quickroute1 - Took trail to where it seemed there might be a clump of vegetation, headed uphill and looked for some boulders. Saw the control flag from 'afar'.
2 - Ran straight through the clearing and again saw the control flag from 'afar', but not as soon as I should have had I scanned farther ahead of me.
3 - Went 'straight' uphill from 2, around the left side of the hill and planned on staying 'above' the reentrant and took note of the deep ravine (?) to my left. Hit the trail before I was expecting to and had to climb back uphill a bit to locate the control.
4 - Followed the wavy trail up to trail intersection the left the trail to look for stone wall. Can't seem to re-envision the scene now.
5 - Back to the trail, crossed one stream and looked for the next. I was expecting to see cliffs, but didn't. Saw the flag instead though and the number was right.
6 - Went up and aroudn to find the trail, then turned right. Turned off the trail when it felt 'about right' to. I think I did see the bare rock on the right of the trail, before I turned off the trail to lok for the control.
7 - OK. I headed back on to the trail, and the plan was to stay on the trail till I "see the wall", then follow the wall to the corner. Actually, I'm not sure what exactly happened here but here's what I remember doing: I was running along the trail, and I was expecting to see the wall 'on the right'. Once I see the wall ahead and to the right, I thought, no need to stay on the trail any longer till it intersects, so I left the trail
to my right to meet the wall. The wall was too long...no corner in sight, and of course, no flag in sight. Just couldn't figure out what portion of the walls in that section I was at. It was especially frustrating because there were only a few sections, so why couldn't I orient myself? I had even seen the flag at one point but was so throw off that I said "that's not it, leave it be". I had to find the trail again (no mean feat) and tried again. This time I followed the trail until I actually hit the wall, the located the corner and saw that same old flag, right where it should be. I think what happened in the first place is that I went off the trail right at the point where it was turning. I was so focused on the wall ahead that I didn't notice that i was in fact leaving the trail to the left rather than to the right because the trail was turning to the right, probably right at that point. Mystery solved.
8 - Headed up hill at 45 degree angle from the corner of wall at 7 and looked out for reentrant.
9 - Planned to follow contour around the hill, but dropped more than i had planned, and curved around less than i planned, and found myself on the trail before I knew it. hit a trail interesection, and luckily realized which trail I was on. Also, I knew I needed to keep the hill to my left and be on the look out for cliffs on the left. Headed down hill shortly after spying the cliff and looked for boulders.
10 - Took the trail till I spied the wall, and I guess I hadn't learned my lesson from 7 because I left the trail and headed straight for the wall again. Luckily, the trail wasn't doing anything funky here so I followed the contour that the wall was aligned with until I saw the flag.
11 - Sigh. I should have followed the wall to the trail but I thought, trails are for wimps. If I headed in the right direction, I would cross a stream the trail and in the worst case I would hit the wall (literally), so how hard could it be? Well, I crossed the stream pretty soon, though it was pretty dried up. I thought I would see the trail but I didn't, and decided to just keep running ahead. I could hear the road traffic to my left and said I just need to keep running in the same general direction. Relieved when i saw the wall. I hit the wall near the eastern end of it. Looking at the gps I ended up right where the control point was but I didn't know it at the time and I didn't see the control point though I didn't really look. Decided to just start from the tip of the wall and take a 45 degree angle path from it up the hill.
Finish - SIGH. I oriented my map completely incorrectly. Bad compass! Ended up on a trail that didn't make sense at all, actually ended up along side the road...turned back into the park. Thankfully, saw peter and phil sprinting to the finish so I followed them back home.