https://www.livelox.com/Viewer/Winnewana-2017/Trai...Winnewana Streamers. This will be long, cuz I'm bored at work... but offers a window into my mindset of focus to panic and everything in between.
Parked at the finish pull out and walked up the road to the north trail to the start. Did a short jog on the trail to the lake to warm up. Took a second to figure out the start, as at first I thought it was the giant felled tree that was blocking the trail, with several half hearted attempts to remove it chopped into it, but went a little further to discover the real start with the cross trail.
#1 Actually jumped off trail just a few meters early now that I look at my tracks from what I was shooting for, immediately hit fairly green shin level stuff. A couple of similar looking reentrants that I questioned initially but climbed the hill and found it at the top of the reentrant no problem.
#2 Slog to the top of the hill, hit the trail, right at the bend I was looking for, continue following my bearing, nice boulder, no problem.
#3 Plan was to go in between 13/14 and hopefully see either one or both of them on my flanks. I ended up at 13. By now I'm profusely sweating due to the humidity and wearing glasses, it's pouring in my eyes. Have to keep stopping to wipe, because it's stinging my eyes ugh! I leave 13, crest the hill and start to descend, thinking ok I should be able to see it soon. But nearly at the bottom of the hill, I hit thicker woods. I'm thinking where is it, I'm at the vegetation boundary. I'm scanning left and right thru gaps in trees, but it's too thick. Now I'm questioning, was I really at 13? Yes, I had to be that's the hill I just came over. I'm arguing with myself that I'm seeing not what I'm seeing even though I know where I am. I decide to go north to the water sources and confirm I am where I know I am. I then come back along the bottom of the hill, but this time more into the woods another 10-20 meters, and by luck I catch a glimpse of the tape from about 50 meters away. But I could have easily missed. Turns out I was only maybe 25-30 meters from it the first time when I was questioning that I was already inside the boundary, but just couldn't see it due to it being thicker than mapped. Lost about 7 minutes.
#4 This was my big mistake. Again my plan was to keep 11 on my left flank. But again it was too thick to see, even though I was 25-30 meters from it. I was counting depressions and apparently I was one off, because I hit a narrow steep east to west ridge. I climbed it and it is thick. But I don't realize that it is the dark green on the map, because it's only 1 contour line and it's a bit concealed. I was looking for rock piles on the west of the depressions but didn't see them. But then I turn back east on the ridge and I come upon a rock pile. Oh crap where am I? I see no rock piles on ridge. I'm wandering wasting so much time, coming to a stop several times, trying to read anything that will tell me where I am. I can't do it, too many depressions, too much rolling terrain. Sweating still in my eyes. This is gone from bad to worse. Like I might need to bail or go all the way to the road to figure out where I am. I do one last sweep in a counter clockwise circle, thinking to myself, this is exactly what you should not do when you are lost in the woods. Find a known point, but I was just hoping for a miracle. I was just about to give in and bail, when I finally came back south and just happen to look up and spot it by chance. Unreal! Easily lost 20 minutes here. Very discouraged at this point, as I was hoping for a sub 90 minute time. I'm at 42 minutes, not looking good!
#5 I take about 10 seconds to recover mentally and focus on getting a good bearing. I set off through the depression, I see a rock pile on my right, a hill climb, I know where I am, feeling much better now. But then I do it again, I override myself and my bearing, when I begin to see a reentrant on my NE. Oh that must be it, I must have just strayed from my bearing I'm thinking to myself. So I peer down into the reentrant, a bit steep, I hop down and bam there's a bail of old rusty fencing into my shin. What the heck! I go a little further, this time I see the 2nd bail of old rusty fencing and avoid smashing into it. I'm thinking that was a nice save, but where's my CP! I look at the map, oh crap I'm in the wrong reentrant! The one NE with 2 x's on it that I just stumbled into! Well at least I'm not that far off, I scamper along the side of the hill, avoiding a flooded spot and find the CP in the other reentrant. Lost about 3 minutes.
