Training Log Archive: cmorse

Event: Shades of Death Rogaine at Hickory Run
 

Headed down to Hickory Run SP in the Poconos of PA with fellow Shenipsit Striders Jim Henderson and Megan Thompson who, though she has done many ultras, has never done any orienteering. As usual, set a very ambitious plan, CCW from HH, mostly on the 35 year old Hickory Run map at 1:15000, then back across the middle, not intending to go down to the Shades of Death map in the south as it didn't make much sense.

Our plan was just hiking, no running with an optimistic goal of 4km/hour given the green nature of the terrain - various ericoids such as Rhododendron (just coming into bloom), Laurel (just past peak), Blueberry, Bog Andromeda and a low growing species related to wintergreen, but not the one I'm most familiar with. And rocks... and ferns...

S-63 - Original plan called for 60, then 63, but looking at the vegetation in the woods we swapped these immediately and went up to 63 through the whitish wood. Slowly going around the patchy thickets and adjusting to map scale and mapping style. Slight hesitancy heading into the circle but hit it with no time lost.

60 - contoured over, trying to stay in the white but quickly got tangled in green and some rocky ground with minor unmapped cliffs, floundered about for a bit south of the circle, before trying a little higher when I spied some big ass rock through the trees. Once we managed to get up to the actual mapped cliffs and into the control it was pretty straightforward.

68 - tried to navigate the whitish gap up to trail, but it was pretty thick and very slow going. Then left on trail to junction and trail across to more open woods. Up the hill and spent quite a bit of time including some seemingly mappable boulders just depicted as stony ground before finally locating the small boulders a little further east than expected

Cut 73 from the itinerary to get back on target as the slow vegetation was putting a crimp in our optimistic per/km time.

64 - North to dirt road, stopping for a water pumping break at the creek feeding into Hickory Run Lake. Road walk out, then across the terrain from the dry ditch.

61 - back up the road to just beyond large clearing and up the rocky reentrant.

74 - a bit thick and slow going leaving the control, but then into nice open woods and flag spotted a long way of.

62 - thought we had a good line through the white woods, but apparently drifted right, getting into thicker stuff with marsh below. Came across some fairly fresh bear scat, not the last bear poop we'd see today. Backed our way out and tried to work the 'edge' of the vegetation back to the west eventually spying the obvious spur and once on that we actually found the mapped trail which was reported to be indistinct (likely why we missed it further east). Once on it it was easy enough to follow to the trail junction at Fourth Run creek where we stopped for another refilling/pumping break. The up the trail to the junction then north along the slope to the east.

65 - North, attempting to find the white gap but got seriously mired in laurel thickets and got into pretty marshy bits as well, so must have been too low, but there was a lot of more serious marsh to our west so not 100% sure. Finally freed ourselves of it and popped out about where we wanted able to follow rocky reentrant up to small marsh.

78 - down reentrant in fine woods, then along trail to depression, followed reentrant to control

69 - attempted the straight shot hoping lighter green might be somewhat passable. It wasn't, got seriously mired but managed to find the indistinct path headed north which had been attacked with loppers in the not too distant past, but a narrow corridor of low laurel and 8-12" stubble made for slow going. North on that to the stream and a little beyond, where the woods got a bit easier.

37 - major readjustment of the plan, down the marsh and managed to find the mapped trail, which had been noted as indistinct in the meet notes, and was hidden behind some blowdown, but once we found it it was rather pleasant travel under the canopy of the Rhodies. Stopped for a refill/snack break at Fourth Run. Hot in the sun on the powerline, then did a map switch to 1:10 at the junction. Spooked a small 3ft black snake out of a tree as I brushed past, realized than the tree was making a lot more noise than warranted by my gentle brush past it. Into the woods fairly simple control on the newer map with more contour detail

39 - back across powerline, then downslope in vaguish woods, but Jim found control off to our left without too much time loss. Thicket turned out to be a large, lone Rhody.

79 - up along west side of N/S marsh, then a bit slower going in, but no problems. Alexis R. was taking a break a short distance from control before heading on.

