Discussion: Maps!

For anyone who wants a copy of the various exercises for posterity (or for quickroute), here they are:
Control pick
Windows/corridor
Attackpoints
O'tervals
Relay 1
Relay 2

Thanks, Alex.

Just fyi - you linked the relay2 map to the windows/corridor exercise. But even without that map it is a good set of exercises and I hope to get out there and complete them one of these days.

Whoops. Thanks, fixed it!

I hope your blister heals soon - bad blisters are terrible. Thanks for coming out anyway!

Never (or only once) having done a windows/corridor exercise, can you explain the instructions given with the map, when the orienteer needs to do while navigating with it, and what skills it builds?

I can infer possibilities for the corridor exercise, but I'm not sure what's getting exercised in the window case. Are you trying to get people to navigate by other than an obvious route that is blanked by the window? Should people avoid entering the blank window area or run blindly on a bearing?

In a window orienteering exercise you are working on building compass and distance estimation as well as relocation skills. One is expected to traverse the blank window area (run blindly as it were) and then use the terrain information in the next island of map information to relocate and find the control. A link to the o-training wiki.

It is good to be aware that even when you are in the white area you are navigating. You should use your compass, and you track how much distance you have covered and you should be keeping your head up, ready to pick out the details that will bring you back into map contact.

What Ross said. For me a big part of the windows exercise is distance estimation, since that is something I'm terrible at. There is also the added benefit that you want an attackpoint for when you exit the blank spot, so your head is up looking for that, a behavior we want to encourage!

I'm sure we will do this again at our Pawtuckaway camp in May, so sign up for that! We'll have all sorts of diabolical exercises available =)

I assume that it is customary to always set the course so that the blanked out area consists exclusively of open, runnable woods. Because running into fight or a swamp that's not shown on your map would be no fun at all.

I've done some of these where there were cliffs in the blanked out areas, forcing you to find a way up and then adjust your direction again at the top (or bottom) (or other side). I did grumble but it's not as bad as a nasty New England swamp would be.

Yep, avoided swamps and nasty prickly things but not thick vegetation, that's just a fact of life around here. At least we were training on one of the few eastern-MA maps that actually SHOWS where the veg will be thick, as opposed to most other maps in this area, which just show it as white. Makes it easier on the course setter to know ahead of time!