CVOC Orienteering at Rockwood Park August 2018

This orienteering event was well attended and had 100 orienteers on one of two courses during the event. Kevin a Scout leader uses this event to help Scouts earn their orienteering merit badge and the Scouts help run the event.

Rockwood Park is a mix of sports fields, picnic areas, and a spider web of trail networks in a rolling forest of mostly hardwoods. It makes for a good course for the beginner because you can reference the trail signs if you get lost. For the advanced orienteer, it's about speed and your route choice.

It is interesting to see what route someone takes in a score -o. Some people go for the harder areas first and save the easy ones around the sports field last. Others like myself do the easy ones around the sports field first.  I am sure there are rights and wrongs in the route choices but I followed the same plan as last year. Which was easy at first.

I highlight my route just to make it stand out on the map better. I find that on the move it is hard to see your next one to two controls on this map. There are a lot of things going on the map and at times the controls get lost on the map. Also if you are using the trails to use as attack points or just to travel faster you really need to pay attention. This can mess you up real quick.

I had no idea how long it would take me to get around the course. My route plan would have me pick up 19 of 23 controls. But I would be able to adjust that plan to pick up 3 more controls if I had time.

Two things killed me in this course. I had taken an APFT two days before and my legs still had not recovered. The second which I know everyone was dealing with was the heat.

Once I got to control 103, I had more time to pick up controls that I had no plan for. I was not going to dogleg back to get 108 but move forward to get the controls in the Northwest section of the park.

It took me some time just to find control 106 on the flipping map. This was the last control that I was going to get. I made a small error and at the bend in the trail, I must have gone to the right and did not go straight.  An interesting feature that was not on the map that I found was an old ice pit. There are several ice pits in the park none of which are marked on the map.

CVOC Course Map

I was glad to see the big turnout and that there were a lot of Scouts working on the orienteering merit badge. A skill that will last them a lifetime.