Training Log Archive: cedarcreekIn the 1 days ending Sep 13, 2008:
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Saturday Sep 13, 2008 #
Note
I'm setting a few courses for a Boy Scout troop at Hueston Woods SP, Oxford, OH
Course set-check-pick 30:00 [1]
shoes: Nike Trail (Blue)
About 2.5 hours at Hueston Woods SP. Pretty much a nightmare day. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong.
I needed to check out the map beforehand, but last weekend was completely full. I was in a conference all week, so there was no way to get to the park before dark any night M-Th. Friday I had a commitment at my nephew's school, and it again would have been dark.
When I got to the park, I had about 3 hours to put out controls---doing the first look at the map v. terrain---and then to drive to Oxford to print maps. That's only about 25 min round trip.
I had 31-50 minus 42, so 19 controls. The second control was the start of the problems. I had set all the courses to use a segment of 2-wheel vehicle track along a powerline. It was a very bold trail on the map, and I figured it would certainly still exist. Well, it didn't. I guess the trail was from the last clearing of the powerline by the electric company, and that was obviously long ago. (The powerline is *freakin* thick fight, except for the mountain bike trails, which are awesome.)
So what was an easy 70 minutes of setting controls became a 2 hour nightmare where I reset the course with no pen to record the changes. This included using only the control stand numbers I was carrying, so...(foreshadowing)...I sensed the opportunity to screw this up.
I set the course around all the group campsites, since (1), it is rude to run through other people's camps, and (2) it should be a reasonable thing to skirt a campsite on trails made for that purpose, right?
On my second trip by the affected group site, I stopped in to tell them scouts would be running by and to ask if that was okay. In unison 3 of the 4 people shook their heads no, "That's not okay,"and I heard pretty much the ultimate trump card hit the table..."We're having a wedding by that big tree."
I looked over at the tree (mapped as distinct by the way), which I had noticed as I set the control on the spur behind it, and which I could now see as a bright white-orange-blue splash in the background of every conceivable photograph of a couple in front of that tree.
So...grasping at straws..."When is the wedding? How long do I have?" "Seven." "Oh, that's great. We'll be done by 5, maybe 5:30." "Well, that will work." Then thanks and apologies and best wishes for the wedding, and I was heading for the copy shop.
I took in my laptop since the last time I was there Mike hadn't loaded Condes or OCAD (I got lucky with an old install file of OCAD 8 from my thumbdrive). I adjusted the courses and then exported to OCAD. We do that so we can print 2 or 3 up, which Condes can't do. When I loaded up the map and imported the course, though, it didn't match up. Usually that's because I forgot to set the print scale to 1:5000 in Condes, but I had. So I spent about 25 minutes figuring out that the map file in OCAD, which said it was 1:10000, must have at one time been 1:15000. When I set the scale to 1:15000 in OCAD and saved the file, Condes was able to export files which matched up, and which had normal size clue sheets. Earlier they were like 10cm wide and 30cm high.
So I printed maps, paid for them myself (I'm donating them to the Troop), and hurried back.
Again, long story short. The start was hours late. Luckily the schedule was loose, and the kids just did more mountain biking, which they loved. I gave a 10 or 12 minute presentation by writing on a big pad of paper, and while I explained in painstaking detail how to check the number on the stand against the control description, ***I completely forgot to mention the fact that the controls were in the right spot but the stand numbers might be wrong.***
For a while I thought that all the White runners went backwards (following the Yellow runners). That would have been catastrophic to the White course, because the trail mapping was so bad I used the placement of the flag to put them on the right trail (in a few places). It was seriously advanced navigation backwards. But...it turned out that they didn't. Everyone I asked went the right way.
The kids told me they had fun, but hearing the confusion caused by the stand numbers was just painful to me.
The adults seemed really interested in coming to our regular local events, which is a real step forward---The scout master and the assistant scout master are very cold to real orienteering. They always seem a little disappointed with my events for them because there isn't a compass course. The one time I did one (at a weekly meeting where the goal was actually a compass course), they loved it. So maybe some of the parents will bring their kids to our local events.
I knew I was taking a risk by not getting to the park in the days before the event, but I never expected it would go so wrong. I was most amazed by how much the trails were different. There were a lot of new trails, but most shocking was the old trails that were just gone. Erased.
