Discussion: Solo youths (even shadowed)...

Solo youths (even shadowed) are so rare at SLOC meets, that I tend to think of the pairs and families who want a 'good hike'. So my local Yellows are a bit long and true Yellow. Also, there were a lot of features in that area due to 1:15000 scale. But with Yaya and Patrick G coming up, maybe we need to start offering a true White.

Big thanks to Patrick for spending a lot of time with Yaya at the playground. Lots of kids and watchful parents around.

The vegetation did catch me off guard. I guess that I'd claim that there was always 'some' nearby feature to work from. EG #1 had reentrant to left and had a short reentrant below the small boulder. #11 (the depression) was probably most nebulous - being a short leg, bearing from #7 was best attack - tough if one misses it on frist attempt. (Correction: I did attack #11 from #7; of course, you had to find it from #10 - more challenging. ON Sunday AM, I did raise the bag a bit above the depression and hoped that nobody would tear down my stick.) All of this is subjective and easier at my pace than yours :).

I'm glad the weather cooperated (dry, not too hot?) - I enjoyed setting a Blue course for 'you guys'.

I think in another few weeks, all the controls would be quite fine. #1 and #2 both seemed pretty invisible to me. I hit the right reentrant for 1, but couldn't see the rockface or marker. I was about 50m low, which is a miss for sure, so I have to take responsibility for that. In the case of 2, I again found the right reentrant but couldn't see the feature or control even though I was much closer, probably only about 20m high. I then spotted the larger rockface with control on the Green course and ran over to it. Upon checking the code, I realized where I was and found the right rock easily, but it was a 3-minute mistake.

Both of those errors could have been avoided if I had factored in the vegetation and been more insistent on looking rather than just moving on when I didn't see something. Later in the course, 10 and 14 were both obscured by unmapped features (fallen trees), but the control locations were distinct enough that I didn't have any trouble with those. I didn't have any trouble with 11 either, but I remember thinking, "how am I going to spot a depression in this crap?" I attacked it high (following the top of the rocky area) figuring it would be easier to see from above and that worked fine.

Again, good course setting and I really am not complaining, just a bit unfortunate with the visibility. Then again, low-visibility nav is something we rarely get to train around here, so maybe it was a good thing.

As for White/Yellow, I don't think we have any kids that are going out solo, so we could stick with Yellow. It might make sense to shorten it a bit, though. Not really sure how you'd do that from the shelter at Hawn since the stream and ridge really limit your options, but something to think about at other venues.

Thanks for the critique - it is reasonable and fair.

#1 was my toughest choice in terms of hanging the bag: high and visible from 50 m downhill or behind 0.8 m boulder. I chose the latter; but lower vegetation would have made the boulder more visible.

The deadfall near some controls made me make an arbitrary choice of above or below; which really doesn't matter since 1/2 of people will be on 'wrong' side. A confident orienteer who knows he's in the right reentrant tooks behind deadfall; but if not quite sure about location, he has to decide whether to look behind every deadfall or try next reentrant - lots of time lost - "I've been there".

The vegetation and control visibility remind me of several courses in the NE - those were a challenge!

If it's a choice between white or yellow I'd prefer to see a yellow course. Benjamin (8) won't go out on white anymore, he thinks they're too easy. I'm hoping his experience on orange this weekend, which wasn't all that bad really, will convince him to stick with yellow next time.

I agree. But a short White (1.5K?) - "How fast can you run it?" is a good challenge too. But still go out on Yellow or Orange. But this is where the lack of a cadre of White or Yellow local runners hurt - with a cadre, they'd push each other pacewise.

I talked to Will just a bit about their strategy on Orange 5. He seemed to have a good strategy, "Go to top of knoll and come down." (that was my intended attack point for that control.) But it didn't work - wrong direction would suggest map orientation and/or compass work. If I remember correctly, they skipped 5 & 6, but then finished rest of course. So on a true Orange course, they did persist and did some good map reading. That's the first time I remember seeing them out there. Bill - having one person as dedicated starter sure helped us out!

I was glad to help!

Will used to come to meets 3+ years ago. Hasn't been to any lately. Had some knee problems and then got into the teanager "I'd rather sleep" years. Benjamin really enjoys it, so I'm hoping he'll stick with it.

Fran had to talk Benjamin out of doing the green course!