Discussion: interesting comments

I had a similar impression on 1 - that it was pretty easy. We both had similar routes on 4 and 14. I am surprised you got off course going to 4 - i thought that going down to the flat by the river and up the reentrant was an "easy but slow" way as opposed to following the contour around - which i think is what Jon T. did because I saw him coming over the hill just as i arrived. It looks like on 6 you just went around all the green to the right, which is what i should have done. I decided to go around the initial thicker part, but then went down the hill and right through on the thin part of the green - right where the pink line intersects the river. Dumb choice - I didn't notice those very close-together contours (i.e. cliff) on the side of the river and the green was very green. On 8 I went roughly where you went after crossing the taylor farm road, aiming for the whiter woods. I think it worked for me just because i was going so much slower. Same on 10 - I went roughly straight to it, but I was pretty much walking through rough woods 60% of the way because I couldn't read the terrain through the vegetation. i followed the reentrants down on 11 and 12 so had more zig zag, but I missed the control on 12 and backtracked to it.

Overall, it was a disappointing run for me. I shouldn't have missed 10 but 10 and 8 were not simple. I felt that missing on 4 (loss of concentration) and 2 was just poor form.

Too bad you didn't take a GPS track. Peggy and I both put our on AP. With Routegadget out of commission for a while, it's a good alternative. AP now allows one to overlay other competitor GPS tracks so I can see where Peggy went compared to my run.

Yes - I brought my garmin with me to the event but didn't realize about the whole shuttle thing so i left the gps in the car.

Nadim - I stop by every now & then, occ longing for the opportunity to run in QOC area woods in winter. Turkey Run Ridge, 1st ed. (1/15, 1/20? mid to late 70s) is such an early o memory of mine - & also more recent versions tho I can't place the more recent date(s) w/o research. VA in November used to be a rallying call...go south to the leafless (and rock-free woods) before snow ended it all. Sigh.

Well, you don't have the opportunity to ski...

Bob, 2002 US Champs & 2007 US Champs were both in these beautiful woods. Also an earlier North American Champs. They are delightful. :-)

We got to ski three years ago from our front door, but, yeah ... generally we need to drive several hours for decent snow.

It didn't used to be that way, we used to ski around in the DC area in the 70s and 80s quite often though it never was like I imagine it could be in New England with some places covered all winter. We hope you can stop by again Bob.

:-). Snow showers today but have seen an out-of-place chipmunk (on snow) & have heard, but not seen, a red wing blackbird.

In DC, the signs are in the air too but here it's cabin fever, not spring fever. It's all about what people are used to.

We may be able to ski out our front door tomorrow ... at least, the alarmist forecasts make it seem so. It would be our only time on skis this season.

Aw, so cute.
He could be anywhere. Probably not Mali.

On the front porch?

He's taken up winter housing somewhere in the basement I'm guessing - certainly within the walls. Shows up now & then near a dryer vent. Saw two of them once about 3 days ago - scrapping about on a snow "mountain". Hard to capture in a lens as chipmunks are so "twitchy".