It was a good day to be outside. At home it was hot hot hot and muggy, but in the park under the trees it was amazing. Barely hot, but comfortable. And they even fed me dinner, cooked in Dutch Ovens.
I needed to check out the map beforehand, but last weekend was completely full. I was in a conference all week, so there was no way to get to the park before dark any night M-Th. Friday I had a commitment at my nephew's school, and it again would have been dark.
When I got to the park, I had about 3 hours to put out controls---doing the first look at the map v. terrain---and then to drive to Oxford to print maps. That's only about 25 min round trip.
I had 31-50 minus 42, so 19 controls. The second control was the start of the problems. I had set all the courses to use a segment of 2-wheel vehicle track along a powerline. It was a very bold trail on the map, and I figured it would certainly still exist. Well, it didn't. I guess the trail was from the last clearing of the powerline by the electric company, and that was obviously long ago. (The powerline is *freakin* thick fight, except for the mountain bike trails, which are awesome.)
So what was an easy 70 minutes of setting controls became a 2 hour nightmare where I reset the course with no pen to record the changes. This included using only the control stand numbers I was carrying, so...(foreshadowing)...I sensed the opportunity to screw this up.
I set the course around all the group campsites, since (1), it is rude to run through other people's camps, and (2) it should be a reasonable thing to skirt a campsite on trails made for that purpose, right?
On my second trip by the affected group site, I stopped in to tell them scouts would be running by and to ask if that was okay. In unison 3 of the 4 people shook their heads no, "That's not okay,"and I heard pretty much the ultimate trump card hit the table..."We're having a wedding by that big tree."
I looked over at the tree (mapped as distinct by the way), which I had noticed as I set the control on the spur behind it, and which I could now see as a bright white-orange-blue splash in the background of every conceivable photograph of a couple in front of that tree.
So...grasping at straws..."When is the wedding? How long do I have?" "Seven." "Oh, that's great. We'll be done by 5, maybe 5:30." "Well, that will work." Then thanks and apologies and best wishes for the wedding, and I was heading for the copy shop.
I took in my laptop since the last time I was there Mike hadn't loaded Condes or OCAD (I got lucky with an old install file of OCAD 8 from my thumbdrive). I adjusted the courses and then exported to OCAD. We do that so we can print 2 or 3 up, which Condes can't do. When I loaded up the map and imported the course, though, it didn't match up. Usually that's because I forgot to set the print scale to 1:5000 in Condes, but I had. So I spent about 25 minutes figuring out that the map file in OCAD, which said it was 1:10000, must have at one time been 1:15000. When I set the scale to 1:15000 in OCAD and saved the file, Condes was able to export files which matched up, and which had normal size clue sheets. Earlier they were like 10cm wide and 30cm high.
So I printed maps, paid for them myself (I'm donating them to the Troop), and hurried back.
Again, long story short. The start was hours late. Luckily the schedule was loose, and the kids just did more mountain biking, which they loved. I gave a 10 or 12 minute presentation by writing on a big pad of paper, and while I explained in painstaking detail how to check the number on the stand against the control description, ***I completely forgot to mention the fact that the controls were in the right spot but the stand numbers might be wrong.***
For a while I thought that all the White runners went backwards (following the Yellow runners). That would have been catastrophic to the White course, because the trail mapping was so bad I used the placement of the flag to put them on the right trail (in a few places). It was seriously advanced navigation backwards. But...it turned out that they didn't. Everyone I asked went the right way.
The kids told me they had fun, but hearing the confusion caused by the stand numbers was just painful to me.
The adults seemed really interested in coming to our regular local events, which is a real step forward---The scout master and the assistant scout master are very cold to real orienteering. They always seem a little disappointed with my events for them because there isn't a compass course. The one time I did one (at a weekly meeting where the goal was actually a compass course), they loved it. So maybe some of the parents will bring their kids to our local events.
I knew I was taking a risk by not getting to the park in the days before the event, but I never expected it would go so wrong. I was most amazed by how much the trails were different. There were a lot of new trails, but most shocking was the old trails that were just gone. Erased.
It was a good day to be outside. At home it was hot hot hot and muggy, but in the park under the trees it was amazing. Barely hot, but comfortable. And they even fed me dinner, cooked in Dutch Ovens.