Discussion: Scout Camps With Orienteering Maps

I am entering in to discussions with a regional scout council about having their two camps mapped to orienteering standards with a view to creating venues for orienteering meets and better material for them to teach map and compass techniques to their scouts.
In the exchange of e-mails I've had they seem sceptical and wary.
It would help, I'm sure if I could refer to examples of scout camps that have been mapped and who invite orienteering on their grounds. If you know of any can you send me examples in the United States- name of camp and governing council.

Contact OUSA's Exex. Director Glen Schorr. He has been working with the Scouts on just such arrangements and in the last year actually visited the BSA Headquarters for discussions.

I will also add that we, NTOA, have a pretty good working relationship with the Scouts. We have 4 maps on Scout camps: Longhorn Council's Sid Richardson, and Circle Ten Council's James Ray, Camp Wisdom and Clements Scout Ranch. The Scouts actually own the Sid Richardson map because they paid for its production. The others were paid for and made by NTOA. The Scouts get to use the map free of charge at any time. We are guaranteed access for one weekend per year, typically in the winter months.

RMOC has a great map of Peaceful Valley Scout Ranch in Elbert, CO. We can only have meets there during their off-season (i.e., not in the summer when all the scouts are there), but that has worked out fine.

We're fortunate that one of our members, Brian Coleman, is very active in the Denver-area scouting organization, so he has been our liaison for Peaceful Valley and for a few other maps we have in the works. Brian created a permanent course and training guide for the scouts at Peaceful Valley, along with a trail map of the entire ranch. Plamen Djambazov used Brian's data as the basis for our O-map.

If you want to talk to Brian, email me and I'll send you his contact info.

As a general policy, it makes sense to come to an agreement to map (to orienteering standards) private lands so long as the land owners agree in writing to allow X number of public orienteering events to be conducted on the property periodically (like annually) by your local OUSA club. In the agreement, also make clear who will own the map copyright before any significant work is undertaken.

If they won't or can't agree to having public events on their land, then it can be a disadvantage to both the local club and to that group's members to make a map for them. People who might have come to your club's regular meets, where they would presumably benefit from good instruction and courses and a sense of the O'community, won't. On their "private" maps, they might have marginal instruction, on an increasingly out of date map, and with questionable courses. It's not in their interest or your club's to promote that, even aside from the sunk costs of volunteer time and effort to make their map.

Fire Mountain in Mt. Vernon, WA (CascadeOC map)
Camp Naish in Bonner Springs, KS (OKansas map)

OCIN (Orienteering Cincinnati) has 2 mapped camps in Dan Beard Council: Camp Friedlander (including adjacent Camp Craig and Cub World) and Camp Michaels (Northern KY, will be practice area open Thursday and Friday of next week for this year's Flying Pig).

For both camps:
1. We have permission to hold regular club / public events. We contact Council office for available dates. They do not charge us for access, but for large events we can pay for a facility rental (eg a dining hall). Although they have sometimes let us use the hall without a payment.
2. We sell maps (as many as 250 at a time) to the Council, which they re-sell at significant markup through their Scout Store in the council HQ. I think the initial batch was sold on consignment but they now pay for orders each time. A big batch lasts a couple years - it has been quitre a while since they ordered any.
3. There are permanent courses at each camp. These maps (a portion of the camp map) are available for free download from the council website (this may also have contributed to a reduction in sales of unmarked maps).
4. OCIN owns copyright, maintains (updates) the maps, and sells at our own events. We paid all mapping costs.

Indiana Crossroads Orienteering (ICO) has several boy scout camps mapped. Camp Ransburg, Camp Belzer, Bear Creek Camp. They seem to be able to use pretty regularly. In their arrangement with at least one camp (Bear Creek), they offset printed a large number of maps and the scouts hold copyright. For ICO events, maps are re-sold to ICO for sale to their members. This had the advantage of getting money up front for fieldchecking and map printing for a cash-poor club. But it has the disadvantage that we have to keep buying 10 year old maps instead of printing event-specific updated versions. Since ICO only uses the camp once every two years, selling 50 or 60 maps, this is definitely not a cash cow for the council, and with color printing now so much cheaper, it just strikes me as an arrangement that should be renegotiated.

Many other clubs have camp maps and arrangements seem to be similar to OCIN. Other examples in my area include: Miami Valley Orienteering Club (MVOC) has Woodland Trails Camp and Cricket Holler Camp. Central Ohio Orienteers (COO) has Camp Lazarus.

