Orienteering race 7:06:30 [4] 25.01 mi (17:03 / mi) +5178ft 14:15 / mi
shoes: Salomon SuperCross Blue
Crooked Compass, Solo
I drove up Friday night and got there around 230am. The campground was gated so I drove down the road to the furnace parking lot and set up "camp" there. I wasn't able to sleep at all. My stomach was off a bit. The rest was still beneficial and I think I dozed off for maybe 15 minutes which was enough of a reset for my brain.
This year's course went South from the parking area. We had an out and back to the furnace as a prologue (not on gpx). After discussing with Mark and Andy, I decided to go up the trail instead of going off-trail to the top. This enabled me to run most of the way up and I could run down the mountainside at the end and contour over after getting the point. I had briefly considered going the other way primarily because it would have allowed me to use a significant stretch of road across the top once getting there.
After I got to the top I went CCW which was really the only option. We were getting a map part way through and you had to go CCW to get the map before you got to the controls where the map was. Some of the terrain was a tad broad but still distinct enough. I took a direct route to B but should have taken the trail. Longer and some extra climbing but the woods were rocky and thick, i.e., slow.
I got off track on my way to I. I was never confident and eventually got back to the trail to confirm my poor route. Looking at the gpx I can see at one point I went W when I should have been going S the whole time.
Got my map for the CP in the MTB area and then got 2 CPs on my way there. I slowed to a walk through the entire MTB area. There were too many trails too tightly packed to do anything but that. I pretty much found everything exactly as expected. The trails were super gnarly.
Moved back to the big maps and continued to knock out points moving S. I kept a pretty good bearing to X. Then turn back N to the finish. The creek at Z was beautiful. Then I had some troubles. I decided to attack the points on top of Hamburg Mtn(?) in a unique order. I was hoping to leverage the road to climb the mountain and avoid some cliffy spots. But it didn't really help. And it ended up making my navigating tougher. I found the hilltop fine but had to choose between two spurs at AA and chose poorly. I should have guessed the western one but I wasn't sure how far I was and the western one was maybe about to end. When I did realize it was the western one I was too far and had to come back slowly along the rocky spur. I did spot a fox though.
Next I had to cross the broad hilltop again and find Y. I decided to pull out the baseplate compass and do it right. I had been having trouble with this compass (not pointing N) but it appeared to be working the day before and right now so I set the bearing and went. Turns out it was off again and I hugged too close to the hilltop and didn't hit the spur I was looking for. Fortunately, I realized it just in time to cut straight over to the CP.
Total time lost on these controls was 20 min. The more logical route might have been faster and definitely would have eliminated navigational errors.
I had a quick descent down the mountain to some nice fresh mountain water and then continued moving back N. I started climbing to P and thought that P looked plotted on the E side of the spur but couldn't find a rockslide. Overattacked up to the trail and found a huge rockslide but no control (it wasn't the right spot anyway). I made my way back down from where the trail crossed the spur on a bearing looking W for more rockslides and the control but got to the end of the spur and no luck. Walked back up to the trail and did the same thing back down this time with a better being based on GPX and this time pace counted. About 2/3 of the way to my distance I happened to spot the control. This was a tough control because the control was effectively on a hillside and the clue was general ("top of rockslide" which was 200 m across) and it was hard to travel only along the top of the rockslide but maybe I should have done that first. Lost about 15 minutes. I was hungry and moving slow at this point.
The rest of the controls were clean and quick. I was extra careful on HH because I thought the trail turned to early so I came down the side of the reentrant which I think was faster since the reentrant was full of large rocks but I was moving slow due to my uncertainty. But the further I got down the reentrant the more confident I became. Ran down the mountain back to the finish. Slipped just before crossing the creek and got a bad cramp just before getting to the finish.
I definitely had to rely more on my compass and bearings at times due to the terrain. A few of the times led to my big mistakes. Other times it just meant moving slower but I managed to keep a good bearing.