Discussion: Scouting new map locations

New Mexico Orienteers is looking to add maps around the state. What makes for a great map location?

How about this one?: http://www.emnrd.state.nm.us/prd/cityrocks.htm

Would these piles of rocks make for good orienteering terrain, or would there be too much "bingo"? Not much vegetation to get beat down...

City of rocks would indeed be a cool place to map.

I've always wanted to start a club down where I used to live near Alamogordo. I think the terrain up in the Sacramento mountains would make for fine orienteering. But I'm nowhere near there now. You could just pick some sections of the surrounding national forests and make some maps - doesn't have to be just the geological oddities like COR. Is there still talk of mapping part of the Vales Calderas now that its semi-public?

But going back to the geological oddities, I think a night-O at white sands NM would be awesome. Its open on full-moon nights. Not sure how fast the map would change though.

NMO has made a small map inside the Valles Caldera, in the Valle Grande ("big meadow"). Most of the map area is visible at a distance from pull-out observation points on highway NM 4. Due to concerns about cultural resource protection, to date VCNP has allowed NMO to use the map only when the ground has snow cover. Hence, for snowshoe/ski-O. http://www.nm-orienteers.org/node/20 has a photo gallery from our February 2010 ski-O there. As you can see Valle Grande has some groomed X-country ski trails but the orienteering courses tend to get into powder (or grass, if the snow has drifted) and due to the terrain and many livestock fence lines and small map area there is scant route choice or technical orienteering. Rolling terrain and bogs in the grass meadows do require technical skills, away from the fences, but the skyline of the caldera rim is visible almost everywhere. Scenery and atmosphere often are spectacular, but IMO the orienteering itself is dull.

For high-excitement competitive ski orienteering a great venue would be Pajarito Mountain Ski Area, just over the caldera rim from Valle Grande. Driving between the two takes maybe 25 minutes?

For night-O at White Sands, would you allow headlamps?

Sure, but not necessary to see where you are going. Might need a light to see the map. Maybe a red one to save night vision. Never tried an O-map using a red light though.

I learned to tele at Pajarito. I really like that mountain - it has a ski club feel to it. The terrain in the Sacramentos might seem dull too. I dunno. It would be ridge and valley, with grassy bottoms and pine-fir-aspen ridges. Varies alot with altitiude of course so you could get tremendous variety on a single map. The whole mountain top would make a great rogaine venue.

Is there anything interesting east of Espanola on the slope up towards the Pecos? Above camel rock. Seems like that transition zone from the eroded sandstone mesas into the higher forest would be an interesting zone to look at. I guess you'd have to be above the reservation inside the NF boundary.

The state is so huge it seems like there would be a need for more clubs. Its gotta be like 3-4 hours from ABQ to City of Rocks, right? Huge state, no people. That make it nice but difficult all at the same time. How about 4th of July canyon on the east side of the Manzanos? Start at the campground and work a section into a map from there.

How about Philmont?

One of the things to think about is having a variety of maps, including areas that are close to large population centers.

So, thinking of that, a campus map of UNM would be a nice sprint venue and much less of a hassle to get to than other places. Also, there was a campus where NMO held a meeting the winter I was there, in Santa Fe, that seemed like it might be nice. Of course, a street-o map in downtown Santa Fe would be fun and offer possibilities for events incorporating social activities.

The Petroglyphs areas on the west side of ABQ would be fun - not the most technical, but pretty different and close to people. But maybe the fact that it's a National Monument would be a problem?

Every time I drove between ABQ and Santa Fe I passed a section of land that looked like it would be pretty fun - lots of erosion features. Unfortunately, I have no idea who owns it or whether it would be practical to use. I'm not even sure I could describe where it is other than on the east side of I-25 to the north of any major ABQ development...

There's also some really gorgeous stuff on Mt Taylor, at least for a rogaine, if not for regular O.

It seems like Philmont would be an ideal place for an o-map, with thousands of visitors a year who are familiar with map and compass work.

Incidentally, I "earned" orienteering merit badge at Philmont, without doing any of the official requirements. I didn't know that orienteering was an actual sport until 8 years later...

I've never been to Mt Taylor - always wanted to go. It just sits out there by itself like an 11,000' zit.

There are several IOF-standard O maps at Philmont, though by this point they're getting pretty old (from the 1980s, I think, too lazy to look it up right now).

