Deer Lakes  Park
Comprehensive Orienteering Training
19 May 2019


It was a very hot day for orienteering, sunny with a temperature about 80.  We had a total of 45 participants in the beginner sessions, 4 participants in the intermediate session and 21 participants on the advanced exercises, for a total of 70.

Joe Logan  designed all of the courses except the intermediate one and taught both of the beginner sessions.  The first beginner session was split because it was so large; Sherry Shank taught half of the participants.  These sessions began at 11 am and 1 pm with 31 participants and 14 participants, respectively.  Everyone on those courses seemed to have a good time, with a number of parents saying that their children especially enjoyed it.  Jim Wolfe designed the intermediate course and taught the intermediate session which began at noon and had 4 participants. Jen Livingston also set up the Pac Man challenge course and had 15-20 of those on the orienteering courses try the challenge at one or more skill levels.  Participants seemed to enjoy the addition of the Pac Man challenge to the day's activities.

The three advanced exercises consisted of a trailless course, a fog-o course and a short-term memory course.  The trailless one was the most popular with at least 19 people going out on it.  This was designed just like a normal short course (about 2 km); however, all trails had been removed from the map; finishing times generally ranged from 1  to 3 hours.   The fog-o course was also designed like a normal course; however, everything on a direct line between each two controls (and for 50 m on each side) is erased; only the area inside the control circle was normal.  3 people tried this course..  For the memory-o course, the map at the start showed only the first control; participants could study this as long as they liked but could not take the map with them.  There was a similar map at each succeeding control showing the following one.  Only one person tried this course.  

Thanks to Kevin Fisher for vetting the courses.  Thanks to Sherry Shank, Barbara Johnstone, Mark Puda and Laurie Opila  for handling registration.  Thanks to Lee Bash and Barbara Johnstone for doing start/finish.  Thanks to Alexis Rzewski, John Huffman, Lee Bash, Hunter Bash and two other scouts  for doing control pickup.

This was a training event; there are no formal results.

To see the photos that Alexis took at the event, go to here

Our next event will be on August 18 at Blue Spruce Park.  This event will have five cross-country courses.