Discussion: Speaking of Night-O...

Since Night-O is under discussion on another thread, I thought I should put in a plug for an upcoming night-O. At UNO's camping weekend at Pawtuckaway on September 9, there will be the traditional Vampire-O (fine for kids and families), but there will also be a night-O suitable for you hardcores. I should get this information up somewhere on the UNO site, but since many of the interested parties are here on Attackpoint, and I'm thinking of it right now, I'll mention the specifics:

World's Hardest Night-O
1) Mass start, for all "courses". Goat rules, feel free to follow.
2) Pre-marked maps, so it would be good if people who think they're coming send me an email (jjcote@juno.com) so that I can make sure that I print enough maps.
3) Everybody gets the same map. Do the first four controls, that's Brown. The first seven is Green, the first nine is Red, and all 12 makes Blue.
4) All aspiring entrants must be recognized by the meet crew (i.e. me) as generally competent orienteers, or else make a reasonably convincing case that they know what they're doing in the dark with a map. Known bumblers should do the Vampire-O and have more fun.
5) All entrants must show that they are carrying two independent lights. If you find yourself without a light on this course, you're likely to be out there until dawn.
6) This is no cakewalk. This is an excursion into the belly of Pawtuckaway in the dark of night, and Pawtuckaway gets mighty dark and hungry. (The shorter courses don't get very far into the belly of Pawtuckaway, but the longer ones definitely do.) This map is fearsome in broad daylight, and at night, it's downright vicious. I know. I've tried to vet controls there in the dark. Is it really the world's hardest night-O? Beats me. I suppose they probably do night-O in places like Lunsen, and that's got to be pretty tough. But I expect this will pretty darn challenging.

Any questions?

Lengths:
Brown: 1.72 km
Green: 3.10 km
Red: 4.28 km
Blue: 6.37 km

There's a night-O at the sprint series finals weekend too, set by none other than j-man hisself! This is the annual night-O of the DVOA training weekend.

Uh, oh, can I use Clem's light?

Its actually not a night-o, but a dark-o. To level the playing field, no one will be permitted to use a light of any kind (partly because USOF's power meter is on the fritz). We will, however, be serving apples and oranges.

I can't get any work done I'm laughing so hard...

How does the difficulty compare to the infamous night O' at Garden of the Gods a couple decades ago? Can it really be tougher? Let the games begin...

Any questions?

How come there are two number 5's?

JJ forgot to switch to the other hand? :)

The extra #5 is fixed (I had inserted #2 and failed to fix all of the numbers).

I've never been to a GotG night-O, but I'll note that there's good visibility there, as well as some prominent landmarks (on and off the map) that are always visible. You could always bail out without too much trouble, I'd think. Pawtuckaway in the dark, under the hemlocks, is more like being inside an attack badger.

Sounds sweet. I'd love to be there, but I'll be at the also fabulous (and much closer to home) B.C. Champs.

so presumably one does not need to declare which course before starting? I could aspire to blue, screw up really badly, bail, and call it a brown? I'll be there, now I've just got to fashion me a Hatlamp....

I would have expected the world's hardest Night-O to be somewhat longer than 6k, even at Pawtuckaway... Wish I could be there.

You could re-run the mega course. Might be tough to get that finished all in the dark.

I could skip the first 29 controls. Although I think some of the man-made controls may no longer be there?

Length should not be a requirement for a hard Night-O. Dark thickets are much more intimidating. I'll be there.

Length is a difficulty factor for any O race, because as you get tired you make more navigational mistakes.

If this had been last year, with the all-star field, I might have made it longer. If people come back and say the course was too short, I'll lengthen it in future years. But if two hours goes by, and nobody has finished the Blue, I won't be too surprised.