Discussion: Bill Koch club ski-O yesterday
in: US Ski-O
Apr 15, 2008 3:07 AM
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Hmm, I guess somebody has to be the 1st to post something here.
Anyway I hadn't sat down intending to do a write-up of the ski-O we put on for our kids' Bill Koch club yesterday, but ended up doing it anyway in another thread here.
The map was, well, "good enough", but any experienced orienteer would quickly be able to point out lots of weaknesses and even inaccuracies with it. But we took a pre-existing map and did a very quick update of it to make it match existing conditions as best we could. The adults there complimented us on it, and the kids all had such a good time that it must have been within their tolerance levels. :-) I'm hoping to get taught how to download orthophotos and DEM's and make a semi-accurate basemap to use to re-draw the whole thing next year.
This all took place at Salmon Hills, which, if you aren't familiar with it, is a ski center on the Tug Hill, which I'm sure you've all heard of. I'd had to design the course on paper in advance and then go stick up the controls an hour before the event started, after all the maps were printed. So it was interesting going around putting up the controls and finding some of my control locations couldn't be reached without crossing a few snowless spots this late in the year. Fortunately the trail surface was all grass/leaves and no stones! That amazed me.
And the kids of course thought it was really cool to be able to run across these spots with their skis on! One was on a steep downhill that fortunately only the older kids took, and I heard later that they didn't even come to a full stop. Just snowplowed to a slow speed then cut into running at just the right moment, and then back to sliding when they hit the snow on the other side. I wish I'd seen that!
Anyway I hadn't sat down intending to do a write-up of the ski-O we put on for our kids' Bill Koch club yesterday, but ended up doing it anyway in another thread here.
The map was, well, "good enough", but any experienced orienteer would quickly be able to point out lots of weaknesses and even inaccuracies with it. But we took a pre-existing map and did a very quick update of it to make it match existing conditions as best we could. The adults there complimented us on it, and the kids all had such a good time that it must have been within their tolerance levels. :-) I'm hoping to get taught how to download orthophotos and DEM's and make a semi-accurate basemap to use to re-draw the whole thing next year.
This all took place at Salmon Hills, which, if you aren't familiar with it, is a ski center on the Tug Hill, which I'm sure you've all heard of. I'd had to design the course on paper in advance and then go stick up the controls an hour before the event started, after all the maps were printed. So it was interesting going around putting up the controls and finding some of my control locations couldn't be reached without crossing a few snowless spots this late in the year. Fortunately the trail surface was all grass/leaves and no stones! That amazed me.
And the kids of course thought it was really cool to be able to run across these spots with their skis on! One was on a steep downhill that fortunately only the older kids took, and I heard later that they didn't even come to a full stop. Just snowplowed to a slow speed then cut into running at just the right moment, and then back to sliding when they hit the snow on the other side. I wish I'd seen that!
This discussion thread is closed.