Orienteering (Field Checking) 3:10:00 [1] 4.2 km (45:14 / km)
slept:5.5 weight:172.5lbs (rest day)
Rock Creek Park, MD. I started off of Southlawn Ct. today, a different entry point which I discovered last week where there's a double ice hockey rink, a field house, and a fitness center. I had stayed-up late the previous night making base map updates from aerials but only got to print out one page for my field checking today since I ran out of a crucial ink cartridge. Since the page that I was able to print was only at 1:2,500 scale, I was worried that I'd cover the ground too quickly and end up wasting the day. I usually print at 1:5,000 when doing field checking. It turned out fortunate that I had the lower scale since I found much detail. Amongst the many boulders along a stream, some cliffs and some ditches, there were many ruins; mostly stone-wall like foundations really, that were left. Some were more obvious than others which left me wondering how best to map them. I made good progress most of the time but only covered about 600 linear meters of a stream near Southlawn Rd. It really helped that I had been able to map the telephone poles along the road from the aerials before going. The poles and stream bends helped keep the point features in the right place. However once as I got out of sight of the poles and was moving upstream, I must have made a mistake with an angle. I subsequently placed a bunch of features in an area then had to erase it all later when things weren't coming together correctly. I hope the area turns out to be fun for people. I enjoyed my time out in nature--sunny, 40's F. It was predominantly runnable, fast forest--it was just a bit narrow. I wanted to get these low areas and the ones covered last week, in good shape before moving uphill to the more bland open hilltops.