Orienteering Cincinnati also has a relationship with Girl Scouts of Western Ohio (formerly Great Rivers Girl Scout Council). The girl scouts are more restrictive than boy scouts on camp access, but they have recently classified us as a "program provider" rather than an "outside user", which may potentially give us more access than our one public event per year which is held in conjunction with a weekend training program specifically for scouts.

SLOC: Near St. Louis, we have maps of Beaumont Scout Ranch and S Bar F Scout Ranch (site of a US Champs in 90's). This Saturday we will
help host the annual Boy Scout Champs at Beaumont which consists of Beginners' courses and a one hour Score O' for most of the scouts. Most go in groups. It is a very popular activity. We do have access for local O' meets, about one a year. I believe that each Ranch has permanent O' course markers.

I don't know the details of map production and ownership. (I could point you to sources if you need that info.) This is the Greater St. Louis Area Boy Scout Council, one of the larger councils by membership in USA.

Obviously, BSA and Canadian scouts are different. But if you pick up a copy of the BSA orienteering merit badge handbook, and you will see a full color ISOM inset of one scout ranch. Sid Richardson?

I made an ISOM style map of "Scouters Mountain" in Oregon, for use in a scout-leader training session (very unimpressive cartography, not really worth sharing). Getting access to make the map was no problem, since I was a former employee and knew all the camp rangers. I don't think the map has gotten much use since I left, but it was used once for a "Scout-O" event, which allowed general public in addition to Scouts.

Here in the Bay Area, BAOC has a nice map of Tamarancho Scout Camp, Marin Council.

DVOA has several scout maps:
Camp Rodney (adjacent to Elk Neck) in Maryland - held the Interscholastics there, maybe late 1990's?
Camp Delmont in PA
Hawk Mountain in PA
Camp Horseshoe in PA

NEOC has a map of JN Webster Scout Camp in Ashford CT - I'm not sure what the official agreement with council is on public usage though - it is used somewhat regularly for Scout-O events but I'm not aware of any public meets held there. I conducted a Venture crew training exercise on it last weekend. Still in pretty good shape, though a few things have changed in the past 10 years.

I've been to a regular public meet at JN Webster. NEOC also has Nobscot Scout Reservation which has gone through a few revisions and has been in use since the 1970s. I've mapped a couple of small Girl Scout camps in Massachusetts and New Hampshire which were used briefly for GS purposes only. In addition to the Peaceful Valley map that bbrooke mentioned, RMOC also has Tahosa Scout Ranch, which I think hasn't been used for a while, due to some parking issues and the fact that it's a difficult map to set easy courses on. There are also three maps at Philmont that appear to have been beautifully done, but which haven't been used for regular orienteering meets in a very long time due in large part to their remoteness.

For my club, the boy scout camp has been rather high maintenance. The many construction projects at the camp make updating the map a constant headache. Access to the camp is limited to scouts and scout leaders, so an orienteering mapper must be escorted by scout personnel.
The general public at the local state park are glad to have a high-quality orienteering meet for a very reasonable cost. The scouts, on the other hand, seem to be annoyed by the costs and complexity of getting their orienteering badge.
If you have a mapper who is also a scout leader, keeping the map up-to-date will be much easier. Also, be prepared to absorb the costs of orienteering; scouts are very "thrifty".

QOC supports numerous scouting events that take place on public lands but use QOC maps. The maps are licensed for single-event use, and are usually customized with BSA logos, the event name, other text, and even customized punch card layouts (if they're not using epunching), and if they have designed courses, the course maps are prep'd for printing. The licensing fee varies (it's lower for nonprofits like the BSA), but as approved by the QOC Board, it now includes a $1 per map unit fee to go to OUSA. This is the equivalent of the per-start fee that all clubs pay based on starts at regular club events, but since plenty of orienteering, by the BSA, JROTC, etc, does not wind up in our club start numbers (since technically these events are not run by QOC), their starts take place "off the books" while really being heavily supported by QOC. So we feel it's fair to consider this the equivalent of a QOC start. We encourage all clubs that support "off book" orienteering by the BSA, JROTC and other groups to collect the current per-start fee and voluntarily remit it to OUSA.

>Access to the camp is limited to scouts and scout leaders, so an orienteering >mapper must be escorted by scout personnel.

