any points.

We finished with 10 controls, 560 points, and, at this time, have no clue as to our overall standing. After eating some hot chili, we stayed around long enough to see Joe Smindak, Larry Berna, and Andy Helmick finish, having found 28 controls.

“The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly” decided that we had a great time and were pleased for our performance. The real challenge was trying to stay awake in the warm car as Mike drove us home. Finishing my 24th race this year, I returned home again with a plastic bag of wet clothes and a story to tell.

---
I was asked by Gailanne to join her in the Sleepy Hollow 12 Hour Rogaine at Scioto Trails State Forest near Chillicothe, OH. I have never done an "adventure" race before, but man was it fun! I tried to get us another team member or two, but Josh and Kim (the first two I called) weren't biting, and I got busy with other stuff so it ended up being just Gailanne and I.

We showed up to the race HQ (a pavillion in the park) at 10 pm and after getting our gear in order for the race, went down to HQ to sign in and get our instructions and maps. We received two maps, one waterproof (and very waterproof at that!) and one not. Also, our scorecard which was waterproof and before the race there was a bonus checkpoint announced which was unmarked but you got grid coordinates and had to mark it using a UTM tool yourselves.

The UTM tool helps you mark maps on the 1:240000 UTM Grid scale. These are laid out in 100 meter blocks instead of LAT/LONG coordinates like some maps. Luckily, I have a background just varied enough to know how to work with both...ain't I weird?

So after plotting our bonus checkpoint onto the map, we waited around for the pre-race briefing with me getting little tidbits of information about how to go about this from everyone who would talk.

They gave away the door prizes BEFORE the race, I think because some people would leave before the 12 hours was up. I didn't get anything, same as I always don't. :) I complained about that plenty to Gailanne too. The race started at midnight precisely and would run until noon Saturday.

Anyways, we formulated some strategy for how to start off the race and when it began we headed straight for the bonus checkpoint which was close to the HQ and we wanted to get it out of the way quick. We went up the small valley where we thought it would be and looked and looked for about 30 minutes before giving up and heading for one of the regular checkpoints. We figured we would come back for the bonus in the daylight.

On the way to the first regular checkpoint is where the night's FIRST nemesis reared it's ugly head. Prickers, thorns, brambles, whatever term you like (Gailanne called them "sharpies" ... like the marker I guess) they were all over when you were off-piste (off trail) and they nicked the hell out of my legs ALL night.

We figured out our orginal mistake on the way to the first CP and got back on course. We reached and punched the first CP in just about an hour. Next we headed down the trail and road, vowing to stay out of the underbrush as much as possible, to search out the next closest CP. As it turns out this one was way off trail too and we had to hike into and out of a small valley. We bagged CP #2 (for us - not the actual #) in about two hours and by now the rain had really started to come down. We were getting soaked and it was getting colder. We decided to go for two easy checkpoints via a route back to the HQ (where the warming tent was) and made our way back in just after 3 am with 4 CPs punched and soaked to the bone and shivering.

The warming tent had a propane heater which would warm you and dry your clothes somewhat if you stayed near it. We both did. As we warmed, the rain kept coming down harder and harder, and we both did not want to go back out, so I found a foam sleeping mat and tried to get a little sleep while warming/drying. I had been up at 330 am the day before for work, with only a 1.5 hour nap during the day, so I was reasonably exhausted. I slept in fits and starts as I was cold, shivering and laying on the ground on a mat. I think I perhaps got 30 minutes total shuteye but we were in that tent and at the HQ for almost 3 hours debating whether to go back out or quit and head for civilization and warmth.

I honestly was ready to just go home and try this again on a reasonable night, but neither one of us was willing to proclaim we were done so we just kind of stuck around till around 6 am, the rain abated somewhat and we both just kind of said screw it, let's go look for more. So we headed back out looking for the missed bonus CP with daylight creeping into the park still filtered by grey rain clouds.

Carefully I studied the map, and the terrain features where the bonus CP should be and directed us up a little valley with a stream in it, that I thought HAD to have the CP along it's length. We explored this valley with me on the far left and Gailanne on the far right, slowly and carefully seeking the CP. I saw Gailanne peak at a little shack on her side and procede....I found NOTHING on my side....on we went.

Eventually we gave up and decided to head for a run to the far side of the park for some easy looking CP's that I wanted to get, partially because they were near the airfield which drew my interest. Before we started out that way, the Race Director talked us into giving the bonus CP one more try with a little hint, as he knew this was my first Rogaine and we went back into the woods with much more daylight now. We made our way back to the SAME valley and this time (WITH the hint) I headed up the right side and right for that little shack.

Sure enough as I approached, I saw the CP INSIDE with a little plastic skull hanging below it. I got out our scorecard and reached in to punch it, and all of a sudden the skull descends down it's string and starts talking (Halloween toy) and startled me quite a bit. I punched the card (and gave Gailanne a good teasing for missing the CP) and then we headed out for the run and airfield.

Sunday, November 16, 2008
The Sleepy Hollow 12 Hour Rogaine

But Mike! What in the world is "a Rogaine?" - Click here.

Click the logo to see their site and see the results page there.

I was asked by Gailanne to join her in the Sleepy Hollow 12 Hour Rogaine at Scioto Trails State Forest near Chillicothe, OH. I have never done an "adventure" race before, but man was it fun! I tried to get us another team member or two, but Josh and Kim (the first two I called) weren't biting, and I got busy with other stuff so it ended up being just Gailanne and I.

We showed up to the race HQ (a pavillion in the park) at 10 pm and after getting our gear in order for the race, went down to HQ to sign in and get our instructions and maps. We received two maps, one waterproof (and very waterproof at that!) and one not. Also, our scorecard which was waterproof and before the race there was a bonus checkpoint announced which was unmarked but you got grid coordinates and had to mark it using a UTM tool yourselves.

This is what a UTM tool looks like.

The waterproof map, compass, and our scorecard.

The UTM tool helps you mark maps on the 1:240000 UTM Grid scale. These are laid out in 100 meter blocks instead of LAT/LONG coordinates like some maps. Luckily, I have a background just varied enough to know how to work with both...ain't I weird?

So after plotting our bonus checkpoint onto the map, we waited around for the pre-race briefing with me getting little tidbits of information about how to go about this from everyone who would talk.

Pre-race photo

They gave away the door prizes BEFORE the race, I think because some people would leave before the 12 hours was up. I didn't get anything, same as I always don't. :) I complained about that plenty to Gailanne too. The race started at midnight precisely and would run until noon Saturday.

Anyways, we formulated some strategy for how to start off the race and when it began we headed straight for the bonus checkpoint which was close to the HQ and we wanted to get it out of the way quick. We went up the small valley where we thought it would be and looked and looked for about 30 minutes before giving up and heading for one of the regular checkpoints. We figured we would come back for the bonus in the daylight.

On the way to the first regular checkpoint is where the night's FIRST nemesis reared it's ugly head. Prickers, thorns, brambles, whatever term you like (Gailanne called them "sharpies" ... like the marker I guess) they were all over when you were off-piste (off trail) and they nicked the hell out of my legs ALL night.

We figured out our orginal mistake on the way to the first CP and got back on course. We reached and punched the first CP in just about an hour. Next we headed down the trail and road, vowing to stay out of the underbrush as much as possible, to search out the next closest CP. As it turns out this one was way off trail too and we had to hike into and out of a small valley. We bagged CP #2 (for us - not the actual #) in about two hours and by now the rain had really started to come down. We were getting soaked and it was getting colder. We decided to go for two easy checkpoints via a route back to the HQ (where the warming tent was) and made our way back in just after 3 am with 4 CPs punched and soaked to the bone and shivering.

Punching the scorecard at CP #1 in the rain

My turn! CP #2

The warming tent had a propane heater which would warm you and dry your clothes somewhat if you stayed near it. We both did. As we warmed, the rain kept coming down harder and harder, and we both did not want to go back out, so I found a foam sleeping mat and tried to get a little sleep while warming/drying. I had been up at 330 am the day before for work, with only a 1.5 hour nap during the day, so I was reasonably exhausted. I slept in fits and starts as I was cold, shivering and laying on the ground on a mat. I think I perhaps got 30 minutes total shuteye but we were in that tent and at the HQ for almost 3 hours debating whether to go back out or quit and head for civilization and warmth.

I honestly was ready to just go home and try this again on a reasonable night, but neither one of us was willing to proclaim we were done so we just kind of stuck around till around 6 am, the rain abated somewhat and we both just kind of said screw it, let's go look for more. So we headed back out looking for the missed bonus CP with daylight creeping into the park still filtered by grey rain clouds.

Carefully I studied the map, and the terrain features where the bonus CP should be and directed us up a little valley with a stream in it, that I thought HAD to have the CP along it's length. We explored this valley with me on the far left and Gailanne on the far right, slowly and carefully seeking the CP. I saw Gailanne peak at a little shack on her side and procede....I found NOTHING on my side....on we went.

Eventually we gave up and decided to head for a run to the far side of the park for some easy looking CP's that I wanted to get, partially because they were near the airfield which drew my interest. Before we started out that way, the Race Director talked us into giving the bonus CP one more try with a little hint, as he knew this was my first Rogaine and we went back into the woods with much more daylight now. We made our way back to the SAME valley and this time (WITH the hint) I headed up the right side and right for that little shack.

Sure enough as I approached, I saw the CP INSIDE with a little plastic skull hanging below it. I got out our scorecard and reached in to punch it, and all of a sudden the skull descends down it's string and starts talking (Halloween toy) and startled me quite a bit. I punched the card (and gave Gailanne a good teasing for missing the CP) and then we headed out for the run and airfield.

The State Park Airfield

We ran quite a bit of the road out to the airfield area and quickly found those checkpoints where we expected them. Just before the last checkpoint we were going to hit before heading in, a man and woman team was catching up to us from behind. They came into the CP right after us and on our way out I whispered to Gailanne that we had to run hard to the HQ and not let this team pass us, just for fun. We both knew they undoubtedly had many more CPs marked than us because we took the long drying off/warming up break, but it gave us a mini-goal.

We lit off down the road and they were right on our tails, but I just kept us running pretty fast WITHOUT looking back. When I finally did look back after a few miles, they were way back there and headed up into the woods. As it turns out they were going for one more CP on top of a ridge (that we should have went to, but didn't think to...we were concerned about running out of time.)

Also, a side note - Josh, guess who I talked with and saw here? Ingrid! Our Another Dam 50k friend. She said hi.

We finished in the last hour with 330 points and I don't know where that puts us (but not too high...) The winners had 1240 and the next two were over 1100. I liked the fact that the park and course were so big that is was essentially impossible to get all the CPs and teams had to find their own strategy for the night. I LOVED the event and will do more of these, but hopefully in better weather, with more rest, AND with a little more appropriate gear, like some shin guards and tough leggings or pants. Check out my legs AFTER the event below...compare with the starting picture at the top of this post to see what that damn forest did to me! :)

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These comments are all anonymous from the racers survey.

Great job guys -

On a long overnight event the only thing I would like to see different is to have hot soup to eat. Last night was COLD.... :)I really enjoyed the race.

I've done all of your rogaines and I think you guys do an excellent job. The only complaint I have ever had is the weather. I would still like to see one scheduled in the spring or fall when the temperature has a chance to be around 60-70.I like the time change for next year's 12 hour.

