Discussion: When is Orienteering "season"

So, I'm new to all this O stuff. So far I love it.

I'm wondering, are there O seasons? I am primarily a marathon swimmer, and my "season" for that is mostly the summer time. I'd love it if I could do O meets outside of the summer time.

Are the seasons dependent upon where you're living? I'll never have to worry about going to those big world meets or anything like that; I'll be happy doing meets within a short drive of wherever I live.

(I searched "season" in Attackpoint and I got some results in people's logs but nothing in Discussions. Apologies if I missed a thread on this topic.)

I would say that there are orienteering opportunities all year round in most places. When people talk about an orienteering season, they very often are referring to "Spring" and "Fall" in a general sense. Ski orienteers may disagree with me here :). There are several big orienteering festivals in the summer time, and they serve as holiday orienteering for most competitors.

The spring season in North America and Europe starts when the snow melts (March) and goes until about mid-June. The fall season in North America and Europe starts at the end of August and goes until about November. At least, this is how I would see it.

Another place that orienteering seasons come into play is when elite orienteers switch which club they are running for in Scandinavia. Runners can only race for one club in a given season and so at the beginning of a season there will be a small flurry of news to update the public on which runners are switching to which club.

Thanks Rosstopher!

Ross's comment about the spring season points out that the season is defined partially by the regional climate. For a geographical band including central Indiana/Ohio and places south, the thick vegetation in the summer and higher temperatures result in a main season from October-May. There is snow and it can be very cold but the forests are most runnable then. Even 200 miles north in southern Michigan, where there is more snow and consistent cold, December-March are usually the off-season. With growing local interest in sprint orienteering, the season has been expanding because the groomed city parks give a new set of racing opportunities.

Yeah, I'd say there is a very large area of the US where the orienteering season is "not summer". And in some cases the season is basically winter and a month or two on either side.

Thanks all!

I had a stretch of eight years when I orienteered at least once every month, and of the 366 dates in a year, there are 327 of them on which I've orienteered. There are more opportunities at certain times of the year depending on where you live, due to weather and seasonal vegetation changes. For Kyrghyzstan, I couldn't say.

In the Heart of Dixie, orienteering is dormant during the summertime, that is midApril thru midOctober, but then, as deer mating season ends, things heat up dramatically, in preparation for the pinnacle of the season , the BubbaGoat, and after that, things subside quickly, soon after the catfish run starts.

Orienteering season is when you are injury free.

When I lived in Texas it was October - April. Now I live in Colorado it's April - October (although we have ski orienteering in January and February.

If you are ever thinking about orienteering, it is orienteering season.

In Ottawa where I live mid April to late October the orienteering season is, coincidentally, mid April to early November (with admittedly a very slow patch in the summer).
In Southwest Florida, the Suncoast area, where I live November to mid April the orienteering season is, coincidentally, November to mid April.

It's also mid-April to early October in Australia, for the most part. Each state has its own 'summer series' (metro league) anywhere from October to April (in WA it's November to February) to fill in the time when we're not allowed in the bush (when it's 'fire season') and too hot.

Thanks all! I think this sport will fit in nicely with my marathon swimming, especially when I return to the states (in QOC territory) in a few years.

In the SF Bay Area we orienteer year round in mild temperatures.

I've been out on orienteering maps and orienteering basemap in nearly every month (mostly on bare ground) since moving here to "southern" Colorado (kind of central in the state, but they call it southern Colorado, probably since it's further south than Denver). Parts of the western US and far western Canada can be very amenable to orienteering much of the year.