#6 Well #5 was certainly an improvement from #4, but I've got to get it together here. I come out to the trail bend, take that for a minute and then back to skirting the side of the hill. I finally hit nice open woods and eventually the faint trail, the first large water source and takes me to #9 which was my planned attack point. I can see the 2nd water source and I know I got this one no problem. Climb the hill and finally I'm back on track. I decide I've had it with sweat in my eyes, I take off the glasses.
#7 Took a good bearing here, and I'm following a gentle reentrant system that should take me right to it. But I start to see the lake on my right and the other large water source in the distance. I travel further into the reentrant, but now I'm into the heart of it and it should be in front of me. It's not, and it's at this point I'm slowly realizing to myself I'm offline of my bearing more SW than I wanted to be, and that's why I'm feeling the lake closer than it should be. I rotate more SE and finally I see it on my left up in the reentrant.
#8 Ok straight east, just over 100 meters, should be no problem, but these ones always seem to trip me up. I climb the hill to the plateau. It's fairly thick green shin level stuff again, slow going. On top I'm scanning, but I see a lot of obstacles blocking my view, and I realize it's on the down slop of the other side. Once I realized that I hit it no problem.
#9. Straight north, thru heinous green thick stuff, found the briars, finally get back to the large water source and can run a bit again. Was glad that I had already found it on the way to #6.
#10. Made my way back to #5, then to my old fencing bails friends from earlier, then I started paying attention, but didn't need to really as I found a faint trail that led directly to the giant boulder, which was pretty cool with it being a rectangle shape.
#11 Ok back to the badlands! I better take a good bearing here to avoid a repeat of #4. I past the rock pile, I come into the double depression, it's getting thick and tough to see more than 20-30 meters again, but I push thru and come out right on the rock pile.
#12 I'm in a groove now, I recognize the long skinny depression and climb the ridge, see the boulder from a decent distance.
#13 Ok straight north again, thru depressions and a hill climb. Despite having been having been there earlier, it looked completely different.
#14 Another shorty that I took a bearing on anyways just to be safe. Another double depression and right to it.
#15 At this point the mosquitoes are making me question why the hell I'm doing this. I sprayed bug spray decently before starting, but I think the amount of sweat I produced just completely countered it. I find the trail at the top of the hill. I debate for a moment to follow the trail around and attack from the north. But I decide nah, I'll stick to my bearing, it's just down this hill a 100m and in a depression, it's so steep I should be able to see it. I get halfway down, and it's getting hard to not skate down. I see the control and then I see a small rock sticking out. I think to myself don't trip over that it will hurt. What do I do, I slip on a bare piece of ground and fall on the rock right in the middle of my back. Luckily the angle of the descent matched the angle of my fall and I somewhat bounced off. I have a small bruise, but otherwise fine.
#16 Ok home stretch. I climb the hill back to the trail, intially my attack point was going to be the 90 degree turn N back towards the car and just go back south 100 meters to it. But as I'm coming down the trail, I decide to short cut it. I feel like I'm at the bottom of the descent and thought I could see the 90 degree turn off in the distance. This shouldn't be too hard. I'm looking for a hill. I follow my bearing and I come to a multiple depressions. Then I see a small hill inside the depressions with 2 orange streamers on it. I'm thinking this isn't right. I'm inside a depression. NO, I'm on a hill with what appears to be a small knoll, Igor is playing tricks on me. I decide to go with it, even though in my head I'm thinking it's not right. I climb the hill back to the trail, which it took me longer than expected to get back to the trail. It's probably at this point, I further confirmed in my head that what I just was at was not correct. And that I was slightly short of the 90 degree bend. But I'm done, just sweaty, mosquitoes have gotten me dozens of times it seems, and I'm like 2 minutes from the car. I never bothered to figure out until I saw my tracks later, that the hill I climbed to get out, was the hill that I should have been investigating. Oh well, technically a DNF!
I did the first 7 in just over an hour and the last 10 in just over 48 minutes. I easily had 30 minutes were of error on the first half of the course. But I got back on track and recovered. It was a nice course, but that middle section was extremely trick and tough to read, very few places to relocate yourself from. There were several times, I thought I was following someone's previous footsteps, which I figured was Igor, but now I realize was probably Jens as he did the course earlier in the day. Will be interested to see what it's like during the fall with no vegetation, and the SW area of the map definitely had some nice runability to it.