The
Blue Hill Traverse long-O coming up in two weeks (Sun Nov 18; same day as the 1st!). The longest (non-champs) contiguous O-event in NAm (I think).
1st BHT
Be there for the 40th! Register here:
Registration 40th BHT; $18 until November 9, 2012 (EST), No registration after
November 14!
The Trolls and the founders will be there.
Awards to the firsts in among W and M! See you there (42.2176, -71.1192°)...
Looking at the first year's results, although a couple of those folks are still seen orienteering occasionally, I'm not expecting any of them to show up and run this year.
Agree. Terje (MIT): NZL O-active, Björn: SWE O-a, Helge: NOR ?,... Bob Lehman: RMOC O-a,... Ruth Johnson: NEOC O-a (NAOC'12 champ! but as W80 not up for a BHT), Don Tall WCOC ?, Barry G: NEOC O-a, Olaf T: UNO O-a. Rest: Status unknown.
Olaf (& Mette), sorry to say, are not active (concerts & bridge yes, O no). We visited them returning from the NAOC meet.
Schade! Not even as meet workers? Say HI!
Don Tall has moved south, to VA possibly, and no O these days.
Terry Hatton is living in EMPO land; mostly seen at one to two events a year. Pretty sure he's not up for BHT. :-)
Great, say Hi from me. He was a hardworking member of NEOC back in the 70ies. A quote from him in perfect British when he heard that Sharon Crawford had landed a job at the Alaskan pipeline: "Just perfect! If a grizzly gets into the computer room, she will simply toss him out." Go Sharon!
walk: Do you happen to know where Steve Tall is? He was a good junior in early 80ies.
Steve was in NJ at the time of the last great NEOC Anniversary ten years ago or so. Not sure if he's still there.
Steve might be in TX, if I recall a conversation with Don a year or two ago (or three).
According to his Facebook profile, Steve's in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.
I was thinking of using the original map and course from 1973.........
Nice! Same course; on a way better map? I say NEOC's cartography has advanced by magnitudes in 40 years.
Steve in ME! We have to reactivate him.
Same course and map? That would be an unfair advantage to those who ran it last time! (...but according to the above mentioned facts there may not be too many of those I guess...)
My view is that the course would be trivial navigationally, primarily because the simplicity of the map requires simple features. I could imagine a more typical Traverse course following the same general trajectory of the 1973 course, but with more controls and trickier navigation.
Dunno how the general race attendees would respond to either alternative.
Jeff did something different nearly 10 years ago - believe it included a B&W copy. And maybe some kind of N or mag N confusion? (i'm not going to spend the time to go looking). I wouldn't bother with the orig map. Somebody can come up with something creative, maybe 40 controls?:)
Yeah, a real retro B/W segment with a couple of original controls could be fun and educational. And a real change of perspective. Like what you did for the 25th running, coach.
I was thinking of one control location selected from each year. I actually cannot do that as I do not have all 40 years of maps, and that would make for a very long time out there.
I'll think of something.
Skips &/or forks to add to the mix of 40 controls?:) Make it interesting & my weary body might show up. Noted PG was questionable. Don't think he made it last year. Make it interesting...who knows, who shows...
Jim Arsenault said rumors about me are circulating. Mom and dad recently moved to Morgantown, WV, where Catherine and her family live. And, yes, my family and I are in Cape Elizabeth, ME (since 2011) after a detour to Texas after leaving NJ in 2007. Happy to be back in NEOC country and driving distance to Blue Hills! Will I or won't I? Hmmmm...
Steve, welcome back to NE and to the "The way life should be"-state. I'm in Camden.
My vote is: You should! Would be nice to meet you again; and I and Lena will be there. Hi to your parents. So see you!
So here is the schedule for this Sunday's race.
10:30am- carpool to the skating rink parking in Quincy.
11am- mass start.
12:30pm- 40th Aniversary Traverse party at the ski lodge. Special Blue Hills cake to be served.
1pm or so- Prizes (specially baked by H Saeger), and T shirts (artwork by Lena Bengtsson).
3pm- Everyone is finished and the party continues......
Still some T shirts still available...I can extend the entry deadline...
Lena's troll has stood the test of time. I suppose we can look forward to a new example of her artwork.
Hi all,
Is there someone willing to carpool there from the Boston/Brookline area? Need a ride :)
Thanks,
- JC
@JCB Happy to pass through Brookline/Boston on the way from Natick. Email me as needed.
Thanks, coach & Judy & all for the Traverse!
The course was a great pleasure to run, many thanks!
And we even had maps! :-)
Looks like Ethan and Andrew turned on the rockets at control 16!
Thanks for a great traverse. I had a great time.
Many thanks to coach and friends for keeping the tradition alive. My first time to the party, and certainly not the last.
For those interested, here's the map, available in
reasonably high and
unreasonably high resolution. Go forth and quickroute!
Check out the descriptions, coach added a column to note the previous years each control was used. Pretty cool.
Getting the year into the last column was a bit of a hack. I built a custom version of purple pen that allows text in that box so that I could generate the clue sheets.
Heh. You built a custom version of the program to add those in? Ed, that's hilarious. Nice touch, well done.
Previously, Ian wrote:
"I could imagine a more typical Traverse course following the same general trajectory of the 1973 course, but with more controls and trickier navigation. "
Which is essentially what I did, but a bit too tricky at 19.
So, the reason for 19 was to keep everyone from just running the trail from 18 to 20. I felt it would give such a huge advantage to a fast runner. I wanted a control in the area of 19 which would give some route choice and slow the race down at that point.
Problem though, is that I was restricted by using previous control locations, and as far as I could find, no one had used the walls or re-entrants in that area.
Note that this location is from the 2010 Traverse, CS- Ian Smith.
I had run the route twice, once straight, and once on the trail to the south, and come in on the little trail.
I missed going straight, hit the Green control actually, and bounced back off the wall end. but from the little trail end I hit it with just a bit of careful compass
So I felt it was doable without losing a lot of time if you missed.
Sorry to those who spent more than 2 minutes thrashing around.
19--of course. I had that control on my last BHT. Was there a particular issue with it?
A lot of people lost time on it, and not just a minute or two. It is in a somewhat vague and difficult area, and the rest of the course had been pretty easy navigation. It was a fine control, just different from the rest of the course. I've been lost around there before, so maybe I was on higher alert. Found it just fine.
Clearly whoever first chose that control location is an idiot.
ian - And one with a decisive competitive advantage, to be sure. Zing!
j-man - i totally pooched that control, and i've got no issue (at all!) with the placement/mapping/course setting, if that's what you're asking - any troubles were mine. I was too prepared for my turn off to be vague, and I shouldn't have used an even vague veggie boundary for a second reference. and shouldn't have used a repeated terrain feature for a third. and slow to switch from trail run to o-mode. and completely off about distance traveled. and i was pooped after chugging up the hill out of 18. the perfect storm of crap orienteering ended predictably.
For you who didn't come, the 40th BHT had some very specials; cakes and awards! 1st time, I think. Troll prints by 1st First Spouse Lena awarded to the W/M winners, age category 1sts got mega gingermen by Hillary Saeger and lastly BH cake to everybody. The T's had the same art as the prints.
The BHT'12 Cakes
BHT'12 Troll Print
This discussion thread is closed.