Discussion: 11-12

I thought I heard Tony say he went that way. Now that it is easy to put up routes, it's fun to see the many different approaches we all take - some with quite different results.

Yup, I think it's a good route too. You were 22% behind on that leg, compared to a median of 31% behind.

I had the second half of that route, but the first half makes it much better. The picture you posted of #2 appears to be a minimum standard of how much magnification I need. I got to the point just N of the control and looked at all the cliffs for a moment in some perplexity, before deciding that was the only other reasonable place I might expect to find it.

I approached 2 along the line, slowing by the big boulder to look caarefully across the reentrant, at the map and check the compass. Compass lined right up. Headed there and up the rocky slope to the cliff and, lo and behold, the bag. Compasses are cool;-)

Well, I think there is no way to tell from the map which way the cliff was facing. If a cliff is not attached to a contour, it should have a tick mark showing which way is down. Otherwise, it's just a guess, which is what it was for #2 on Sunday.

The cliff is on a contour line actually. It's a bit masked by the stony ground symbols but it snakes around to show a nice spur before continuing around the reentrant.

I thought cliffs had to be on a contour, at least that's what I was taught when I learned to map. Occasionally I've even inserted an extra form line in order to hang a cliff feature off of...

The contour is pretty evident in PG's nice enlarged view while sitting at a computer, but I could easily see missing it when running and having to slow way down or even stopping to fully make sense of it..

The updated Mt Tom map has a bunch of cliffs not on contours. Sometimes it looks a bit weird, as if the cliff were floating in space. But other times, such as when there are multiple cliffs in a close area with different elevations, it makes for greater accuracy.

Nothing wrong with a formline. Mt. Tom could use some more of those, plus a contour job in general.

#2 was the same on Green. I read the spur as a reentrant, and thought the bag was on the wrong side of it when I punched, but I had no problem finding it after crossing from above the big boulder west-southwest of it and up over the hill, heading toward what I thought was the reentrant. Compasses can be handy sometimes. :-)

As for Tony, I thought I saw him approach Red 12 (Green 9) from the trail to the east, crossing the stream (just ahead of me) and then up and over the hill.

I generally put cliffs on contours but the ISOM spec says it's ok to place them independently. As Boris notes, if the facing of the clif is ambigous (and it can be, even if it's on a contour), then tics are appropriate.

I think the map in this case is fine. I just didn't read it right. And I also didn't use plan B -- get yourself to the center of the circle and just look around, even if you're not sure exactly how the terrain lies.