Discussion: Thanks for making the map.

The map was well done and it was fun to run in the special area. When there is a choice (and not knowing the area in advance); how does one decide to run through green vertical lines versus running through solid light green?

The map was basically my pandemic project last spring, and my mostly solitary outdoor escape. I'm glad that you had fun as that was my goal. I had great fun mapping it. I tried to do a good job but I know it can be improved. Probably some people did not like orienteering there, and some other people's pass time is to focus on complaining rather than on what they liked.

I did try to implement the ISOM 2017 standard for the most part. Following that, the answer is that solid light green (406 Vegetation, slow running) shall be 60-80% running speed. The wider spaced vertical green slash ("407 Vegetation, slow running, good visibility", also known as low vegetation) is also 60-80% running speed, so there should be no advantage. The more dense vertical slash low vegetation (409 Vegetation: walk, good visibility) is supposed to be 20-60% of normal speed, so slower than light green. While these are the defined standards, I admit not having tested my running speed. I was injured and hardly was doing any running until June. I think that few mappers really do test vegetation by running through it, and instead rely on their own experience and that of other mapper's work. Vegetation also varies within a mapped region.

With complex shapes and corridors, the vegetation was difficult to map. I started mid-spring (April) after finishing the Serpentine Barrens map. That's late in the year for mapping field work around here. However, I made fast progress since there was not a lot else one could do early in the pandemic shutdowns. The woods I mapped first looked much like they did when we ran in them last weekend. I started in the corner south of control J, moving NW. To satisfy my curiosity, I also worked alternate days on the most western area, where controls K, L, M, N, O were. The western area, with the old farm fields that are undergoing succession, was where I saw 95% of the thorns on my route last weekend. However last spring that area was partly different. Some locals closest to the power lines had no thorns. I walked and jogged through them easily. My guess is that they'd mowed between the scattered trees the previous fall or end of summer. Additionally, the rides on the edges of the old fields were clear running with no thorns in them. There were even additional rides cutting across the fields between O and M, that had to be removed after David Onkst told me that they were gone. You can still see some remnants of them on the map we used. I'd added wide vertical slash over where I'd mapped the rides earlier.

As time stretched on last spring, grasses grew and leaves started coming out. This made some vegetation boundaries get more defined. In other places the growth made it harder to tell what was going on. Grass that was 5-6 inches tall became 4-5 feet tall. In the forest, leaves made some places look greener than they were in the dead of winter--last weekend I discovered that parts of the large green area west of control G were much more runnable than the medium green that I have it mapped as. I also found that some woods were just different where the boundary between light green and white was very gradual. Where that was the case, I just had to make a judgement call on where to draw the line. Eventually, by May 31st, I lost confidence in being able to map the vegetation at all and I had to stop. The park changes starkly from winter to summer. Coming back on June 21, I tried to set practice courses and much of the forest was unusable.

Thanks for that summary of how much work you put into the map, and how hard it is to make a map. There must have been a lot of time thinking about how to map the vegetation.
For a user of the map; I thought of the solid light green as small diameter trees growing closely in groups. I thought of the green stripes as a lot of fallen trees, branches, and thorny vines on the ground. Then I had to make the decision of which is better; run between tightly placed trees or high stepping over vines and branches. In either case, I am not strong enough of a runner to take advantage of the situation. I usually end up exhausted.
Thanks for describing how you mapped the area.