I hope the turn around time in posting results is fast. There was no water at the north designated drop (trail junction 11). I really would of liked a T-shirt, but we were >50. As dumb as it sounds, a T-shirt is a trophy for me.For our first rogaine, "Moon Runners and one lost Pole", we did respectable. 5 star on what we saw of the course. 5 star on the map, half the interval between magnetic north lines would of helped.

The reason the map is rated average is because the light green color trail dashes were hard to see, my teammate could hardly see them. Also, I know that Rogaine maps never have the detail that orienteering maps do, and we don't expect that, but considering the amazing thickness of the green brier, it woulld be nice to have some green spots on the worst brier locations. This would help my case when I'm trying to talk the orienteering gang into trying Rogaine events, too!
Love the hot food and drink! Nice job overall!

We primarily participate in ARs throughout the midwest and look for long Rogaines to improve our nav skills. We try to participate in any Rogaine's longer than 6 hours that allow teams. This was a great event and you did a great job with everything. If you could have the race without the rain next year that would be great. thanks!

Learn to have better weather

Give everyone high quality waterproof maps. I would gladly an pay upcharge option.

My only complaint about this weekend's race was that the checkpoints were so far apart that there was too much time spent just getting from check point to attack point. That got boring. It was also very difficult to start the race on a Friday night after working all week. I'd rather do 12 hours from noon to midnight or something like that.

Great job, guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is a lot of work to put this together, keep up the good work! I am not very good, but just love your events!
Happy trais!
Ingrid

Great Job! Can't wait until Feb (No rain this time would be nice).

Keep on doin' what you're doin' guys. You organize some of the best races in Ohio and I never have any complaints. Thanks for a great race!

Great day and event....even with the rain. Looking forward to February event. Thanks to both of you and your helpers for putting these events on. Gary Lester

Great job guys! Next time we need more rain!

Enjoyed the race - will be back next year.

You should have t-shirts for all that apply before a cut off date and you should be able to order your size. Mostcompanies that supply t-shirts to events only need one week.

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Billy Goat Orienteering in North East Ohio

2008-10-20T07:44:00.001-07:00

On Sunday Oct 26, 1 PM, there will be a mass start of a Billy Goat orienteering event, in the Brecksville nature reservation. The run will be 10 km or more, with winning time over one hour, possible 1h30m. Promises to be a challenging event.

What is a Billygoat event? is similar to a cross country event, with an interesting twist. You are allowed to skip either one or two controls (a course designer decision). This makes for some very interesting strategy. Because there is a mass start, "following" is not only possible, it is encouraged. We may offer a short recreational version and a long competitive version of this event.

Night-O at Kendall Lake

2008-10-13T08:12:00.001-07:00

The North East Ohio Orienteering Club (NEOOC) had their Night-O meet at Kendall Lake area of the Cuyahoga National Park. Start times began at 7 PM, with still a bit of light, and later helped with an almost full moon. There were three courses available: White, Yellow, and 3.8 km Wack-O course. Did three mistakes, of which two while looking for control 3. Missed the reentrant and kept going on trail until noticed the slight curvature of the trail and realized I went too far. Then, once in proximity of control, for some reason was convinced that the control was a reentrant junction and kept on following stream downstream (control was instead on a rootstock, much closer to main trail). The third mistake was after finding control 5 on the fence, gained top of hill and intended to follow a trail to cross the meadow, but must have overshot it and went south looking for that trail, then realized I must have missed it, and instead of returning on my steps looking for that trail, I instead just crossed the meadow (lots of tall grasses), under a full moon. Going from 8 to 9 was pretty adventurous, the creek bottom full of debris and fallen trees, had to duck and crawl.

For lighting, used a $3 chinese-made flashlight with 12 LED, powered by three AA regular batteries. Used the same light for the North American Rogaine in Salamanca, New York earlier in June with great results.

Started at 7:16 PM, finished at 8:02 PM.

Complete map in PNG format

Warrior Trail - Pennsylvania and West Virginia

2008-09-22T06:13:00.001-07:00

The Warrior Trail is a 67-mile long trail that crosses east to west, the south-west corner of Pennsylvania, and the northern West Virginia panhandle, starting from the Monongahela River and finishing in the Ohio River.

The trail runs from Greensboro, Pennsylvania on the Monongahela River in the east to the Ohio River in West Virginia. In prehistoric times it was used to obtain supplies of flint from the Flint Ridge area in Ohio and conduct commerce. From the eastern terminus at Milepost 0 on the Monongahela River the trail is generally east-west about 5 to 6 miles north of the Mason Dixon line, passing over 1-79 near the new Kirby Welcome Center. It extends 45 miles westward across Greene County to the border with Marshall County, West Virginia. In Marshall County it extends for an additional 22 miles to the western terminus on the Ohio. The trail follows the divide between watersheds. There are no streams to ford. It is blazed with yellow dots on posts and trees along the trail and on both sides of any road crossing. It can easily be located and entered at any one of these crossings.

Trail guide documents are available upon request; the guides consists of descriptions of significant points of interest along the trail and a series of detailed topographic maps. Information on contacts, access points, and shelters is also included. These guides were originally written in 1988 and was updated in 1999. For additional information, contact: Warrior Trail Association, P O Box 103, Waynesburg, PA 15370-0103.

Reccomended hikes:

1. park right next to the road going over I-79 where the trail crosses over. Hike east for about 11 km and back. Crosses wild sections in state gameland. Hike on sunday when there is no hunting.

2. Park very close to the West Virginia border, and hike west 10 miles and back. Terrain is forested and deeply cragged and sloped. Trail maintains even altitude by staying on the ridge line.

3. Park in Windy Gap church parking lot, then hike east for 5 km, to PA Road 3012 (I would not hike the next 3 km, since they are basically next to a road...)

4. Park in Windy Gap church lot and hike 4 km west and back.

Going West from the PA/WV border, and staying on the ridgeline separating the two water basins

Trip Report

from a newsletter:
I always wanted to see the 1852 tunnel in the valley below. The tunnel had been blocked closed when abandoned but that kids had knocked a hole into the block. Darn, I didn’t bring a flash light. I easily found the tunnel. It was a fine example of 19th century stone work with some 1909 repairs. I climbed inside. After looking around I realized that yes, there was light at the end of the tunnel. There was a hole at the other end, 1253 feet away. Tempting. After some hesitation I started through. It was pitch black in the middle and I couldn’t see my feet, but I figured that if I kept my left hand on the wall and felt for holes with my feet before stepping forward, I could inch my way to the other side. I made it about half way and I was doing fine. Then the water started. First it covered my boots. That wasn’t too bad. Then it was up to my knees. Cold but not too bad. And by now I was getting close to the end and I really didn’t feel like turning around. Then it was time to take my wallet out of my shorts and put it in my hat. But I was getting really close. By the time I made it to the exit hole the water was up to mid-chest and my legs were tingling. I was ready to get out. Brrr, but what an adventure! I popped out to a sunny day. I drained my boots and wrung out my shorts before eating lunch and heading home. I have thoroughly seen the Welling Tunnel.

Orienteering at Deer Lakes

2008-09-15T11:41:00.000-07:00

A beautiful sunny day in Deer Lakes county park where the Western Pennsylvania Orienteering Club had its September meet. The green course was 5.7 km long with 260 m elevation.

(but then, using Gmap Pedometer, the distance covered is being calculated to be 6.9 km. In fact, with the gmap tool, the "bird's eye" distance seems to be 6.1 km, and not 5.7 km as reported on the clue sheet given out at the meet. Later, with map at hand, and measuring with a ruler the distance, it seems to be 5.95 km).

The area where control 1 was located had several parallel streams. Placing the control on the second stream was a good idea to stump those that went looking for it in the first stream.
Control 2 was located at a stream intersection in a thick vegetation underbrush area. Followed the stream to the clearing, which I noticed didn't have any tall grasses or weeds, so ran across the clearing and went head-on into the underbrush, often zig-zaging in the vegetation and ducking my head under fallen logs and low branches. Stayed a bit high above the stream, and then, by intuition, started descending towards the stream, and got pretty lucky, seeing the control right away once I got to the stream.

From 2 to 3 simply climbed up the slope staying parallel to the stream and found trail, followed that to the control. Once passed the pipeline straight line clearing very close to the control, saw Dave Battista running back, towards me, and at that moment I thought he was either lost, or was running on a different course.
From 3 to 4 I followed a direct route, going straight downhill, and was met with nasty jaggers and really impenetrable cobweb of vegetation on fallen logs, trees and other flora debris. Sounded the retreat, climbed back uphill, ran level for a while, and as soon as I could see a "hole" in the vegetation downhill, went for it. Once reached the stream, gained the hill on the other side and got to the control. I later found out that Dave Battista was indeed on the same course I was, but he followed a different route (purple dots). Looking at that route, his was much better choice, avoided the jaggers, and stayed level without hill climbing.

From 4 to 5, went around the clearing (had tall grasses) and descended to the parallel trail below staying close to a reentrant nearby. Then, at the spur, left the trail and followed a spur going south, and while looking at the reentrant on my left, saw Dave Battista descending the hill. I then noticed the control was 90 degrees on my left, slightly uphill. Punched it, then ran downhill along the stream trying to catch up with the white shirt of Battista. He pretty much went on the route I intended: the paved footpath along the pond, and then between the pond and the parking lot. But as I was running and following, glanced at the map, and thought maybe a better route would be to stay on paved ground as much as possible for speed, and continue past the parking lot and to the corner of the fence around the playground, and from there, it would be a straight short distance crossing the creek and gaining the spur hilltop. That is what I ended up doing, and Diamond Jim was in the parking lot getting his mountain bike ready, and he saw me and warned me that "that is exactly the same route I ended up doing but I warn you there are some killer jaggers as you cross the creek". And indeed he was correct: with pain management in full effect, I forced myself across the tall grasses and thorny strands of whatever-plant-they-are-but-they-hurt, and quickly gained the other side of the creek and walked up panting and puffing to the top of the spur. Punched, and just in time when here comes Dave Battista, with a "where you come from?".
From 6 to 7, I followed a trail that often zig-zagged and sometimes event went downhill, and mentally directed myself to find a control that I thought was on the Green course, but instead was a control that I remembered from when doing the Orange course (green circle). I punched the control card, but afterwards realized that the surrounding terrain didn't look like what was shown on the map around control 7, and realized that I punched the card with the wrong puncher. So I ran uphill looking for 7, recognize the man-made object from a distance, and on my right, coming from 90 degree angle from me, the white shirt of Dave Battista came darting towards the control. He obviously followed another route, probably a better one (purple dots).

From 7 to 8, had planned before the run to follow a trail that I knew was pretty level, and that is exactly what I did.
From 8 to 9, again, stayed on the same big wide trail and once got to the clearing, went into the woods to find 9.
From 9 to 10, went uphill to find a trail that was going straight East, and followed that trail with numerous turns and intersection to the control (nice little cliff).
From this point on, I could not run anymore, my energy was sapped.

From 10 to 11, followed a trail for a little bit, then walked uphill in a underbrush vegetation to the summit where I could see the fenced water tank. Funny think is that I walked by the control, 5 feet away, and didn't see it. Then, stopped to consult the map, get my bearings and scouted the surroundings, and THEN saw the control, and I said: "I WAS THERE JUST A MOMENT AGO". Funny how orienteering is...
From 11 to 12, ran through the woods downhill to the stream below and then uphill, and ended up at the edge on a frisbee golf par. Followed trail, could see the opening up of the clearing and ran to it, punched.