Sugarite State Park near Raton. Most of the other parks and monuments I can think of are either lakeshores or historic/archeology sites. But there's plenty of BLM and forest service land. I think alot of the area between Santa Fe and ABQ is reservation, but I'm not sure. Aguerie springs and the Organ Mtns down near Las Cruces might be a possibility. Also Hueco Tanks in TX. Franklin Mtn park - also near El Paso looked interesting the one time I drove through. Valley Of Fires SP - but its mostly tough, black lava.

There are several IOF-standard O maps at Philmont

That is news to me (!) but makes perfect sense. I need to talk to the Philmont SAR guys more often...

Yes, a lot of the terrain along I-25 between Abq and SF is reservation and out of bounds. A good candidate in the Santa Fe area is the Caja del Rio west of town, either up on the Caja or north east down below it. City and county trails now go out that far and there is a municipal golf course and athletic fields (with parking and toilets etc).

We looked at the open space around St Johns College in Santa Fe. It looks very nice but private property boundaries make the usable space very narrow so force an out-and-back course design with almost no room for route choice. Hyde Park in Santa Fe is another narrow parcel. Another problem is we now have no active members in Santa Fe. Everyone lives at least an hour away.

In Abq New Mexico Orienteers has a small map at the Elena Gallegos Open Space. Problem there is we are required to stay on trails, but the location is so exotic and gorgeous and convenient... It could be a good venue for trail-O, if management would permit course setters/vetters/pickups to go off trail. The EGOS connects to Cibola National Forest so there is potential for a future much larger map.

How is the NF terrain on either side of Hyde? Seems like you could expand that map a long ways out from the park. Also the area around the base of the ski area.

east of Espanola...

BLM and NF are options there, except for the lack of adequate parking at most trailheads. We have that problem on our largest map near Los Alamos. We need to look more closely at venues with large developed picnic or camp grounds. At big meets access to undeveloped locations usually is by shuttle ... from some nearby ample parking lot. We have not many of those here in New Mexico!

Great ideas! I am especially interested to know more about old maps at Philmont.

How is the NF terrain on either side of Hyde? Seems like you could expand that map a long ways out from the park. Also the area around the base of the ski area.

How big a nuisance is it to deal with two different agencies, in the case of a map area that includes a state park and a national forest?

Eddie, at Ski Santa Fe are you thinking of Big Tesuque? That's a great idea. Hm. NM SAR gets a lot of calls there; maybe I should look at all our SAR hotspots...

It looks very nice but private property boundaries make the usable space very narrow so force an out-and-back course design with almost no room for route choice.

Something I learned at the Vancouver Sprint Camp was not to underestimate the utility of very small areas. See this example of a course from an exciting race in a very small area: Renfrew. It was a mass start race with forking, and with ~50 people running all over this tiny map it was a lot of fun. Less than 2km, but lots of quick decision making.

Some of our members say forking, butterflies, etc requires electronic punching. What do you think about that?

I think they're mistaken, since most of that sort of thing predates electronic punching.

I tried looking up the info that I have on the Philmont maps, but it's in a WK1 filer (Lotus 123, I think), which my current computers refuse to open. However, I opened it up in Notepad and dug through it, and here's what I think it says:

Miranda 1:10000 5m 1973
Crater Lake 1:20000 25f 1973
Urraca 1:15000 5m 1984

I don't have copies of any of these, and don't know whether anyone at the scout ranch remembers that they exist. Michael Rounds of RMOC is probably the best resource, as he has ties to Philmont and may have at least one copy of these maps.

Agree with Christina's comments - don't underestimate the value of well made maps of small local, semi-urban areas. You might find the most spectacular area of technical terrain in open forest - but if there are no trails and it is only good for the elite courses, and 26 miles down a dirt road - well what's the point? Depends what you are trying to do, of course what your goals are, and what stage of development you club is at etc....

I can see their utility. In fact, I'm planning a mapping project of a small schoolyard, one where the school building is in the center, on a terraced slope. Where I need help is persuading club members opposed to devoting resources here that a small, confined area map has value and that butterfly and fork designs can be "fair" even without electronic punching.

The sticking point seems to be the concern that an astute competitor might gain an unfair advantage by punching controls out of order. Eg, on a butterfly by punching the center control 3x on the first visit.

Course design is a divergent topic; should I start a new discussion thread?

a map exchange ( or even two if need it ) is a good idea if trying to leave away "unfair advantage"

an astute competitor might gain an unfair advantage

That's true, but to what end? It makes about as much sense as filling in random letters in a crossword puzzle and being proud that you solved it.

Besides, this is a club training event and should be taken as such. Sure the controls can be taken out of order etc and the runners will have a very fast time. And they will use their winnings where?

