Laramie training course weekend -- Day 3 @ Superfly Marsh.
Another full night of sleep -- yay. Got up early and had time for breakfast and news-reading. But maybe I should have skipped the news reading and left earlier, because this was the most remote map of the three days...(quite a ways out on dirt roads after leaving the highway).
It was a beautiful day, but VERY windy. Looking at my tracks, this was my best day of the weekend. It's a very open area, so it's easy to match the map to features you can see from a long way away. But the map also had some rocky, less-open areas, and I certainly wouldn't call it an "easy" course.
I intentionally took wide-around routes to #7, #8 & #10 to avoid the worst of the marshy, swampy stuff at the stream crossings. But, leaving #6, I went down the wrong reentrant and that took me out wider than I had intended. I knew where I was, though (the long line of cliffs along the side of the reentrant was obvious), so I was able to recover.
That leg to #10 -- oof. I briefly considered going "full speed, no mistakes" way around on the dirt roads. But, since this was training, I told myself I should go straight through and practice actually navigating. It went according to plan -- YES!
I might have lost some time if I hadn't seen Sverre leaving #6 and #13, but otherwise I was on my own. Another super-fun day of orienteering!
Then I had to rush back home to unpack, shower, coordinate a bus-stop meetup with a friend, and get to Chautauqua in Boulder for a concert (Brian Setzer). I hate that frantic feeling, but I made it, barely on time, and was able to finally relax once we got seated at Chautauqua -- whew.
Vladimir & Steve at #1.