It's pretty well known that ISOM are in the process of being updated right now. It's less well known that an effort is also underway to revise ISCD (International Specification for Control Descriptions) in large part because the existing specification is almost entirely inadequate in terms of being able to meet the exacting demands of modern Trail Orienteering (which its adherents more popularly refer to as "the sport that doesn't use whistles.")
So, we have set aside Daze 4 this year as the race where some of the new proposed symbols and modifiers will greet the light of day, with hopes of soliciting useful comment and feedback from the competitors. The following should give you some taste of what will be coming. Some of the views you are about to see are actual views runners may experience during the Daze 4 race, and you should not attempt to adjust your web browser (unless it is Windows Explorer.)
Many people will react to the picture below by exclaiming: "Ah, a root stock control, excellent!" Actually, there is nothing excellent about root stock controls. At least 98% of them (at least on US maps) are sheer rubbish and should never have been mapped in the first place. And this isn't a root stock control anyway. The chances of a root stock control ever being used at Laramie Daze are exactly zero.
So what it this, if not a root stock control? This control shows the use of the new "bag in the forest" symbol, which is represented by a control icon in column 4 of control descriptions, and is the result of fierce lobbying of the IOF for same by JJ Cote', whose personal motto is: "When you see a culvert, crawl through it, rapidly."
Some people are also probably wondering if that's what all the forest looks like at Brown's Landing. No. That's just what beetle killed parts of the forest look like after being shaken and stirred by those friendly Wyoming breezes.
*****
Many people will now think they are ready to grasp that the next control is also "bag in the forest":
Unfortunately, they are wrong. The control feature here is "distinct tree" and since it is so tiny, it gets the column 5 modifier "soooo tiny" written in 1 point type. The new ISCD will add a column 9 for additional useful information, and this control is a prime example of how the new column will come into play. In this case, the letter "Y" will be shown in column 9, indicating "area of yellow flowers." See how much better that is? You just run around, look for yellow flowers, and then identify the distinct tree. Couldn't be easier!
*****
This next shot gives a good idea of what much of the tougher footing portions of the interior of Brown's Landing look like.
Control #1 should be in plain sight, but for the life of me I can't see it, even though I know where to look. So I doubt you can see it either:
Once some years ago I was running down the trail in the photo; dusk was not far off but the day remained still warm with late afternoon sun, and right where the trail goes into the trees, I was surprised to come across a couple in the act of disrobing. I couldn't be sure what was going on, but the girl was singing: "Why Don't We Do it in the Road?"
About the last thing in the world I was expecting to experience while running through Brown's Landing that day was someone singing a 12 bar blues song by the Beatles. True story.
*****
This next shot shows the control "the boulder". But it's hard to tell on the map just which boulder.
And that's why in column 3 the new "one of many" modifier is used--a bunch of random lines with a black dot on one of them. Additionally, the "thumbs down" icon will appear in column 5, which means the feature in question should never have been mapped in the first place.
*****
This next control may look like "the cliff", but actually it's "the snowfield, top of" The snowfield is shown by a snowflake icon in column 4, and "top of" is shown in the usual way. But here column 9 comes into play again, with a "skull and crossbones" icon appearing, showing this is a very bad place to slip and fall down the perilous snow field.
*****
Whoa! What's this! It's an actual man-made object that I made and which is also on the map! And it's not just any old man-made object--it's a tipi. Tipis may not be very common in Venice, but out here in the Rocky Mountains, they're everywhere.
Admittedly, this isn't one of the better tipis you'll ever see, and in fact it may be one of the worst. But it has a control inside it, and that's what makes it magical. And that's also why runners will be looking very intently for this particular tipi during Daze 4. Give it an "X" in column 4 to show it's a man-made feature, the word "tipi" in one point type in column 5, and the new modifier to show "inside" is portrayed by a box with a dot inside it, in column 7.
*****
This is one of 12 knolls used for the Daze 4 course. Knolls are easy to pick out on the map at Brown's Landing because of their size, and that made them good control features, too. Hard to accidentally hang a control on a boulder or a diffuse pit when what you had really intended to do is to put it at the top of one of the giant knolls.
This is one of the smaller knolls at Brown's Landing, and that's why this control feature got the "low" appearance modifier in column 5.
There is a control up there, by the way. Look hard. You'll find it.
Some people think that skymning only happens in Sweden, but this photo is proof that skymning also occurs in the Laramie Range. At least it does in sommartid.
If you don't know Swedish but can correctly pronounce "skymning" anyway, then give yourself a gold star!
*****
This next photo is also the last photo (sorry, Brooke, but all good things must end eventually), and shows "the nose". However, since the control is placed in a very ambiguous location somewhere on the nose, the "ambiguous" modifier--a question mark, in column 7--is deployed. And to add an extra degree of emphasis that the course setter has absolutely no idea where on the nose the control is, or even if it's a "nose" at all, the "ambiguous" modifier is also inserted into column 9.
This photo also makes clear that despite the fact you, the racer, have come so far to reach this point, you still have to somehow get down the hill, and you don't have all day to do it, because the effin (that's technical language we won't get into here) course closes at effin (again, not the time or place) 12:00!!! Run to the control, punch and move on, or stop and smell the sage and take in the view--choices, choices...well, we all have to make our own choices, don't we?
The craggy peaks at right background are Vedauwoo, which is where climbers go to defoliate their hands, and where orienteers go to camp when they don't know they should go to Yellow Pine instead.