Training Log Archive: Swampfox

O' run north of Devil's Claw map on the base map, after doing some mapping. Rain threatened the whole time, but held off until right before the final few controls; once rain starts falling up in the hills, it gets chilly fast!

Very nice terrain, and a sharp transition from the north edge of Devil's Claw--some of it is strongly hilly and requires an interest in running hills!

Orienteering at Remarkable Flats. Spotted one bull moose, which was actually pretty hard to miss, given that it was lying down on some bar rock right on my route. Only smallish antlers, so he's probably safe from any hunters (but maybe not from poachers.)

A week ago we had early snow, and today Laramie registered a record high for the date of 82F. Ha--that's weather for you!

Offhand--I might have it wrong--it seems like this is the first record high we've had for 2014.

C • Early snow 1

Back from a quick trip down to Colorado, where the task at hand was to update/revise the Kell-Dahl map by Nederland, CO. Kelly-Dahl was used once before for a national event, back in 1986, I think. It's hilly but not hugely so, and mostly covered in lodgepole pine forest, except for the parts which were logged about 2 years back. Though not large, it's quite a nice area with good runnability, a forest that shifts back in forth in terms of visibility, and a fair bit of rock, contour, and mining detail. Though not large, it can easily accommodate an "A" meet blue course with good course design--perhaps using a map exchange.

I was armed with the old map and a lidar base that I prepared over the winter. This was the first time I had worked with lidar in the field. The lidar data quality was quite high, and the contours I was able to generate were very good on the ground. To me, the original contours from photogrammetry had a bit of a "squishy" feel in parts of the original map--something that could probably be attributed to the amount of tree canopy and quality of the photos used.

Now I just have to get the field notes drafted into the lidar base and the map will be ready for use at a local event on Oct 11.