Discussion: Whom are you racing with?
in: fluceluce; fluceluce > 2011-06-22
Jun 22, 2011 9:46 PM
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Eoin Keith (from Irish AR at APEX), Thomas Etter (USA) who I am yet to meet and A.N.Other :-) Bit of a multi-country team! I'm quite excited! It looks stunning! Shame you and T.Rex won't be there!
Jun 23, 2011 2:27 AM
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Bash:
It's a beautiful part of Canada; you'll love the landscape. If you have a stopover in Toronto, let me know. I live fairly close to the airport and could take you for lunch or something.
Jun 23, 2011 5:43 PM
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Surely you'll be racing too hard to enjoy the landscape, or at least so hard you'll see it being demolished by sleepmonsters!
Jun 23, 2011 7:15 PM
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I missed sleepmonsters in Switzerland! They are so much fun :-) I definitely still believe the trees down ullswater are animal shaped!
Jun 26, 2011 8:58 AM
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GD44:
Good luck Lucy. If you're doing any nav make sure that you are familar with the strategy for navigating through large dense forests with no tracks. Bush-whacking nav is another skill altogether.
Jun 26, 2011 10:49 AM
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PS good job on the 3* sea kayak! - I need to get in a kayak on a more regular basis...
Jun 26, 2011 7:28 PM
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GD44:
You will have to take far more sightings than you would normally in a UK forest. In the UntamedNE 2009 race we crossed through a very dense forest and I took sightings every 10m to stay on bearing. Sight to a tree>Move to tree>Sight to another tree.....!
The above is relatively easy if you don't have tricky ground to cross e.g. rock outcrops, boulders, little cliffs. In these cases you will need to go around them but you will also need to estimate how far left or right you are of the intended route. Once you are past the obstacle you will need to get back onto your original intended route OR keep a mental record of how far you're off the intended 'line' whilst maintaining bearing.
If it's dark then it gets even trickier! One idea to overcome this is to send somebody ahead of you with a light on their pack. Tell them 'left/right' to stay on bearing and then tell them to stop when they begin to go out of sight. Then move to their position and repeat the above.
Note that your pace will drop significantly in 'bush' and progress across the map will be very slow. You could move at less than 1km/h sometimes.
An altimeter becomes even more important in tree covered hilly/mountainous territory too. I didn't have one in the UntamedNE and I made a few mistakes as a result.
The above is relatively easy if you don't have tricky ground to cross e.g. rock outcrops, boulders, little cliffs. In these cases you will need to go around them but you will also need to estimate how far left or right you are of the intended route. Once you are past the obstacle you will need to get back onto your original intended route OR keep a mental record of how far you're off the intended 'line' whilst maintaining bearing.
If it's dark then it gets even trickier! One idea to overcome this is to send somebody ahead of you with a light on their pack. Tell them 'left/right' to stay on bearing and then tell them to stop when they begin to go out of sight. Then move to their position and repeat the above.
Note that your pace will drop significantly in 'bush' and progress across the map will be very slow. You could move at less than 1km/h sometimes.
An altimeter becomes even more important in tree covered hilly/mountainous territory too. I didn't have one in the UntamedNE and I made a few mistakes as a result.
This discussion thread is closed.