That is plain sick. I guess they are afraid of you molesting their sacred grounds.
I wonder what makes you accept such embarrassing terms.

It's private property, owned by an organization that has a lot of concerns about protecting the children in its care.

JJ is absolutely correct. Safety of the scouts take priority over everything.
If you want to access the grounds, join as an adult, agree to all the background checks, receive the appropriate safety training and then you can access the facilities.

Camp Rodney, MD - DelMarVa Council
Pipsico Scout Reservation, VA - Tidewater Council (Omap but could use some work)
Quail Hill Scout Reservation, NJ - Monmouth Council

HVO has Clear Lake Scout Reservation, which has seen use for an A-meet and a Billygoat. (Not sure if it's still scout property, though, I have a recollection that maybe the state recently acquired it?)

Clearlake was originally owned by scouts and in the cross hairs of a Japanese company who wanted to build a golf resort on it. The state bought it from the scouts and leased the land back to them.

For what it's worth, not all Scout camps are so strict as what haywoodkb describes. BAOC uses Tamarancho for public events on an annual basis. All we have to do for course setting and map updates is call up the ranger and let him know that we are coming. They have been very easy to work with.

Ditto for most of the PA Scout maps.

Many scout organizations, like those in the Bay Area and PA, have figured out that it is not the occasional visitor that poses the greatest risk to the children, but the people to whom they have the most exposure: the adult leaders. That is why, as Bernie says, they must submit to a rigorous screening and training process.

It's not that different from the precautions required if you do something on public school property.

Thank you all for the tremendous quick reference to mapped scout camps across the States. (BTW The camps that have my attention are in SW Florida)
Thank you also for the information about different use agreements.
After asking my contact that he just arrange for me to go through one area to see how useful it is for orienteering he arranged for permission and I paid a visit with garmin, map board and pencils in hand. The scouters I met were VERY welcoming and looking forward to having a good map of the area. Their comment "Got to it. Do your thing and we look forward to seeing what you produce."
I'm in awe of the area. The terrain detail is much more complex than any I've seen in Florida. Unfortunately the heavy vegetation cover hid it from the USGS photogrammatrists so there's a lot of work to do bringing the terrain reality (and the variety of vegetation) to the map. However the main camp area and most of the surrounding trails are on flat land. IF ever SW Florida get to hold the Orienteering USA SML champs this is the site for the Medium or Sprint, for sure.
Thanks again all.

Glad to see that others are supporting scout orienteering.
The scout web site has some training that would be good for anyone working with young orienteers. Create a free account at MyScouting.scouting.org and look for the "Youth Protection Training".
If you want to be an orienteering merit badge councilor, you will need to fill out a form 524 and send it to your local scout council.

@haywoodkb

From Wikipedia, scout oath begins “On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God….” Thus, I personally would not support this brain-washing sectarian organization in any way. I feel, OUSA mission is to promote orienteering in public civilized setting, developing programs for kids, open to everyone, as top priority.

So does the Girl Scout promise. And the Pledge of Allegience, for that matter. As an atheist, I skip that part and say the rest. I have never had a Scout of any type try to stuff religion down my throat. The general public on the other hand...

Gord, keep in mind that you might get access to useful basemapping data for this area from at least two sources. Specifically, high resolution orthoimages through the OUSA/Pictometry arrangement, and LiDAR data through the National LiDAR page on Wikipedia.

And before the nattering nabobs of negativity get a chance to say it, this isn't meant at all to discourage you from checking out any other source of data as well, especially ones that might be lower cost or higher quality etc etc.

But whatever you do, get the best basemap you can. If the vegetation hid contour detail, LiDAR may well be able to capture it.

I tried the National LiDAR information and got to the Manatee County download for the coastal Florida project. What I got was a whole lot of files with extensions that my computer doesn't recognize and instructions are not clear enough to show me how to get the right program.
That being said I have gone to several county GIS pages and downloaded their viewers. Lake County in the Orlando area provided me with very good LiDAR information on the contours of a state park I mapped there. However here on the Florida west coast it seems the land is usually so flat they don't seem to bother listing contours as one of their information sets. That goes for Manatee, Sarasota and Charlotte counties at least.

Aside from contour data, the LiDAR data, whether point cloud or derived models, might be useful for vegetation mapping if they're available. Contact me directly if you'd like help searching or working with them.