Training Log Archive: Nadim

Event: QOC Lake Needwood - CANCELLED
 

Hoyles Mill Conservation Park, MD. From the lake at the Soccerplex, I started to cover a small area for BMX and mountain biking. What I'd pulled off old imagery and the LiDAR led me to believe there'd be a small network of grassy and dirt trails. However, a big section of that was left to disrepair from deadfall. It had become badly overgrown with thick forest grown over what was left. I could sometimes find trail remnants. After an hour an a half of that, I decided to move-on. However, as I was in the power lines and about to switch maps, I couldn't find the current base map that I'd printed. I concluded that the base map had slipped from my folder. I suppose I panicked and switched plans to use the remaining base map in my folder--easier to map stuff in Soccerplex and the thin surrounding forest. That thin forest was pleasantly surprising for how open it was. There were also enough scattered features and a deer trail (the deer were rather tame and curious, even following me at one point). In one part of the nice woods I found a sort of stick hut village--one big structure with rooms, roof, and corridors made entirely from sticks laid against and on top of each other. There was also a classic teepee. These should be around for a while so I mapped them. I finished up walking through part of the Soccerplex to capture what I hadn't from the satellite photos.

Hoyles Mill Conservation Park, MD. From Hoyles Mill Rd. I started getting a higher quality track of a trail and the narrow tiny green patch of forest it's in. then I covered a nearby patch that I'd only started going through previously. It too was mostly green, but light enough to get around in, and with some white forest with low vegetation--mostly scattered barberry. Making a drafting mistake early with this, had me running out of room on the paper as I curved back; I wanted to write underneath where I'd already written. My GPS tracks and waypoints helped some but weren't accurate enough so I'll have to go back to the area again. Later I went downstream along the Little Seneca Creek. I found an intermittent trail along some of the banks. It's probably used by deer more than people but I had seen a father and son in the upper parts with 2 rubber rafts. The trail took me to the mill area so I fixed some of my earlier mapping and then I fixed the detailed boulder area I'd mapped before too. Later I spent a lot of time making vegetation tracks to divide out the green and light green from the white forests. There was more of the former but I did find good collections of rock along the way. I was hard to make sense of it while following vegetation boundaries but I imagine it's also going to be very difficult to navigate to some of the point features with little to recognize around them. Unfortunately, I have also now seen the beginnings of stilt grasses starting to come up. I hope I can finish-up a couple sections of deep forest before it gets too bad. The areas I was in today will pretty much have to be for early spring and winter orienteering.

C • nice photos 1

From Northfield Rd., to Norfolk Ave., then back. I went out to get lunch for Max and myself.