From 12 to 13, crossed the clearing to the corner, walked in the woods with the thick grasses of a neaby stream, saw the evergreen trees, and the control around the spur. On the way back to finish, on the map it seemed logical to go on a straight line, but in reality it was much easier to go North a bit to where the stream bed is, and from there, cross the paved road and run across the open area to the finish.

Stackhouse Park Permanent Orienteering Course

2008-09-02T06:06:00.001-07:00

Stackhouse Park in Johnstown, Pennyslvania, has a permanent orienteering course, prepared by the Western Pennsylvania Orienteering Club. A map can be picked up at the ranger station at the park entrance, and participants can go in the park and locate the signed stakes at the marked mapped features.

One interesting feature was a "stream split", as opposite of a "stream junction". A very small wet ground stream, probably fed by a perennial spring on a steep slope, was separated into two streams by a large tree, and stayed separated for the next 50 meters until they both joined the large stream at the below at the valley bottom.

ruin

spring

cliff, 1.0 m

cliff, 1.5 m

boulder, 1.0 m

a cliff nearby, 1.5 m

not a mapped feature, near a tree stand on the lower right corner of map

Caving Orienteering Contest

2008-08-25T07:01:00.000-07:00

OTR (Old Timers Reunion) is the biggest caving event in the world, and it happens in the last week of August, near Elkins, West Virginia.

Here is one of their activities:

DESCRIPTION	The Orienteering Contest is designed to test your ability to use a compass to follow an orienteering course. The course is made up of about 20 points around the OTR site the entrant must visit. At some points you may be given a distance and a bearing to follow to the next point. At other points you will be able to see the next point but must record the distance and bearing to the next point. Along the way you may also be required to estimate the distance to an object and/or estimate the height of an object.
OBJECTIVE:	to cover the course in the least amount of time while recording the most accurate values for distances, bearings and heights.
GUIDELINES:	You are encouraged to bring your own compass. No mechanical distance measuring devices or GPS systems are allowed. Up to 4 people may compete as a team. Instructional demonstrations will be given prior to the contest. Check the Coot & Holler for details.

South Chagrin Orienteering

2008-08-20T09:34:00.001-07:00

This saturday Aug 23, the North East Ohio Orienteering Club will host a orienteering meet in the South Chagrin Nature Reservation, located just next to Chagrin Falls, about 30 miles South-East from Cleveland.

From the USGS topographic map, there is a small pond, about 80 meters long, on the SE section of the park (circled in red). Appended a satellite photo of it as well.

Good spot for a control...

Orienteering class at Racoon Creek SP

2008-07-23T10:16:00.001-07:00

July 26, Saturday 10:00am - 6:00pm
Cost: $5.00

WORKSHOP - ORIENTEERING

Learn to read topographical maps, how to orient a compass, take and follow a bearing and successfully complete an orienteering course. We will start out at a beginning level, then advance to land navigation over varied terrain.

http://www.friendsofraccoon.com/

UPDATE ! UPDATE ! UPDATE !

unfortunately, they do not accept children. They explained that the workshop begins with a two hour theory session in which they go into details about maps. My opinion is that they are concerned by the children's attention span. Last year they didn't have this problem. What is mistifying is that the event was listed in the Pittsburgh Parent magazine, usually addressing an audience of parents of little ones.

Hashing, Geocaching, and Orienteering

2008-07-22T11:14:00.000-07:00

In hashing, geocaching, and orienteering, one goes out in the woods and finds stuff. Be it a case of beer, a geocache, or a series of flags hanging from a branch, the concept is pretty much the same, with some differences:

In a hash, the start is a mass start
In orienteering, the start is an individual start

In a hash, you look for flour marks
In orienteering, you look for flags

In a hash, you finish when you find the beer
In orienteering, you finish when you find the finish flag

In a hash, when you find a flour mark, you yell to the others that you found it
In orienteering, when you find a flag, you keep quiet and stealthy

In a hash, you want to be noisy and vociferous
In orienteering, you want to be quiet and silent

In a hash, it's OK to be last
In orienteering, it's OK to be first

In a hash, you may end up trespassing
In orienteering, you may never trespass in the out-of-bounds area

In a hash, you may end up trampling a fresh flower bed and not be disqualified
In orienteering, you get immediately disqualified if you trample on a flower bed

In a hash, it is OK to miss a mark or two and shortcut to the next mark
In orienteering, you must stop and check at every flag

In a hash, there is no clock telling you how long was your run/walk.
In orienteering, there is a clock telling you how long was your run/walk.

Canoe Orienteering in North East Ohio

2008-07-21T07:06:00.001-07:00

Annual canoe orienteering meet organized by North East Ohio Orienteering Club.
Left Pittsburgh at 10 AM to arrive here at 11:40 AM. It started raining at noon, and there were definitely less people than last year. Also, recognized a family that participated in yesterday's O-meet at Boyce Park. At the end of the rain, it turned nicer, and we did a mass start at about 12:50. We took a clock-wise route, going for the southern half. The underwater control 20 drifted away, and a speck of orange could be seen at about 300 meters to the East. On the approach, I thought it was a buoy, but then, realizing that some other canoers went to it, and afterwards were not following us, we realized it HAD TO BE the control, and paddled back it. We stopped at the small island where control 4 was, and found some blueberries. Arrived some minutes late, and with the unusual logarithmic algorithm that NEOOC uses, I am sure we will be subtracted 7.85 points (intentional sarcasm here...) Yoh! Result recorder! you didn't notice that we punched box 25 (the three holes are barely visible, see below for enlarged image).

Route

Upper portion of reservoir

Bob Boltz route. In yellow is the canoe solo by his canoe partner, while Bob ran on land.

Part of map with hole punches

punched square missed by the results recorder

Orienteering at Boyce Park

2008-07-21T06:32:00.001-07:00

Orienteering meet organized by the Western Pennsylvania Orienteering Club in Boyce Park county park, located 10 miles east of the city of Pittsburgh.

Knew the park well from previous meets and course setting. Having done Orange first, helped in finding best route for Green.

split times for Orange (first time I used the lap chrono feature)

S-1 1-2 2-3 3-4 4-5 5-6 6-7 7-8 8-9 9-10 10-F
-- 4.36 4.00 4.56 2.33 3.56 4.53 4.00 5.27 2.15 0.36 (alex)
1.27 4.25 4.30 6.14 4.14 4.52 4.50 4.31 5.50 2.31 0.41 (dave)

Orange course: On approach from 3 to 4, knowledge of trails helped. On the approach to 7, standing on the edge of a semi-paved parking area and looking steep down into the woods, wondering if I did the right approach. Eventually, took the plunge and skydived downhill.

Green course: there was some construction on the water tank near control 2, but forgot to read the course setter notes warning about it, so did a useless tour of the tank. While leg from 6 to 7 took 9.52 minutes, leg from 7 to 8 took 1.38 minutes, but it was a tough and short burst into thorny shiggy of blackberry plants growing on the clearing of the powerline.

Yellow

White

GIS Rome Italy

2008-07-16T05:58:00.000-07:00

amazing interactive historical Rome GIS website

bicycling in Washington DC

2008-07-07T06:20:00.000-07:00

The DC area is a great place for road bicycling. The shores of the potomac offer great views and a nice cool breeze even in the muggy heat of summer. Lots of trails, plus the added bonus of visiting all the monuments.

The National Crescent Trail is a phenomenal ride. In the town of Bethesda, hopping with trendy restaurants, the trail goes into a tunnel inside a large building, which is also the location of a geocache.

The National Zoo has some strange signs:

Upon entering the Think Tank building in the zoo, the visitor is confronted with a sign that warns visitors that visitors might find the materials displayed as objectable, and that "you may disagree". This sign was so curious, that I REALLY wanted to see what it was all about, and I guess some people have some issues with recognizing that animals have intelligence and learning abilities.

At the National Mall, the Smithsonian Folkways festival was going on. One great show was a gospel group from Industry, Texas, The Original Soul Invaders: "The Original Soul Invaders draw on the amplified quartet tradition popular with African American gospel groups in Texas. Founder and leader Roy Green, who pastors the Mars Hill Deliverance Tabernacle Church in Fayetteville, Texas, started the group in the late 1970s."

Digger's Frick Park Hash

2008-07-01T08:40:00.000-07:00

rain, rain, rain.

From the Environmental Center at Beechwood Blvd, towards bridge to RegSq, then across Forbes, into cemetery, to Frick Art Museum to find (or not find but wait) for B1. Then, back into the park, main trails, to ravine trail, to Digger's back yard.

Apres with Rigatoni al Ragu' alla Bolognese. Visitors from Columbus, Ohio, including Off Tuna, and from Philly, Dancing Fool.

Orienteering at Blue Spruce Park, Indiana, PA

2008-06-23T06:38:00.000-07:00

After the last control, realized that in the control card there was a blank square with no holes punched on it. Box number 7. Is there a control 7 ? I check on the clue sheet and see it is on the course. Wow !!! how did I miss it? I see it on the map, with just 5 minutes remaining to the 90 minute deadline, do I have time to get to it and back ? I think I do, and even if I come late, who cares... The incredible thing is that I ran right near it, about 20 meters from it, while a wedding group was posing for pictures right next to that silver pine tree. Must have not seen it on the map because all other control circles have a white background, but this one had a darker (open clearing) background.

Control 4 was challening due to the lack of features, but got lucky, and saw the control even with the lush foliage. 11 was easy due to the powerline nearby. From 8 to the road, the lush and marshy vegetation was noteable. Across the pine tree forest on approach to 5 got lucky in finding my way, even recognized the non-pine tree thick vegetation in the middle of the pine forest. Approach to 14 was to the pond near the clearing, and from the pond, the control was very visible in the forest with very little vegetation. 13 was touch, due to some thick vegetation and lots of foliage. Recognized the two small boulders, then went W, circled around, found the big boulder and realized I had to go more West. Approach to 9 was very easy, simply followed the stream as handrail. To 16, it was difficult. Reconized the story ground, then the lack of stony ground, went NW to find again the stony ground, then the small streambed and eventually to the control, very cleaverly covered by the boulder when approaching from downstream. On approach to 10, got bit confused as I was going downhill, then went back uphill to find the big trail (could have continued downhill to trail below). On the control location, got tricked by following upstream, then returned downstream, saw the stream junction, and saw the control as being downstream from the junction. Heard cars, figured the road was nearby, ran to it, along it, then at bend, rolled downhill to trail to lead me to control 2. Approach to 1 there is another reentrant nearby and got a big tricked by that, figured that maybe this map doesn't show these small reentrants, so continued NE and found the stream, then upstream, then the control. Then to the road, incredibly did not realize control 7 was right on the way, continued to 12, got a bit tricked by the numerous parallel reentrants, but again, figured I was looking for a bigger one, streambed, and eventually saw the control going uphill on the stream side. On location of control 17, knob seems positioned very close to the corner of the clearing, but it is actually a good 25 meters. At the punch, realized 7 was missing, and corrected it by running to it and back, with almost 3 minutes to spare.