40 - Start of the Grand FuBar - in an effort to further pare our adventurous plans, we elected to head straight west and pick up the trail S toward 88 & 87. But I got my thinking backwards from the course notes and was thinking the distinct trail bend was the maintained part when in fact it was 'unmaintained' and in fact undiscernible in the woods because we never saw event a hint of it, meandering a long way further west wondering when something might make sense and give us a clue where the hell we were. Lot time lost until we finally stumbled on the long straight bit of trail just east of the big hill top, where we picked up the pace a bit and then south on the Manor House Trail. Down to stream junction and headed west to 88. Which, after a lot of wandering and relocating off of what we believed to be the correct clearings/marshes, failed to locate anything resembling the control. Then much debate on next plans - heading west toward 87 on a prayer and then down to PA534, or back tracking and heading homeward. Figured it didn't make much sense to get further from the HH this late in the afternoon, so back to the trail/stream where we camelled up again and had some snacks. Since this stream junction was barely on the corner of the Sand Spring map - back to 1:10 and headed straight at #40 - missed and hunted for a few minutes but eventually found it.

35 - basically a beeline, hitting solid trail junction perfectly enroute then through woods to trail, road, stream (steep down and up) and right into reentrant. Confidence boost after close to 2 hours of zip...

38 - working on the newer, more detailed map was nice, I took lead on this one, navigating and trusting the mapped features - up spur to stonewall, then taking a bearing at the stony ground and matching features as we went to the distinct spur - another solid spike, moving slower than we had been, but not struggling.

91 - again straight on features, Jim in the lead spot here. Gorgeous open woods in the distinct veg boundary, control sitting nicely on the far side of conifers.

94 - down to the road junction, then along road to reentrant crossing, then straight at it on features. Had to hook around to the R at the end due to some blowdown stuff, but right in.

34 - SE to clearing, then out onto the road into the sunshine - pretty brutal in the sun, glad we were mostly in the woods all day. Down to the powerline, then in for a simple spike.

F - A bit of a laurel fight to get into the more open woods, but then over to the dam at the lake, across spillway and into the finish just under 9 hours. Jogged the last 100m or so to say that we had, in fact, "run" something today. All else was just power hiking, as had been the plan from the start. Glad to be done.

Changed out of the nastiest clothes and shuffled up to the beach, which was packed, but found a fairly less crowded bit over near the lily pads. Water pretty murky but assume that was just sediment kicked up by the 100's of kids and families in the water. Felt good to cool/rinse off.

To be continued. Me thinks I'll go for an easy run now before it gets too stupid hot out...

Results - 11th of 29 overall, 2nd Mixed Veteran

RouteGadget

Writeup (with photos) over on Facebook

C • route 4

Headed to Hickory Run w/ Jim & Megan.

Arrived late, sub-8 to catch up, then easy. Cool, misty.

Another gorgeous evening. Easy pace at Howard, then pushed moderately up the 1 mile carriage road. And Lucky Taco afterwards.

Nice cool day. Easy on the way out, somewhat brisk on the way back.

My Garmin 235 doesn't have great battery life these days when recording. At the 6 hour Fat Ass in January I had to plug a portable battery to give it a boost after about 3 hours of running. No way its going to go 10 hours on Sunday.

So opted to set it to barebones operation - no GLONASS, smart recording instead of 1sec, no HR, no Bluetooth, no Notifications. Fully charged it last night, started a track and went to bed. Well we are coming up on 10 hours now and its still running with some battery reserve left so that's a positive sign. However, I appear to have traveled almost 5km in my sleep and have covered another 2km this morning walking from the bedroom down to my computer. Don't put a lot of faith in 'smart recording'. But we'll see what the track looks like in a bit...

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Just gonna leave this here for now. For a chuckle. 9:52:33, 4.367 miles.

C • accuracy 5

Hadley walk. With A&J. Overcast, humid, but temps around 70.

Quick round in before the rain started. Also planted the final straggler bell peppers than have been languishing on the breezeway.

Had planned on a shortish, easy run heading into this week before the rogaine in PA, but Jim was walking, so rogaine pace training it was. Nice day, discussed some plans for Sunday.

Contrary to what the track says, I did not start at the neighbors house..

C • neighbors 4

Battery charged so did another round. Nice breeze today but still very steamy when sun comes out.