Yeah, for a small club event you could even forget about punches and have everyone touch the bag instead - it's not very much fun to pin-punch 20 times in 10 minutes. ;-)

(How I wish these threads were actually threaded...)

City of Rocks State Park has a road and camp sites circling the rock formation, but the entire park formerly was a square mile. A few years ago, the state acquired more land, increasing the park to almost 2 square miles. Now I hear an even bigger acquisition is pending, that will push the size to over 4 square miles. Now we're talking about a great venue. Of course, it would still be very isolated.

I was the adult adviser for a couple Philmont crews in the late '90's (and also as a scout in the '60's). I got copies of all the Philmont maps when I went out and checked a couple of the areas. I have the maps at home and will get them out when I get back from DC.

The undergrowth in many areas was very thick, and off trail travel was difficult. However, one of our itineraries went 15 miles out of the ranch north into the Val Vidal national forest area. This was open forest and grassland, with rock outcrops. No trails in this section, it was a cross country bushwack using a USGS topo map. The staff at the destination camp was surprised when we showed up at lunchtime; usually the crews staggered in around dinner. It helped that our route finder for the day was M16 US champ that year. The Val Vidal area would be a fabulous rogaine venue.

I met with Philmont HQ staff about orienteering and they were receptive to a more active program. They also recognized it would take updates to their maps even at that time. Not living anywhere close, couldn't do any followup.

At Philmont I have spent some days around Ponil camp. I remember heavy undergrowth in that area, but not far upstream in the Barker Wildlife Management Area (next to the Valle Vidal) the forest floor was far more open. Not gallery forest though. Even without accounting for the wildfires and bark beetle outbreaks in the past decade, older Philmont maps would need updating to reflect major changes in trail usage.

Press release today: Northrop Grumman Presents Geospatial Data to Boy Scouts of America's Philmont Scout Ranch

Just let me know when you want a base from that lidar.

Making initial base maps won't be a problem. The hard part will be doing field work on the initial maps to bring them up to IOF standard in detail. Brian Coleman, who is connected with RMOC, ESRI, and Philmont, called me to talk about this. I could do a manweek or so of field work myself, if provided with logistical support. Between NMO, RMOC, and NTOC we should have ample people.

Would it be possible to have an open event at Philmont? I never got there as a Scout. I'd love to go to an A meet there.

Would it be possible to have an open event at Philmont?

I hope so. Brian Coleman and I discussed it. We bounced around a couple of idea. One was Philmont and orienteering clubs in the region hosting a public meet on the second weekend of the orienteering training program they offer to Scout troop leaders in the Summer. Another was RMOC and/or NMO organizing a meet in the late Spring or early Fall when the Scouts are gone. That might be really popular with Scout troops in the region.

Philmont Scout Ranch has a long history of working with New Mexico Search and Rescue Council (NMSARC, formerly NMESC) to host field training events and conferences. I have spent a couple of weeks there, participating in SAR-related events.

Finally remembered to look up my Philmont area maps:

- Urraca North, 1984, Michael Stern -- close to the Tooth of Time
- Crater Lake Area, 1973, Goran and Gunnar Ohlund "famous Swedish Orienteering racers" -- very crisp map, even at 1:20,000
- Montezuma,1987 -- south of Philmont at Armand Hammer United World College

Wow, someone else has a copy of the AHUWC map?! That's where I started orienteering (well, we called it "navigation") as part of search and rescue. We used empty milk jugs as controls, which worked pretty well except that they tended to disintegrate after being left out all winter.

Wow, AHUWC has an orienteering map?! I have heard from SAR oldtimers about searching for milk jugs. The navigation part seems to have been forgotten.

@Una: I have no idea of its origins or current status, but when I was there ('89-91) there was a 5-color orienteering map including Sebastian Canyon and the area north of the campus.

We used USGS topo maps for the "day course", a very long course that went well north. There also must have been a map for the area around the reservoirs to the south, since there were one or two courses set over there - it may have been USGS (I'm sure it wasn't a 5-color O map), but I don't remember it well since that area wasn't used as often. (We had special permits to use that area since it was the city water supply.)

Found my copy of the AHUWC map - 5-color, 1:15000, 40ft contours, dated 1987. It does cover south of the campus as well as north, so I was mis-remembering about not having an O-map for the area around the reservoirs.

@arthurd: Thanks! That seems to be the same map kadley has, and I now have a scan of. Double checking: does your map have 4 patches of dark green fight (burn areas)?

@Una - Yes, the always-fun impenetrable scrub oak.