Allegany State Park Rogaine

2008-06-16T13:04:00.000-07:00

From Pittsburgh, the team "Two Guys From Three Rivers" left on friday evening, and after three hours drive, arrived at Camp Turner to sleep in a cabing bunk bed. The following morning, there about 150 people waiting for the distribution of the map. Some were going to do the 6-hour, others the 12-hours, and the true core rogainers were set for the 24-hour rogaine. At 8:50, general speech by the organizers, and then the map distribution. In the dining hall, all the team strategized and wrote a "intended route" sheet to be returned to the organizers (they may need it in case if they need to look for you...). The point system was the first two digits of a control number (so, for example, control 602 is worth sixty points). At 11 AM, the mass start, and everyone started walking (some ran) in all directions. We followed the Lorenz family to the hilltop to get to 701, and continued following groups of people to hilltop 401.

Then, we opted to go north and stay level and reach spur 605, and not descend to 408. Then, desceding a spur and following a creek, we intended to approach 805 by following a spur after crossing one creek, but misjudged the size of a creek we crossed earlier, and eventually continued and eventually crossed a second creek unncessarily, to eventually ascend the wrong spur. Fanning out and looking for the control near the summit of the hill, got separated with the partner, and looked for each other for about 40 minutes. While all this was happening, we both realized independently that we were on the wrong spur to begin with, and eventually 805 was punched. From here, the idea was to get to 502, 415, skip 307. We lost some time in finding 415, as the reentrant looked smaller and expected a bigger one.

To get to hilltop 706, we used a creek as handlebar and went straight north. From the hilltop to trail junction 301, took a bearing straight east, and ended about 50 meters from the control when we hit the trail. To saddle 405, we took a somewhat direct route, ended up a little higher than the saddle so that we didn't risk overshooting it. To second saddle 410, we also took a direct route, got suspicious of the first reentrant and fearful it might be the second reentrant, we followed it upstream but then convinced ourselves it had to be the first, and thus contined East to eventually find 410. Then down to stream junction 607 in a beautiful stream lined with hemlock trees. And straight uphill to hilltop 402 and hilltop 803.

At 803, we took a break and ate some food. Originally, we wanted to skip 601 and instead go for 507. But then, looking at the easy descending trail that was runnable just east of 803, we chose that route to get us to the clearing below, and eventually to the trail leading to the spur below 601. In the approach to the small hilltop on the spur where the control was located, we could not find it, and assumed incorrectly that it was lower than we tought. Eventually, on a third and fourth pass, we walked uphill a bit more to find the control. We then descended back to the trail and to the water stop were we filled our water bottles. We then crossed a boggy marsh created by beaver dams and went looking for 507. In the meantime, saw the engineering marvels of these beautifully constructed dams. In the approach to 507, we looked for the two streams just north of it and used them as "catching features" to confirm our location, and then attacked the spur to find the control. On the way back to the road, we stayed on the north side of the boggy marsh, and then easily traveled on the road going south.

On the approach to hilltop 505, we used the slight bend of the road as reference, and then reached the spur and the control. Then, returning to the road, used the clearing as reference. From the center of the clearing, we then approached 411 by reaching the saddle point and then the hilltop control.

On the approach to 308, we followed the hilltop just south of control 411, and then descended to reach a trail at a lower saddle point and then looked and found a fainter trail that would lead us to 308. At this time, 9:30 PM, it was getting dark, and we turned our lights on. The faint trace of trail to 308 was jammed with downed tree trunks, and very very slow and frustrating, not to mention the darkness. At the control, we met with the rogainers from team CMS/UNO, and with them, we eventually traveled south to the paved road, and to control 705 at reentrant. Then, due to darkness, instead of choosing a more direct route through the woods, we returned to the paved road, turned off our lights, and with the half moon, traveled easily on the road while eating food. We left the paved road at the North Country Trail intersection. On a trail bend, we saw a strong light ahead of us, and thought it was a jeep or truck traveling on the forest road. Instead, it was a headlamp, an Australian import called "Sun", with rechargeable lithium ion, carried by a veteran adventure racer from Florida. At a trail junction, the intent was to follow the forest road and from a bend, descend down to a reentrant. We considered following the faint trail too risky, but then, somewhat fortuituously, we ended up indeed following the faint trail to a small clearing (used that as reference), and eventually found the reentrant with control 802. On to hilltop 602, we left the forest road at a bend and traveled in the darkness of the woods going SW, and used the creek just south of the hilltop as reference, since the "flats" of the spur just NE of the control was indeed flat and featureless, and in the nighttime it was difficult to see where the terrain sloped. After the control, we then followed the creek to the North Country Trail juntion.

At this point, both of us had severe friction skin rashes on the inner side of our legs, from the constant brushing of skin against wet clothes. Since it just wasn't enjoyable anymore, we took the obvious decision of calling it quits, and knew that the next few controls were going to be the last ones. We intended to gind 302, but in the featureless flats near the location of Mt Oneida, it was just impossible to see where to aim off the trail (talking to other rogainers later, they used a small trail "V" bend as reference, but they also said they did that in daytime, not night-time). So we skipped 302, and continuted on the North Country Trail to find the very evident trail bend, and finding 806 was easily done at around 2 AM. From here, a quick descent to the paved road, and On/In for about 5 km, and turned in our control at base at 3:35 AM. Our total points collected were a big over 1100 points.

Food was constantly available at base. We slowly took off our shoes and wet socks, nursed our skin abbrasions and rashes, and slowly chewed and savored the grilled cheese burgers that the volunteers cooked for us. We took a hot shower, wore dry and clean clothes, and went to sleep in our bunk beds. At 7 AM, woke up and took a walk around, and saw that some 24-hour participants have already returned. At the dining hall, the 12-hour event results were posted, with the winners completing a course with 1300 points. Eventually, we ate breakfast several times, and chatted with more and more finishers. We regrouped with several rogainers that we met on trail, exchanged valuable information, and chatted about route choices. It seemed that only one control was slightly misplaced. The sun was out strong, the day enjoyable, the food conforting. During the result announcement, we clapped for the winners in all categories, and always thought that those ingenious and laborious beavers were the coolest thing of the event.

Total driving miles round trip: 425 miles on a Toyota Camry, filled one tank for about $55, not bad.

Our route during the first 15 hours.

The route by the team that collected most points.

Team CMO.UNO

Team Kipnjon

Italy Orienteering May 2008

2008-06-07T07:31:00.000-07:00

Maps from Orienteering in Italy in recent days by an M60

Pian Di Rosce

Jenne

5 Confini

Rascino

Orienteering in Eastern Pennsylvania

2008-05-27T09:37:00.001-07:00

An "orienteering vacation" with the family during the Memorial Day weekend. Camped at Hickory Run State Park where some friends from Philly joined us for some great hiking, camp cooking, and bear fear instigating.

Saturday's Sprint run was on the campus of Lehigh University. We all wore regular running shoes. The course was all downhill. One had to be extra careful on not going over areas that were colored in Olive Green on the map, risking disqualification. That color is usually reserved for manicured flower-beds.

From the start, things went a bit wrong: should have take the lower parking lot (to the north), and ended up losing some seconds by climbing over a guardrail when going from one parking lot to the other. The approach from 1 to 2 was unevent full, just a long pavement run. From 2 to 3, recognized that the control was behind the building, and took a clockwise direction to it. From 3 to 4, went through a passage between buildings, and then a metail stairway from the paved area to the road above, next to a concrete wall.

A long pavement run to control 4. After 4, to 5, debated whether I should backtrack and round the building from the West, but chose a more open approach on to the parking lot, going anti-clockwise, but then, at the corner of the parking lot after siding the retaining wall, saw the olive green on the map and made sure I descended on the road below by running over the white mapped area, woodsy terrain. Then to the other side of the building on a terraced walkway, but lost my bearing a bit, consulted the map, and realized that control 5 was right under me and went for it. For 6, rushing judgement I went to much downhill looking for it and instead should have read the clue sheet and realized it was by the entrance of the building on. The approach to 7 was fast and downhillish, along some grass, always in doubt whether it was Olive Green or not (it was not, thanks !!). Approach to 8 was uneventfull. On the approach to 9, made a mistake by going too much East and not recognizing the end of the building. When I saw the huge building on the South, I started asking questions, and after consulting the map, realized I went too far. On approach to 10, went West and then followed a concrete walkway downhill (NE, then N) to the fountain. There was a patch of greenery that looked manicured that I jumped over, just in case if race officials were looking to see that I walked over manicured grounds, which is grounds for disqualification, but I see now that it is not Olive Green. Hard to tell...

On approach to 11, took a little alley between buildings, recognized another fountain on the East, then another alley between buildings and rounded the building clockwise to find the control. On approach to 12, continued clockwise, saw the fountain again, back to the first alley, and then, at the end of a small paved area, the control. To 13, followed what was familiar and went down that alley again, then through a large paved area, to the chapel side. On to 14, continued around chapel in clockwise direction (should have instead backtracked), got to the main road, could see the finish tent and groups of people greeting finishers, saw the alley going north, went for it, saw a control (it was 15), walked down some steps into a road below, went all around the building looking for 14, but a wall and construction area kept me out the perimeter until I found an alley to the raised platform with the sculpture and control 14. Now, of course I knew where 15 was, went for it, knew the steps going down, went for it, and more steps into a cafe/shopping area with control 16 on the corner. Back the steps towards 17, I could see it but it was on top of a 3 meter wall, ran around the wall and hedge to punch that, and then to 18 and finish.

Monday's Middle distance run was in a wooded area of Hickory Run state park. The controls were difficult to find, and the terrain not easily recognizable.

Used the very visible square depression in a clearing as reference, then the two stone walls and then the creek crossing to find 1. On approaching 2, went parallel to the creek going South, then over a spur slightly downhill, recognized the marsh, crossed it going East and found control2. Set the compass to East until finding the second creek crossing and its turn, then set the compass to NE to find 3. On going to 4, went N to find the small body of water, and continuing on its side to find 4. On approach to 5, went W, crossed the creek, then parallelized it and staying on the northern side of the creek, went over the small hilltop to find control 5.

The approach to 6 was the most difficult. Leaving 5, went slightly downhill, found the creek on the West, and parallelized it. The marshy and relatively flat environment made it a bit difficult to recognize the creek junction of a creek coming from the East. Continued going parallel to the creek, until the very distinctive jug-handle turn of the creek. Saw that on the map, and went straight South from there. After pretty much feature-less terrain, very difficult to read, saw a couple of orienteerers running at full speed to the West, and figured they must have found control 6 and were continuing to their next control. Went East a bit until seeing the control. This was hard. Talking to other orienteerers after the event, the more experienced told me that the vegetation boundary on the map just north of the control was the best indicator on the approach, being that the vegetation boundary is, in this terrain, most likely pine trees, and they are very very distinct at a far distance, even in a deciduous woodland, so they just ran straight to where they saw the pine trees and easily found the control from there.

On the approach to 7, after all the difficulties in navigating to 6, chose a very conservative approach, and used the very visible terrain features of the creeks north of control 6. Noticed specially the jug-handle turn of the creek NW of control 6. Then continued north until hitting the stone wall, and then follow the stonewall on an westerly direction. Notice that just north of the stone wall there is a line of stony ground, and for a moment it looked like point where the stone wall was turning to the north, but no, I noticed the stone wall continued, so for a moment, I was caught in a dilemma on where to go.

Monday's Long run was on the South Mountain area just south of Lehigh University campus. At one point, came right under the Bethlehem Star. Missed 11 but was able to backtrack and find it (noticed from the result that someone else also missed it). My biggest question is: what is the best route from 6 to 7. Someone ahead of me went downhill and took it from there. I preferred staying uphill.

