Training Log Archive: Mr Wonderful

ARGH, quick route shows I was on the wrong reentrant. That explains why there wasn't another one. The clearing is unmapped, surprise! At least I can pick off where to mark it.

Alright, orange is fixed up a bit, added two points back in, although now the tape designation is wrong on a couple but they were always going to be wrong since I didn't write down the non punch bags. Couple legs are too easy, but one isn't. I can find it reliably now, but 2006 Mr Wonderful would have trouble. And they get to play off trail.

Streamering all 40 controls for Peach Mountain.

Biggest problem was out of date vegetation mapping. When I course tested with a friend, he went a way a skilled orienteer would go, and came out scratched up in a foul mood. I thought he must've missed the marked clear route through. But I found no such route today. Two choices existed: Move to another place that does not have the same issue...or about three hours later I realized I could mark it out of bounds. That may have been easier! A bit frustrating when you were using a dark green area as "thicket, north side" to originally hang your bag, but that thicket was more runnable than the rough open to get to it! But it was totally unfair so I had to do something.

Locating a feature I liked that didn't dog leg too much took a while. And I tried to err on the tricky side, which meant confirming my location from a couple directions.

Same area, an orange point was not fair. There's an unmarked indistinct trail that made it reachable, but even then there was fight. Perfect for AR, since you could still find the feature and you'd feel good about punching through all that crap, but not skilled orienteering. So now orange is a little light on points and shrinking in distance. Not sure if I should let it go or find something suitable to tweak it. I have two business days available...

Then one feature was entirely too exposed, so I felt I had to move it a bit. The point isn't super hard, but it wasn't on the other feature, and it's a little more epic.

I think I introduced a couple dog legs, or nearly so, but then the Pig had some so I'll forgive myself.

Tweaked one other spot as well as it didn't feel like the reentrant junction down hill matched up with the map, so I moved it over one reentrant and keyed off something else.

In hindsight I should've taken more advantage of some of the best open woods in the area. Some legs will be off trail hammer down, but others...not so much.

The inconsistent boulder and rock pile mapping was frustrating. I kept finding boulders as big as marked ones that aren't marked. Or 5 m diameter stone piles that aren't mapped. But others are.

A few spots I wished for those fixed stands, as I spent a couple minutes rigging up tree branches to form flag hangers.

Now to mark up the maps and get them to my vetters.

http://www.attackpoint.org/discussionthread.jsp/me... suggests that I have some controls on or near under spec size features at my meet. Given that I have a couple weeks, and it's a c meet, I'll have to decide how much tweaking. Some might be on say, an undersize rock in a depression, in which case I can drop the rock as the feature, mark the portion of the depression (say, northeast part) and let it go. I'm personally not as much of a stickler; given how few rocks exist at Peach Mountain it almost seems like more should be on there because they are navigationally useful if you see them, esp. at slower speeds.

Or I could leave them on rocks, and mark the clue sheet with feature size.

The only one that gave me a lot of heartburn last night was a yellow point on a smallish rock. I'm not sure I've got a good alternative feature there, and the leg is otherwise good. :-P

Hang it high and let it fly??

C • I would not worry too much ... 3

Yeah! I found the heart rate monitor for the 305.

Boo! Battery is dead.

Perhaps we can get everything operational this weekend. HRM, mower, truck....

C • does it take CR2032? I boug... 2

sub walk with the smaller of the dogs

I remember long ago when I could run 13 miles faster than this. :(

SI station fell off one of the bags. Clearly, I need a knot tying refresher course. Or zip ties! I think I missed the control picker's line on the way in - I never did quite find his footprints, but hit tracks from Sunday just past the spot and followed those back. Thankfully it was open and that's where it was, still in the circle.

Event: SMOC Huron Meadows Spring Score O
 

I don't know how long I actively walked, but in seven and a half hours, I logged more miles than expected. Unless the Garmin dithers too much while stationary. Yowser. I am fatigued. Probably should've popped some e caps or something.