Deer Lakes  Park
Comprehensive Orienteering Training
9 April 2017

It was an excellent day for orienteering; lots of participants (61) showed up especially for the beginner sessions.  Surprisingly, there were few ticks to be seen in the forest; many had  been seen during course setting and vetting.

Joe Logan  designed all of the courses except the intermediate one and taught both of the beginner sessions.  Jim Wolfe also taught one beginner session, splitting the participants with Joe.  These sessions began at 11 am and 1 pm with 26 participants and 20 participants, respectively.  Everyone on those courses seemed to have a good time, even though none found all 20 controls in their score-format course.  Jim Wolfe designed the intermediate course and taught the intermediate session which began at noon and had 12 participants. Many of those in the intermediate session expressed appreciation and felt they learned something significant for future orienteering.

The three advanced exercises consisted of a trailless and clearingless course, a fog-o course and a short-term memory course.  The trailless, clearingless one was the most popular with at least 12 people going out on it.  This was designed just like a normal short course; however, all trails and all clearings had been removed from the map.  Almost everyone completed this course in under an hour, Ryan Knecht being the exception as he did a "tour of the park".  The fog-o course was also designed like a normal course; however, on a straight line between controls and for 50 meters on  either side of that line everything was erased.   7 people tried this course.  For the short-term memory course, participants were given only a punch card to carry.  A map at the start showed the location of the first control and maps at each successive control showed the location of the next.  Participants were allowed to study the maps as long as they needed before going to the next control.  6 people tried this course.

Thanks to Sherry Shank, Laurie Opila and Ryan Knecht for handling registration.  Thanks to Laurie Opila and Ryan Knecht for doing start/finish.  Thanks to Ryan Knecht, Yaki Barak and Alexis Rzewski for doing control pickup.

This was a training event; there are no results.

Lost & Found:  A pair of women's or girl's glasses were found; you can see a picture of them in Alexis' photos.  A drinking bottle with a green top was also left behind by someone.

To see Alexis' photos, go here