Middle Distance White

Middle Distance Yellow

Middle Distance Brown

Middle Distance Orange

Middle Distance Green Women

Middle Distance Green Men

Middle Distance Red Women

Middle Distance Red Men

Middle Distance Blue

Long Distance White

Long Distance Yellow

Long Distance Brown

Long Distance Orange

Long Distance Green Women

Long Distance Green Men

Long Distance Red Women

Long Distance Red Men

Long Distance Blue

by course
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
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by class
day 1
day 2
Day 3

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Route Gadget
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3

Who is that bear in the woods ? the art of stealth photo in orienteering...

Focused

Route reading

Dynamic photo showing both shoes off the ground

Depression in Hickory Run

Boulder in Hickory Run

Pond in Hickory Run

Thick in Hickory Run

Virginia Kendal Ledges - Cuyahoga Valley National Park

2008-05-16T05:52:00.000-07:00

Orienteering map prepared by the North East Ohio Orienteering Club. In an orienteering event, white and orange flags ("controls") are positioned ahead of time in specific locations, and participants, using this map with cicled locations, must locate these flags and punch a control card with a paper puncher that leaves a distinctive hole punch that proves the participant has found the control. The rock formations, with its narrow passages and hideouts presents a terrain that can be challening to the expert orienteerer.

All in One Day

2008-05-14T11:23:00.000-07:00

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.

Victim of Impulse Buying Syndrome

2008-05-11T04:46:00.000-07:00

After an orienteering meet in a muddy park near Columbus, OH, was wearing my Salomon XA 3D XCR Gore-Tex shoes, and went walking around in the nearby town of Delaware, Ohio. In the very small downtown, packed with antique stores and coffee shops, was a outdoor gear store with a couple of Salomon shoes on the Rockwell-era old fashioned window display. ... and I said, Wow, those are my shoes there on display... and walked in.

Well, to make the story brief, it turned out they were having a 30% off on all their shoes, and most of the sizes left were just odd sizes. BUT there was an exception, a size 11 on a pair of Salomon XT Wings, a shoe that JUST came out three months ago, got a pretty good review on Runner's World Magazine, and that I had tried at an REI store, and thought of buying at the time but was a bit put off by the purchase price. So I bought them on the spot. Paid. Walked out. Walked a bit more of the downtown. Saw a few antique shops.

Central Ohio Orienteering at Alum Creek SP

2008-05-11T04:36:00.001-07:00

With the family, attended this local meet. We happened to be in the area for the weekend while visiting some friends in Columbus. Sandwiched between two rainy days on Friday and Sunday, this Saturday event got the best sunny day ever. Score course had 20 controls. Good turnout. Made a mistake even before starting the run: while drawing the circles on my map, and had to draw for a control placed in a pit in an area that had two pits, adjacent to each other about 50 meters from each other, i circled the WRONG pit. When I got to the area, I searched and searched, and found the pit (the mapped feature) but not the hanging control. After a while gave up and went on, convinced that a muggler snatched it (geocaching term, sorry...). Looking at my route, looks like I ran about 8.7 km in 65 minutes. Met Eugene, Marek, Martin, and others. Talked about Midland English as being the most accent-neutral version of American english. After the meet, found the Beaver Pond Cache, located about 12 meters NE from a control in a ditch on the eastern side of a pond.

Hiking near Dunbar Creek

2008-05-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

With veteran spelunker/caver Norm Snyder, explored the rock outcropings that ring most of the high plateaus surrounding the Dunbar Creek area in the center of State Game Land Number 51. Used some of the GPS information in nearby geocaches by QuestMaster and Captain Crash. Beatiful day, not too hot and not too cold. Trail was about 5 miles. Some very nice outcropings with slot cracks filled with rodedendron at mile 1. Some magnificent boulevards of straight rock walls that ran a length of 200 feet with tree root systems decorating the rock walls at mile 1.5. Some high rocks with rock climbing pitches at mile 2.9. The Lost Crag area at mile 3.6, with numerous cracks, slots, terraces, panels, tunnels.

North Side Geocaches

2008-04-25T05:30:00.000-07:00

altoids container, magnetic, attached to something metallic

Near the boardwalk siding the Korean War memorial

Just next to the metal sculpture on the north side riverfront park

Near a granite sculpture "For Man, Beast & Bird", north of the Children's Museum

In the depressed basin near the Children's Museum

In Allegheny Commons Park, more familiarly West Park on the North Side, Christina Schmidlapp has been coordinating a restoration plan that calls for the return of one of the sweetest pieces of public art to its original spot on Federal and Montgomery streets.

"For Man Beast and Bird, 1901" is an 8-foot-tall-by-6-foot-wide sculpture in Barrie granite commissioned by socialite Annie Hartzell of a Chicago architect for $18,000. It provides basins for people, birds, horses, squirrels and any other frequenter of the park to drink from.

"It's in a bad setting now," where people can't see it, at Federal Street and Allegheny Commons North, on Allegheny Circle, said Ms. Schmidlapp. "It spent a few decades in Market Square" before then-city Councilman Baldy Reagan returned it to the North Side, she said. "It will go back in its own spot on the promenade" once the commons are restored.

The commons are home to at least a dozen pieces of art, monuments and statues, "probably more than people realize," said Ms. Schmidlapp. "Everyone brings a different experience to [viewing] it, but what it says is that someone cared about the place."

A walking tour of Allegheny Center.

Inov-8 Shoes

2008-04-17T11:21:00.000-07:00

Hartwood Acres

2008-04-16T09:04:00.000-07:00

After an all-night rain, the grounds were soaked wet, and the tiny little water channels became wide streams. Despite this, there was a good showing. Several have seen the listing in City Paper, some heard it from the girl/boy scouts. One group with children also had a duo stroller, and they rolled on the White course and forded a stream with it ! on Yellow, one group got lost in the maze of trails in attemting to locate control 25. On Orange, in attempting to find control 36, instead found control 46, the latter being a control in the Green course. Also, on Orange, one reported being confused in finding control 37 because it was near another stream intersection. On Green, one person had difficulty finding the spring on 43. Most participants had difficulty in finding control 44, in an area of "parallel micro-channels". Also on Green, control 47 was a bit of a challenge since all the participants did not use the clearling along the pipeline-park boundary as approach to it, but instead chose a more direct route, and encountered the stream and another minor water channel that was parallel to the water channel with the control.

geocachers,
Wanna find stuff in the woods the old fashioned way? come to Hartwood Acres this sunday, 11 AM to 2 PM, Middle Rd entrance, for an event organized by the Western Pennsylvania Orienteering Club. There will be four courses available: White (beginner), Yellow (adv beg), Orange (intermediate), Green (advanced). Purpose is to find flags hidden in the woods using only a topographic map and a compass. If you don't have a compass, we can loan you one. The activity is very popular in eastern europe and scandinavia. It is all ages, all skill levels, all weather. The park also has (i think) 3 caches, so you can find those too if you want.

hashers,
Orienteering at Hartwood Acres, Middle rd entrance. Find stuff in the woods and earn nothing for doing so [what a deal...]. All ages, skill levels, weather. Registration is from 11 AM to 2 PM. Come early if you wanna make Isis's Hash. There are four courses, in order of difficulty: White, Yellow, Orange, Green. I reccomend that hashers do Orange or Green. I made sure that these two have jaggers in the vicinity of the "control" points you have to find.

"Earth-Day"ers,
Orienteering is a competitive form of land navigation. It is for all ages and degrees of fitness and skill, and all-weather. It provides the suspense and excitement of a treasure hunt. The object of orienteering is to locate control points by using a map and compass to navigate through the woods. Typical control point locations are at stream bends, spurs, bottom of small cliffs, earth banks, rootstocks, vegetation boundary, natural springs, trail junctions, pits or depressions, large boulders. After this topographic discovery of these mapped details, you will come with an appreciation of the variety of the natural features that can be encountered.

"Four-Twenty"ers
Come find the magic mushrooms growing in Hartwood Acres. Maps provided.

Geocaches at Hartwood Acres:

629 Acres of Fun
N 40° 33.857 W 079° 55.293
A cache by Cranky Angel Hidden: 4/7/2004
I enjoy Hartwood because there are always so many things to do there. From hiking, to mountain biking, to walking your dog, to seeing a free concert, to driving through Christmas lights…. really I could go on and on. This cache is off the beaten path a bit but a nice walk. There are many different ways to get to the cache, so go on a nice day and wear good shoes. There may be some mud. Please be sure to replace the cache exactly how you found it.

Boston in Pittsburgh
A cache by Team "G" Unit Hidden: 11/28/2004
N 40° 34.280 W 079° 55.357
Easy cache to find when you want a nice little walk but not too long or hard. Hartwood Acres is our favorite park so we decided to place our cache here. We decided to create this cache after a trip to Boston. We loved the city and decided to fill our cache with Boston goodies including booklets for kids about Boston, a rubber lobster, some fun things from the CVB, a Boston mouse pad, a few items from the wonderful Colonade hotel, and more.

Maui in Pittsburgh
A cache by Lady Bug Lady and BB Big Guy Hidden: 12/29/2006
N 40° 34.399 W 079° 54.983
Okay, it may not be the shores of the Pacific but it is on the water's edge. After visiting Maui, we had to place this geocache. Since Boston in Pittsburgh is at Hartwood, we decided to place this one here as well. The initial cache has a couple of travel bugs and a coin that we picked up caching in Maui, a Maui coin for the FTF, a certificate for a free cabana rental at the Kaanapali Beach Hotel, the Maui travel bug that we are starting, a couple of photos from Maui and some other fun stuff. Happy caching. Look for a body of water.

Hay is for Horses
A cache by Will Cache 4 Food Hidden: 4/2/2004
N 40° 33.878 W 079° 54.734
If you take the same trail I did when I placed the cache, you may encounter a slight discomfort. And I'm not talking about the terrain. One of your senses!
You will be near the stables of Hartwood. When I placed the cache, I passed a large pile of hay and horse manure from the cleaning of the stables.
Cache is located in the normal hiding spots and there are plenty of trading items for young and experienced geocachers. The cache is a clear (approx. 1 gallon) container with a white lid.

HART'S DESIRE
A multi-stage cache by scondo Hidden: 8/16/2003
N 40° 34.136 W 079° 54.540
Two different trailheads: 1) AESTHETIC-Hartwood Mansion lot at 40 34.136--079 54.540. Coordinates for this trailhead and cache are in a black 35mm container located in the stone wall by the stone steps to the railed coutyard entrance to the mansion. 2) Walking/biking-Hartwood concert parking at 40 34.232--079 55.627. Coordinates for this trailhead and cache are in a black 35mm contained located at 40 34.157---79 55.643 There are many intersecting trails in Hartwood--choose the correct trail, no bushwack--keep your parking coordinates. GOOD CACHING
Walking/biking hint: a tree. Cache hint: in the area of a large fallen tree.

Flying Pig Cincinnati Ohio Orienteering

2008-04-07T06:12:00.000-07:00

On early April, the Cincinnati Orienteering Club organizes an "A meet" called Flying Pig. It is an annual event and I heard great things about it. About a month ago signed up for it, but somehow forgot to tell the wife. Through the grapevine of the Cleveland orienteerers, Bob Boltz got the word that I was looking to share/ride the trip, and called in to see if I was interested in traveling with him. I wasn't home when he called, but my wife was. She took notes and when she relayed them to me about some "Flying Pig" thing, she was laughing. Apparently, I forgot to tell her that I signed up for this event, and that such is the event name.

It is well organized and managed. This year it was a three-day event, with middle distance on friday, two springs on saturday, and an ultra-long event on sunday. Drove to Cleveland where I met Bob Boltz of the North East Ohio Orienteering Club, and together we drove across the state of Ohio in time for the start of the friday event. It was a drizzle-rainy day. It had rained all night, and the terrain was soaked like a sponge.

After picking up our packet at the parking lot of a church, we drove two miles to a forest parking lot to view the model area. The model area is a part of the park where participants can have a view of what the terrain will be like.

For the middle distance event, on the 2 km walk from the parking lot to the start, we were instructed in not touching a fence since the owners of the land are upset with the park, and "are armed with dogs, guns and lawyers". The terrain of the middle distance event was very very muddy and soggy. The last controls had a nice matrix of controls criss-crossing each other all in an open grassland area. For this event, wore a cap, long sleeve shirt, and Salomon XA Pro XCR shoes. Made a mistake on locating control 13. Overshot it and went south until I saw the clearing around the pond, and then returned to my steps going north and found it. The vegetation underbrush, just as in the model area, showed how difficult it could be to locate the controls from a distance.

After the event, many of the Cleveland orienteerers drove to the EconoLodge motel to wash and dry themselves and their clothes. It had been a wet and muddy day, and many where happy to be in a dry world. With Bob we drove to a Ihop restaurant, where they serve breakfast menus for dinner. First time I saw scrambled eggs seasoned with ketchup being eaten, apparently a mid-west favorite by many. I shared the room with a hasher from the Rubber City Hash House Harriers, and with another hasher camouflaged as orienteerer, Shorthairs, we shared tales of memorable hashes of the past. Btw, this correlation between orienteering and hashing is more common than I expected, as I would later find out that a veteran russian orienteer also participating in this event, has hashed in the San Francisco hash and got named "The Impaler".

The morning sprint event was on the campus of Miami University in the town of Oxford. The day was a beautiful spring day, with temperature at around 8 C in the morning, and 15 C in mid-day. Made a serious error on control 8, didn't read the clue (bottom of steps) and not seeing the control on the southern side of the building, felt lost for about 1m 20s, when the competitor behind me caught up with me, and saw him going down the steps. For both the morning and afternoon sprints, wore a short sleeve shirt, and Adidas Cardrona shoes.

After the morning spring, Bob and I had some lunch at the car parked nearby, and then scouted the campus with the map to discuss mapping features.

The afternoon sprint was in a natural area just south of the Miami University campus. There was alot of areas with underbrush, specially where the controls 6-12 were, and that made it interesting.

The last sprint event was over at 3 PM, and they started assigning awards to the top three in each category. At around 4 PM, Bob and I stopped by the Art Museum where we saw an interesting retrospective on a local painter. Then, strolled on the college town of Oxford, that was full of parents and their children students. We found Rick Armstrong sitting outside a Starbucks, and invited him to walk to a campus dinning hall were, apparently, they were going to serve free korean food. We found the dining hall, got photographed (and kissed) by a group of students that were on a scavenger quest, and then, waited and waited for this korean food festival to begin. Unfortunately we had to be elsewhere at 6 PM, and by 5:50 they weren't ready to offer their prepared foods, so we left. At 6 PM, we found the St Mary's Church banquet dining facilites, and there we had whole grain pasta with balsamic tomato sause (more like a ratatouille), meat balls made from the best Angus meat, and lemon mousse. ... and a bottle of red Australian wine.

The sunday event was in a large state park, with steep ravines and drainages on the sides of a lake, separated by flat hilltops with very few distinct features. It was going to be a beautiful spring day. Because of the heavy rain two days before, the trails were going to be wet and muddy, and with the steep hillsides, the reccomendation was to wear shoes with big cleats and lots of grip. I chose to wear Adidas Cardrona, and a short sleeve shirt. On the route choice from 2 to 3, should have stayed on the paved road on the north. My first big mistake was on locating control 4. Apparently I headed slightly north. Hitting the fence I thought it was the fence North-South on the way to the control from 3, but instead it was the fence East-West. I realized the mistake when I found a small pond (in the map it looks more like a marsh). Just below the drainage of that pond, there was a control for another course. Realizing I was getting lost too easily, followed the stream down to the trail, and then from the fence line located the control. Between controls 6 and 7, got passed by Mark Voit, another M45 participant. Followed him for a while, it was nice to see how he made his route choices. Caught up with him while he was putting back his shoe that got sucked out by the mud, and there he told me that he had a broken compass. Later, after the event, he explained that early on while jumping a metal cable over a parking lot road, he tripped and landing on his hands, the thumb compass broke on its plastic sides (it was still operational, but not while running with it). My next huge huge mistake was in going from 8 to 9. Still not sure how it happened, but must have passed it quite close by and continued north and found the drainages and ravines downstreaming to northerly direction and tought I was on the right ones to look for. Not until I saw the lake from one of the ravines that I realized I had overshot and was totally off. In trying to get back to 9, located the reentrant features near 10 (even saw it from a distance), and then got to the pond, the reentrants just north from the pond, and finally to control 9. A surfer would have said: "dude, you just weren't in the zen". The good news was I still had alot of energy, apparently the whole-wheat pasta I globbed down the day before was doing its carbohydrate work. Got passed by a couple of F21+ participants that were also doing the red course. Then, towards the last four controls, an West Point Military Academy cadet and I followed each other closely for a last dash to end the long event. From reading the split times, I estimate that I lost 15 minutes in finding control 4, 2m 45s in re-finding control 8, 23 minutes in finding control 9.

On the long drive back to Cleveland, Bob and I stopped by a outlet mall, looked at all the beautifully dressed families with their latest mall fashion garb. I still had thorns and twigs sticked in my hair, some scratches on my arms, and possibly tiny spots of mud on my pants (that is, my clean pants). We looked at some sport stores, including a Nike and Adidas brand stores, but found them disappointing.

On the very last 0.5 km of the shared ride with Bob, he proudly takes a short detour, and shows me a view of rapids and waterfalls in a deep gorge. Apparently he wants to showcase the main attraction of his home town of 35 years. But, I told him, I had already been here before: it was a beer stop of a Rubber City Hash that I went to some five years past: Shorthairs was the hare then.

Just 2 km to go...

A thorn stuck on my ear was noted by a photographer... now, that is must have been some shiggy...

nice "white" open woodland, very runnable...

Nice picture of a running Will Smith (Canada) with a control in the background.

For animated results of the route I took on the long run, go to this website and select "Red" from the dropdown listbox, and pick my name. then click on View Animation and click on Start. On the same website, it is fun to watch the 2nd and 3rd competitor that finished the 18 km "Blue" course. they finished only one minute apart (2:04:22 and 2:05:20), but you can see how far apart they were in different points of their time frame. To view my mistake on the Sprint on the Miami University campus, go to this website and select the "Long" item in the dropdown listbox. You can compare me with another 45er whose finish time is 17:57, by selecting both his name and my name, click on View Animation, and then click Start.

For controls 10 to 13, I saw a competitor ahead of me and pretty much followed him. He was pretty fast in the woods and blazed trail for me. Then I made my mistake and lost him. He started two minutes before me, and note that I was able to catch up with me because he made an expensive mistake in an earlier control. Michael Norris, USMAOC, started at 14:32:00 and finished at 15:11:21. I started at 14:34:00 and finished at 15:12:47. ... and on trail we shared three controls in the middle, funny how it goes...

Pig Middle Split Times for M45
Pig Sprint 1 Split Times for M45
Pig Sprint 1 Split Times for M45
Pig Long Split Times for M45

One of the earth mounds as described by the corse setter:

earth features

The official park website

Course Setter's notes:
The Rentschler area is primarily a plateau, cut by steep drainages. If you've run at other Flying Pig "A" meets, you've probably seen similar terrain at parks such as East Fork, Fort Ancient, Mounds SRA, and Camp Friedlander.
Some 2000 years ago, the area was inhabited by the Hopewell people, and apparently was an important ceremonial center. A survey by James McBride in 1840 mapped several mounds of 3-5 feet height, including a unique earthwork consisting of two circular walls.
Four miles downriver, the City of Hamilton was founded in 1791. Along the Great Miami River, the Miami and Erie Canal was built, which destroyed some evidence of the Hopewell culture even before McBride's survey, including removal of "several human skeletons and a variety of stone implements"1. Although McBride reports that the area was still heavily wooded in 1840, settlers were soon moving in to clear and farm the land. This accelerated erosion around the steep perimeter of the site and the outer walls are now almost completely gone. One mound was excavated (that's too nice a term, lets just say "looted"), so there's now a depression in its center. Evidence of farming such as old wire fences, a couple foundations, and an old barn still remains. Besides the canal, a road and sewer line was later put in along the towpath.
If you have time after your run, though, it is well worth the short hike to view and ponder the remaining earthworks.
1 - Squier, Ephraim G. and Davis, Edwin H., Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, 1848, Smithsonian Institution.
Advanced runners may encounter a unique Indian earthworks consisting of two circular earth walls, one inside the other. Please avoid running over these mounds. These walls are now less than a meter high, and most of the other nearby earthworks which were mapped in the 1800's are now so deteriorated as to be almost unnoticeable to all but the most experienced observers. Some were also destroyed during the building of the canal which runs along the north edge of the map. You'll probably run along the towpath and possibly even cross the old canal (mostly dry) during your course.

The Flying Pig "A Meet"

Towards the end of March, got home and my wife told me someone called from Cleveland and talked about car pooling to something called a "flying pig". The wife's facial expression showed a mixture of puzzlement and laugher, and I realized then that I had forgotten to tell her I had signed up to a three-day orienteering event in Cincinnati, Ohio, in fact, called the Flying Pig.

This event is sanctioned by the USOF, and it is labeled as an "A meet". In the 2008 schedule, there are seven this year. It takes a great deal of preparation, clues are printed on the map, and registration is usually closed a week before the meet starts. Having heard great things about the Cincinnati event by fellow orienteerers in the Cleveland area, I decided it was worth a try. Haphazardly got conjugal permission to absent myself for three full days, kissed the kids, and drove to Akron where I met with Bob Boltz of North East Ohio Orienteering Club (NEOOC), and together we drove diagonally across the buckeye state to the first of the four events.

The event was a middle distance. In addition, it was sanctioned to be a World Ranking Event (WRE), allowing orienteering athletes and competitors to acquire points. Being this the only WRE event in the US this year, it attracted many competitors. It had rained all night, it was still drizzling. The ground was soaked and muddy. We pick up the packet with the last-minute information, the e-punch, and the bib number with four safety pins. There is something called the "model course": it is a demonstration course to summarize what terrain and features to expect. It can be very useful for those that come from, say, Arizona or Texas, and seeing how alluvional wooded hills look like. The course is 1.6 km long, and we simply walk it to get a feel of it. Terrain and features looks and smells like back home in the Three Rivers area, same mud, same grass, same jaggers: it gets my Western PA stamp of approval. Back to the parking lot, there is still a bit of drizzle, and while a few are warming up on the sides, others are still in their vehicles. The start is about 2 km from the parking lot. We are instructed on how to get there, and told that at a certain point we are not to touch a fence or give any bad looks over that fence, as the owners over that fence are in a legal dispute with the park administrators, and the instructions clarify that "they are armed with dogs, guns, and lawyers" [humor intentional].

At the start there is a clothing collection bag for those that want to drop a rain jacket that they used for the long walk to the start. The clothing will eventually be collected and delivered to the finish area. There is also a Port-a-John. Volunteers call out the start time and scheduled participant names three minutes ahead, at which participants "clear" the data from their e-punch and then "check" the e-punch. At two minutes from start, participants advance to the next line and collect clue sheets in case if they want them to place them on their clue holder sheeted around the fore arm. At one minute from start, the participants advance to the next line, and from a line of boxes holding maps face down, each participant picks a map of a course that the participant is registered to. The maps cannot be viewed, and at this time, the participant writes his name with a marker on the back of the map for map collection at the end of the event. At the sound of the buzz, the participants can start by placing the e-punch in the start device, turn the map, view the course, and off they go.

Having signed as a M-45+, meaning a male gender of 45 years of age or more, the course designated for that category was the red course. This one was 4.3 km with 20 controls, in a woodsy area similar to those in Western Pennsylvania. Ground was very wet and muddy. While looking for my controls, I could see other runners looking for other controls of other courses. Made a small mistake when I overshot the location of a small reentrant, and returning to my steps, realized that I had lost about a minute. The final section was a neat criss-crossing cluster of controls in an open grassland. At the finish, one final punch, and participants were asked to leave the map in a box, since there was still one hour to go until the last start, and the maps cannot be viewed by any particip ant until then. I jogged back to the parking lot, went to the parked van designated to be the "e-punch data downloading" point, downloaded the data from the e-punch and got a printout with all the split times between controls. Changed into dry clothes, and then walked back to the finish to see the arrivals. Among the participants was a group of middle and high school students from Houston, Texas. They all had the same green uniform, and were quite skilled. There was also a large contingent of cadets from West Point, the Army academy. And there were other notable athletes, some of which flew from afar to attend this event.

At the end of the friday event, my travel mate and I lodged into the motel, hot showered and changed into more dry clothes, and went looking for dinner. At the restaurant I was reading the Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh that I happened to have with me, when I saw another patron with a Polamalu Steelers jersey walking by, and I promptly got up and walked to him and gave him my newspaper saying "to all Steelers fans, here is a complimentary copy of the Pittsburgh newspaper". At the motel, an entire line of rooms were all booked to orienteerers. A lot of them knew each other, managed to stick together, talked about topics that rarely was outside the realm of this sport. In general, if you asked them a question that was not orienteering-related, the answer was very short. If you asked them a question that was related to orienteering, it could germinate into quite a discussion.

The second day was going to have two Sprint events. This time, the weather couldn't be better: a fine spring day. The first one was on the campus of Miami University in the town of Oxford, Ohio. A nice quaint campus, the course for Red and Blue was going to be Sprint Course 3, of 2.9 km with 17 controls. Most of the controls were adjacent to buildings, trees, stairways. Incredibly, I made a mistake that cost me 1m 20s. I mentally believed to find the control visible on a side of a building, when it actually it was at the bottom of a stairwell going to a basement door. Always read the clue sheets !

After the first event, we had some time for lunch, and with map on hand, we walked over the campus to discuss mapping features. My travel mate has mapped several maps and it was interesting to hear him discussing the mapping choices from a maper point-of-view. A fresh flower-bed of tulips might be colored in olive green, and crossing it may subject the participant to immediate disqualification.

The second sprint event was in a natural setting, with woods, grasslands, and semi-open areas with underbrush and low small trees. Being still early for leaves, I thought the controls could easily be seen in this short course. Yet, the small branches of the brush and small trees made visibility poor, and some controls were smartly placed in making the find more challenging. The course for Red and Blue was the same, Sprint Course 3, of 2.7 km with 14 controls.

Everyone congregated on a specific location at the end of the parking area, to view the results posted on sides of the parked van, or to nibble from the food table with cookies and bananas, or for collecting a map with your name on it. There was also a vendor of orienteering-related stuff: shoes, compasses, clue sheet holders, shirts, pants, gaiters. The vendor is also a participant in the race, so when he's running, the "shop" is closed. Here I got the opportunity of touching actual "orienteering shoes". They have metal spikes on the soles, and walking on pavement, it makes a distinctive rasping sound.

With the day still young, my travel mate and I browsed around campus and the adjacent college town for things to do before the 6 PM social dinner. We checked the university art museum, a Korean student association mini-festival, the shops and cafes, and roaming students on a scavenger quest that asked us if we were professors. The banquet was prepared by a local caterer: Angus-beef meatballs, whole wheat pasta with a ratatouille vegetable sauce, lemon mousse. ... and, a bottle of red Australian wine.

With a good meal and a night of rest, we got ready for the third and final day, the Ultra Long Pig. The event was to take place in a very large state park, and it attracted several adventure racers as well. The blue course was 18 km long and 600 m elevation, and the red course was 13.2 km with almost 400 m elevation. The course setters notes recommended shoes with big cleats, or anything that can provide a good grip. The slopes were steep and muddy. From the footwear I had with me in the car, I chose to wear Adidas Cardrona, which proved to be an excellent choice for my personal style. The map had a long leg of about 2 km in length. I chose a more direct route, but midway had some second thoughts and thought that a better choice would have been to follow the paved road on the North and then cut south using trails and a fence as handrail. Got incredibly lost twi ce, and lost 38 minutes total on these two errors (I computed the time lost based on the time of my immediate peers by reading/studying the split time results). On trail got passed by another M45er, and it was great to see him in action, and see how he made route choices on real-time. Stayed behind him for a couple of controls, but then -- he was just too fast -- faded out of sight. The good news is that towards the end I still had a lot of energy: The carbo-load of the banquet was making its effect, and I kept on running like an Energizer bunny. On the last four controls I had a dueling partner from West Point, and we alternated leading position several times, each one of us making better route choices respectively. The last control was a welcome sight, however somewhat camouflaged in the background of colors of several parked cars nearby. The legs were tired, the will waning, and with one la st dash to the finish, e-punched one last time. A photographer, the usual cluster of people around the van reading the posted results, a line of flags flapping to the wind, a table with an assortment of foods. I am greeted by a couple of familiar faces, people that I've met in the days, the usual "how did you do" starter phrase. The air temperature warm enough for people to wear a T-shirt. Spring is here. People are animatedly discussing route choices, controls that dared to be found, fences that couldn't be seen. Everyone seems happy and content. People with cramped legs slowly walked to their vehicles, and retreated to their home destinations.

Salomon Trail Running Shoes

2008-03-27T12:33:00.001-07:00

Rome - Italy - Villa Panphilj

2008-03-25T11:34:00.000-07:00

There is an orienteering event this Saturday, June 28, organized by Giorgio Portinari. It only costs 2.50 Euro to participate.

Villa Doria Panphilj is a large municipal park on the eastern side of Rome, Italy. Divided in two by a highway, the western side is also known as vecchia [old] and the eastern side known as nuova because the latter was opened to the general public after the former.

Western part:

Eastern part:

Orienteering in Rome, Italy

2008-03-25T09:21:00.000-07:00

On March 9, participated in an orienteering meet in a city park in Rome, Italy. The event happened on a sunny and warm Sunday morning. From where I was staying, I traveled by subway on the Metro B and then took the 310 bus from Bologna metro station. An Ukranian man living in Italy that I met on the bus gave me guidance to which entrance in Villa Ada to go to. At the meet, there were many participants from local schools, as this was a promotional event. And there were many competitors from other clubs. The fastest time was by the athlete Alessio Tenani (MA category) of the Forestale club and by Maria Novella Sbaraglia (WA category) of the Subiaco club.

I was given permission to run the Long course, and given a map but no control card, as I was told I would be participating as "Categoria Fantasma", aka Ghost Category, in which my name and time are not being recorded.

Did the course in 45 minutes, mostly for lost time finding control 4, due to the parallel trails that confused me, and I ended up to the wall on the north.

Interesting thing is that the bridge that was just adjacent to the start point, well, I found out days later on an exploration of the park, it is actually the shelter of a group of three africans that set up a couple of beds and their personal belongings.

Results:

In a subsequent visit with plenty of time to find all the mapped features in the park, found that there were plenty of signs of human habitation in the park. Here they are:

A nice cliff, with a tent and personal belongings of a current inhabitant. It is protected by a perimeter of dead branches thickly placed to not invite intruders, dogs, and dog owners.

The bridge with the africans lodging under it.

The existence of two parallel walls gives opportunity to stealthly pitch a tent or shelter with plastic sheeting. Found one in this spot. Conveniently located near an entrance to the park.

The most amazing shelter was in this spot. Here, it was a permanent structure, with wood beams and clear plastic sheeting. The man living there spoke italian with a roman accent, lives there with three dogs. To the west, the dotted perimeter is a beatiful bamboo grove. Just south of the bamboo grove, along the dirt road, the hollow green small circle denotes a distinct tree. But this is no ordinary tree: it is a Sequoia sempervirens.

On the side of a cliff there was an old abbandoned tent. One cave in a clearing had definite signs of habitations, with a bed and a mirror. Things seemed pretty neatly organized.

This little house on the northern side of the park was inhabited by a group of Romanians, who had beds, a mirror on the wall, and a laundry line. The nearby water fountain (map feature) made it convenient to wash clothes.

This cave had signs of past human habitation, not current. What is remarkable is that this cave is relatively remote, away from trails or park entrances.

At a Special map feature, there was an interesting stone pillar in reference to "Tommasi Francesco Pilota 1942" (trans: a pilot from 1942). Have no idea who this person was.

Orienteering in South Italy

2008-02-22T06:51:00.000-08:00

MOC 2008 will take place in proximity of Taranto, on the Ionian sea coastline. Found these nice pictures of last year's event.

Mayor Bob O'Connor Grave

2008-02-14T08:13:00.001-08:00

Because the mayor died just recently, his death must be at least of 5 years old before being accepted in "Grave of Famous Person"

Parco della Caffarella

2008-02-08T08:51:00.001-08:00

On Sunday 17 Feb 2008, in Parco della Caffarella, Rome, Italy, there will be a orienteering meet beginning at 10 AM, organized by the Orsa Maggiore orienteering club. Orienteering is a land navigation activity where one finds flags using a map and compass. About 2 km south of the event, there is a geocache. It is a small box with a logbook. Geocaching is also a land navigation activity, but done with a GPS (Global Positioning System) device. In the satellite images below, the circle on the north marks the meeting location for the orienteering event. The oval on the south and the green arrow, marks the location of the geocache.

Info on the geocache: N 41° 51.543 E 012° 31.484
A traditional box hidden in the Caffarella Park in Rome. Very close to the cache there is the monument "Ninfeo di Egeria".
hint: You have to find a wall made of stone.

Event annoucement:

Location of the O-meet registration table:

Location of the cache:

The cache:

Look for this ruin:

Possible route:

Nursery-O Rogaine in New Carlisle, Ohio

2008-01-30T10:42:00.000-08:00

Miami Valley Orienteering Club organized a six-hour rogaine on 27 January 2008.

Route

Canyoneering in Tasmania

2008-01-23T15:14:00.000-08:00

photo album

Cradle Mountain in Tasmania

2008-01-23T15:10:00.000-08:00

nice photo album

Rogaine near Perth, Western Australia

2008-01-23T15:00:00.000-08:00

photo albumos/kerstinb/sets/72157594361091900/

another album

Rogaine Map and Photos of Hat Creek Valley

2008-01-23T14:46:00.000-08:00

photo album

Orienteering Rug

2008-01-16T15:52:00.001-08:00

found on Flickr as "Orienteering Felt"

How to get a Driver's License in USA

2007-12-19T15:38:00.000-08:00

alle 8,05 del mattino, andando verso l'ufficio, mi sono fermato al supermercato per comprare un po' di verdure. Uscendo, ho visto l'ufficio della motorizazione la accanto, e mi sono ricordato che dovevo rinnovare la patente. Ho messo le buste in macchina, e mi sono poi incamminato all'ingresso dell'ufficio, e ho visto che aprivano alle 8,30. Dovevo aspettare 15 minuti. Faceva freddo, ma non troppo. Ho aspettato, altre persone sono arrivate e hanno aspettato fuori. Mi sono fatto una chiaccherata con un vigile del fuoco. Hanno aperto, ho preso il mio numero, "01", e ho aspettato 2 minuti. Un cartello diceva che non accettano contanti, ma solo assegni bancari. Meno male che tengo un assegno nel portafoglio, e ho cosi' riempito il modulo per rinnovo e fatto l'assegno per $26. M'hanno poi mandato ad aspettare all'altro angolo dell'ufficio, e 7 minuti dopo, m'hanno chiamato per nome, fatto la foto, fatto controllare che i dati anagrafici e biometrici corrispondevano alla verita', fatto scegliere la foto tra due che m'hanno fatto, e 4 minuti dopo, la patente e' stata prodotta da una macchina e a me consegnata. Sono tornato alla macchina parcheggiata davanti al supermercato, con le buste dentro con finocchio, broccoletti, pomodori. Sono arrivato in ufficio alle 8,48, un po' piu' tardi der solito, ma se po' fa'... Aho, mica male, me so rinnovata 'a patente, manco a farlo apposta.

How to get a Driver's Licence in Italy

2007-12-19T11:12:00.000-08:00

Okay we're in the countdown. Today we went into town & got our hairs cut ( I will tell you soon about these 2 delicious waggish ex-Hollywood haircutters who've moved to Rome and understand fine hair and ladies of a certain age not needing to look like battle-axes, but not right now) and then we went to the Etruscan museum for the first time in years. I don't know what it is about Etruscan artifacts, but no matter where you see a real good one it won't be there next time you want to go see it again. For years I've been in love with an odd green bronze object shaped like a duck growing out of another duck on wheels, and I've had to chase it from one museum in one town to two others in another town and now it's gone again. Sigh.
Anyways, that's not what the countdown business was about ---it's about my dreaded driving test. It's scheduled for tomorrow at dawn, and if I don't pass it this time I'll have to pay another 150 euroes for a renewal of my learner's permit, and go on torturing myself with 25-euro lessons until I finally do pass it. We've already spent over 1,000 euroes on this process for the 2 of us. Bob was a sweetie & passed on his first try, but I got stuck on the part where they don't let you back up unless you can swivel your head all the way around backwards ---I swear I could see my opposite ear, but the gorgon who was testing me was never satisfied.
I told you how we discovered that we were tremendously illegal driving around with our American drivers' licenses, and how our insurance would not cover us if we were in an accident, and how we were even liable to get our car impounded etc etc unless we got Italian licenses right away. But did I tell you that there's only one way to get Italian drivers' licenses and that is to pay tons of money to a driving school? We hadn't twigged to that at first, and started out all the wrong way: lengthy humiliating trips to the Motor Vehicles Bureau (which is centralised and inaccessible, shut most of the time, and requires reams of different types of documentation every time you go there ---you're almost always missing an essential form or stamp) and paid a bunch of money but then learned that test inspectors are instructed to automatically flunk people who haven't gone through the driving school system. (I forgot to mention that we cannot simply have our licenses automatically converted like European citizens can; non-Community nationals have to start from scratch.)
Anyways, this summer we met a nice young woman from Kansas whose husband had some sort of (we think shady) connection with the boss at a driving school in Velletri --about 7 miles further down the Via Appia--- where we'd be assured of "good treatment" which seemed to mean they'd zip you through the cumbersome process of paperwork & legwork & assure you of success etc etc, so we teamed up with her & registered. First you have to study the Rules of the Road in a huge unintelligible tome, equipped with mock tests so you'll be ready for the most arcane experience imaginable: the rules are explained and the test questions are posed in intentionally obfuscating language; triple negatives, ambiguous terminology, uninformative illustrations, about 30 exceptions to the simple right-of-way rules, etc. After many weeks of wrestling with this slithery body of demi-knowledge (she'd come over to our house to study together & make brownies etc) you go in for the Theory part of the test, without which you cannot be admitted to the Practice part. This may have been the most humiliating part of the whole process, as the guy administering the test came up to each of the students who had been enrolled in the course and forcibly made us fill in the little boxes like he said, including a couple of glaring errors "so they won't suspect anything". The poor immigrant chumps who had been driving for years back in their home countries & thought this process was on the up & up all flunked. Each step of this odyssey costs a minor fortune.
Needless to say, we passed the theory part & now had to take some actual road-practice lessons, to understand what the inspectors required. Apparently the 3 most important things to remember are [1] whenever you are backing up you must turn your head all the way around and keep it that way until you shift out of reverse, [2] when getting out of the car you must turn your head way around and twist your arms so you are pulling the door latch with your other hand (?) and [3] when held up in traffic or at a red light, never let your car stop on a crosswalk. All these mean instant failure. Well, you're not supposed to run over any children either. Anyways, my second test is Saturday morning, and I'm feeling very vulnerable, as you never know when & which illogical requirement is going to jump out and bite you. I don't know how many times I can flunk the Practice part without having to do the Theory part all over again.
I hope my cute new haircut will help.

Well, after all that high-power dreading, I'm afraid my success, welcome as it was, suffered somehow from the intervention of Divine Injustice. I guess I shouldn't be surprised; after all these are people who've been brought up by people who were brought up by people, back into the mists of time, believing in an Angry Old Man as a deity --which is bad enough-- and a corrupt, double-talking church as His Agency here on Earth. The instructions are not at all BE GOOD, nor even OBEY ME, but basically boil down to SEEM TO OBEY ME, and it makes for terrible citizenship. So I was only mildly appalled by the driving instructor's reassurances that nobody cared if I drove like this once out on the road, but I HAD to drive like this for the test. In other words, they were not teaching me to drive properly; they were teaching me to pass the driving test.
In the event there wasn't really much of a test at all; not at all like the first time round: we were summoned for 9am to wait in a chilly drafty storefront, which we did for over an hour before I made bold to enquire about the prognosis and was told that the inspector's car had broken down and that someone had been dispatched to fetch him from Rome and that the proceedings would not begin before eleven. There were three people behind the desks who knew this, and ten anxious blue-fingered candidates milling about who hadn't been told. Of course me & Bob repaired to the nearest bar for the comforts of a hot cappuccino and sticky bun. There was a specialty delicatessen next door to the bar where I found a rare & thrilling kind of cheese I'd been looking for for years, so things were looking up & by the time we were all piled into little red cars & set off to the proving grounds (at this point Bob went home to warm up) I was feeling somewhat better about life. Particularly after the instructor told us that the inspector was in a hurry to get back to town to see about his car, and would probably not be too thorough with our tests.
Then followed that endless hurry-up-and-wait business, as one by one the candidates were whisked away to drive summarily around the block (more or less) and most of them passed. A curious bit of logistics was employed: as each candidate drove off with the instructor & the inspector in the car, the remaining candidates followed in two other cars driven by people from the school. It was a silly procession, round & round more or less the same route, one less of us each time.
I was the last on the list, it was lunchtime, but the scrawny teenager with shaved eyebrows and earrings all over his face, one place ahead of me, turned out to have something wrong with his papers and this created quite an upheaval: it seems his learner's permit had been stolen and the police report of the theft was missing the all-important stamp-seal that authenticates it. The boy went into TILT. He was in the car with me and the boss-lady. She tried to reassure him that he could simply get the thing stamped next week and take the next scheduled test, which would be in 15 days' time. Fifteen whole days! It was supposed to be today! He hurled himself into a hysterical tantrum, tearing his clothes and howling that he was the most unfortunate star-crossed man on earth; the fates had shafted him, why him; nothing this bad had ever happened to anyone before; his grandmother had died the day before and he was missing the funeral for his driving test and now wasn't going to be able to do the test either; he treated us to some truly rococo swearing involving not only the standard Holy-Mother-crossed-with-various-barnyard-animals stuff, but ranging far beyond that into lots of refreshing anatomy mixtures and one particularly juicy one involving Eve herself! Then he had the brilliant idea of calling up his mother at the funeral and ordering her in pretty rough terms to instruct his uncle the carabiniere (who was also there at the funeral) to rush over to the motor vehicle inspection yard (where we were headed) with his official stamp-seal (which he brings with him to funerals?) immediately and set things right. And damned if we didn't find them all lined up when we arrived at the yard, ready to spring into action. As this remarkably cohesive family was involved in a bout of barking & paper-ruffling, the inspector motioned wearily for me to get in the car. He was clearly not in the mood, and put me through a few desultory paces, driving up the via Appia and back, a mere ten minutes with no occasion to shift into reverse, and pronounced me fit to drive. Oh sure, he managed to get in a few scornful cracks about how ugly Atlanta is (his son is at Georgia Tech) and how all Americans drive automatic shift cars etc, but he clearly didn't have the stomach for any of the high-level sadism that goes with his office, and handed me my new license as if it were sticky & smelly. As the boss-lady and I drove off it looked like the pincushion boy was going to get his test after all.
On the ride back we reflected on the implications for society of a generation of young people with no frustration threshhold at all; no sense of proportion; no capacity for relativising; no recognition of cause & effect; accountability. Instant gratification or else. This kid hadn't cared enough about his grandmother (or her bereaved offspring) to postpone his driving test in order to attend the funeral; he hadn't enough respect for his parents' grieving to abstain from calling on them to drop what they were doing to service his needs (who leaves their cellphone on at a funeral, anyways?) and he simply could not stand to imagine waiting another two weeks to take his test. All right; we don't know what the real situation was; maybe the grandmother was a detestable dragon & they were all happier & better off without her. Maybe he desperately needed that license right away to be able to take his quadripeligic brother to the rehabilitation clinic on Monday or he loses his place. Or he's just landed a job that depends on his motor-mobility to be able to keep it. Whatever the truth of it, me and the boss-lady didn't feel we wanted to drive on the same road as this kid. Beginning with his feeling free to let loose with that elaborate heavy-duty swearing in front of two old ladies he didn't know from Adam. "That's the kind of brat who bludgeons his mother to death with a hammer because she won't give him the money for a phone card ---and she deserves it for bringing him up that way", muttered the boss-lady. Either way, the inspector seemed to feel bludgeoned enough to wave us through.
Maybe this is an extreme example, but I can't help feeling it has tarnished my triumph. One would like to feel that one has met the challenge oneself; that one has studied hard, and learned the stuff, and been judged on the merits of one's performance. But that's not always possible, and I am relieved at least that I got my drivers license, whatever the process. Sigh.
That evening we met some local friends at a concert and when I described my morning's experience to them, they nodded with great empathy and understanding: "I know; I know; these things depend on the phases of the moon; the color of your shoes; everything except what they should depend on." Which brings us back to Mother Church, but I've already treated you to that one.
Actually who am I to say that pre-Christian pagan life was any more rational?
As the immediate past recedes ---and after all I did go home with what I'd come for--- I find I don't really care all that much any more. Except for a residual hankering for a little more consideration for cause & effect.